Take engaging speakers, fine weather, a great harbor, the cinematographer’s “magic hour” and you get one terrific boat tour. For the 19th Annual MAS Summer Boat Tour on July 28, we found ourselves on a brand new boat with an air conditioned interior, expansive outside decks and an excellent sound system. We managed to avoid a regatta and make our way among the Harbor Islands, down past Robbins Reef, over to the Brooklyn waterfront and north to linger in Gowanus Bay. We headed up through the Buttermilk Channel intending to get a close view of Brooklyn Bridge Park, but President Obama’s helicopter departure gave us a lesson in harbor security and sent us back to the Hudson River as the sun set. The evening was a fine mix of fascinating sights, informed commentary and sufficient silence.

Our special thanks to speakers Maria Burks, commissioner of the National Parks of New York Harbor, Leslie Koch, president of the Trust for Governors Island and Eric Goldstein, director, National Resource Defense Council’s New York City Environment.

See you next year for the 20th anniversary boat tour. A lot has changed in the upper bay since our first tour in 1991, in part because of the advocacy of MAS and our supporters.

The 19th Annual MAS Summer Boat Tour
Toward a Sustainable Upper Bay
Wednesday, July 28, 6:00-9:00 p.m.

Come along as the sun goes down for a boat tour of the Harbor Islands, the Buttermilk Channel and Gowanus Bay—the scenic and the hidden parts of New York’s Upper Bay. We’ll hear about successes and challenges on the way to a sustainable future—from imaginative and dedicated individuals who are helping to lead the way.

Our Host:
Vin Cipolla, president, Municipal Art Society. Devoted to preservation, conservation and the arts, Mr. Cipolla has consistently provided civic leadership in these areas throughout his adult life. He was appointed president of the MAS in early 2009. Continue Reading>>

Place Matters is a joint project of City Lore and MAS.
The Kentile Sign along the Gowanus Canal was nominated to the Census of Places that Matter for serving as a symbol of Gowanus’ industrial heritage and for being a remnant of this former Brooklyn business. Highly visible from the both the Gowanus Expressway and the F train, this 8-story-high sign dominates the Gowanus skyline even though Kentile Floors left Brooklyn in the late 1980s and the sign’s neon purple letters are no longer illuminated.

Founded in 1898 by Arthur Kennedy (hence the name, Kentile), the company had factories in both Queens and Long Island before building a new plant on 2^nd Avenue along the Gowanus Canal in 1949.  The iconic “Kentile Floors” sign was likely erected at this time. Kentile specialized in vinyl and asphalt floor covering that featured bold colors and patterns. Continue Reading>>

We expect that the Environmental Protection Agency’s Gowanus Canal Superfund designation will create the comprehensive clean up plan this polluted waterway so desperately needs. We believe the Gowanus area has great potential as a thriving manufacturing and arts district.

The city has pledged to support the EPA’s clean up efforts. MAS looks forward to working with the city on developing a plan for the Gowanus area that nurtures and safeguards existing businesses and creates space for new industries and sorely needed job growth.

On September 24th, an intrepid group of Richard Morris Hunt patrons gathered for a private boat tour of the Gowanus Canal. The tour was a rare opportunity to visit a historic waterway and see some of Brooklyn’s most interesting historic industrial buildings and travel through the “museum” of historic draw bridges still in operation on the canal.

The discussion on the boat focused on the fact that the canal and the adjacent manufacturing area is currently at the center of a debate about how to best clean New York’s polluted waterways and sensitively develop in its manufacturing zones. The tour leaders, Lisa Kersavage, Senior Director of Advocacy and Public Policy at MAS, Dan Wiley, Community Coordinator for US Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, and Josh Verleun, Staff Attorney/Investigator of Riverkeeper, a NY-based nonprofit that advocates for clean water, all brought different perspectives to those issues. Continue Reading>>

Director of MAS Planning Center Eve Baron and MAS Senior Planner Susanna Schaller review the most important issues raised at last week’s panel discussion on the future for manufacturing in New York City.

A few years ago, many believed that manufacturing was dead in New York City, but now it is widely understood that manufacturing jobs are critical to a diverse, decentralized, and healthy economy as well as to a greener New York. Manufacturing jobs are also good jobs, which pay $10,000 more per year than restaurant work or entry-level retail jobs. Plus, over 60% of manufacturing jobs come with health care coverage, unlike most restaurant and retail work.

As long as the 1.5 mile long Gowanus Canal in Southwest Brooklyn has been polluted, people and government agencies have sought solutions to the vexing problems posed by this artificially created waterway; and, through the decades community organizations have organized to clean up the canal’s water and adjacent land and to prevent further contamination. 

Most recently plans to reinvent and redevelop the Gowanus Canal area have collided over the potential registration of the Gowanus as a national Superfund site by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This potential designation, sought at the behest of New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation, recognizes the complexity of cleaning up the area due to the widespread presence of highly noxious toxins found both in the Canal’s water and abutting land. Continue Reading>>

In light of the City’s plan to rezone 25 blocks of the Gowanus Canal corridor, MAS is conducting an investigation of the area’s historic resources, including the canal itself. Although the Gowanus Canal is sometimes better known for the pollutants from decades of heavy manufacturing and industrial use which earned it the nickname “Lavender Lake,” the canal should also be considered a historic industrial landscape. In fact, the waterway has been officially recognized as eligible for inclusion on the State and National Registers of Historic Places.  MAS recently completed a historic resources survey of the Gowanus Canal rezoning area, and will expand the study to include the other blocks along the canal and adjacent to the rezoning area that may be affected by the rezoning. The survey has already identified several unprotected potential historic buildings and structures, many of which are featured in this slide show.  Continue Reading>>

The Department of City Planning is holding a hearing today about its proposal to rezone 25 blocks along the Gowanus Canal to allow for a mix of uses, including residential, commercial, retail, light industrial, community facility and artist spaces.

MAS believes that existing businesses in this thriving manufacturing district should be nurtured and safeguarded, and that the rezoning presents a tremendous opportunity to create space for new industries and jobs. We are concerned that, given the area’s industrial past and present, and the lack of adequate sewage and storm-water infrastructure, new residential development may not be the best solution for the Gowanus neighborhood. Read our full statement here.

The video above is also available as a podcast below, and through iTunes.

For more information about MAS advocacy on Gowanus, click here.

The City is proposing to rezone 25 blocks along the canal to allow for a mix of uses, including residential, commercial, retail, light industrial, community facility and artist spaces. The Department of City Planning will have a hearing tomorrow about the rezoning. MAS will be there and share how the thriving manufacturing district could be a tremendous opportunity to nurture and safeguard existing businesses and create space for new industries and sorely needed job growth. Continue Reading>>