New York City is currently seeking a construction contract to destroy the East River Compost Yard and create a temporary lawn. The Compost Yard is located in a section of the park scheduled to be reconstructed as part of the ESCR in 2023, but under this recent announcement, the compost yard would be relocated as soon as April 2020.
The alteration of the compost yard into a temporary lawn is moving ahead rapidly without community input and was not announced at recent community board meetings. Not only will this plan cut off New Yorkers from composting and effectively kill our community compost program, but it is also a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars to create a lawn that will be destroyed in three short years.
There are over 3,500 households donating their food scraps on a weekly basis that participate in this program. We offer 10 drop off locations in Lower Manhattan where we prevent hundreds of tons of organic material from entering landfill every year. The finished compost is distributed for free in the community.
If you support composting, please let the City know how you feel. We demand that the Compost Yard stay operational until the 2023 reconstruction for this section of the Park actually starts. We also demand that the City engage with the LES Ecology Center to finish the design for the renovated Compost Yard as part of the ESCR.
Please stop by to learn more about current plans for flood protection along Manhattan’s Lower East Side and planned park improvements. City agencies and members of the design team will be available to explain and answer questions about the design, the associated Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) application, and the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). Community members are encouraged to drop in to the Open House at their convenience.
East River Park is the largest park in Manhattan below 59th Street and a precious recreation space for a community where many residents cannot afford vacations.
There will be no access to a 3-mile stretch of waterfront from 23rd Street to Montgomery Street. No ball games, barbecues, sprinklers and playgrounds, runners, bikes, walkers — for nearly four years.
We demand that the City reconsider this plan. Our community deserves a resiliency plan that includes:
• Flood protection now and during construction
• Phased closing during construction and immediate reopening of completed sections
• Real alternatives for healthy recreation during construction
• Consideration of other options including flood protection along the FDR and covering the highway to create additional parkland
The NYPD Harbor unit discovered the unresponsive victim at 1:25 p.m before police divers pulled the victim's body from the river near the Williamsburg Bridge, said officials.
Emergency responders pronounced the man dead on the scene. Police are unsure if the body was dumped in the river at the Lower East Side or if the body was carried by the current from elsewhere, a police spokeswoman said.
It was not immediately disclosed if a foot was attached to the extremity, which was brought to the city Medical Examiner’s office. Further tests will be done to try to determine who the leg belonged to and how it became separated from the person’s body.
Details remain scarce at this point, but an NYPD spokesperson said, "When you find a leg in the water, that's suspicious in itself."
As if the East River wasn’t toxic enough https://t.co/uw15dvcSnU
— New York Post Metro (@nypmetro) May 9, 2017
Con Edison is working to contain and clean up transformer insulating oil that was released from one of our substations in Brooklyn near the East River. A transformer containing approximately 37,000 gallons of insulating oil used with electrical equipment, failed on Sunday May 7 at 12:23 p.m., causing much of the oil to be released within the station property in addition to the East River. The equipment failure also caused a system voltage dip that impacted the MTA’s signaling systems on Sunday, resulting in a disruption to some train service.
Con Edison responded immediately, placing boom, absorbents and skimmers in the river. Our own employees and environmental contractors are working on the cleanup, and we are working cooperatively with the U.S. Coast Guard, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and other agencies. We continue to assess the volume of oil that migrated to the East River, and how much oil remains in the ground on our property.
The Coast Guard has issued reduced speed restrictions for commercial vessels operating in the area, and banning recreational vessels, to assist the cleanup process. We are taking all actions to contain and clean up the oil as safely and as quickly as possible.
Due to ice conditions in the East River, service is currently suspended until further notice. To sign up for text alerts, text ERF to 57682.
— East River Ferry (@eastriverferry) February 21, 2015
In his former job as public advocate, Mr. de Blasio, a Brooklynite who campaigned as a champion of the outer boroughs, called on Macy’s, the event’s sponsor, to move the show back from the Hudson River so it could be seen by residents in Queens and Brooklyn. The display was moved to the Hudson, between Manhattan and New Jersey, in 2009.
Workers said the crane, which was on a work barge, got stuck on a support beam when it suddenly crashed forward, sending its back wheels in the air. The scene slowed traffic along the FDR, while some passersby, including one pedaling a rented CitiBike, stopped to gawk and snap photos.
Tonight at 6, Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer and Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh will join with hundreds of East Side residents to unveil the East River Blueway Plan, a community-based planning roadmap to bring amenities and storm mitigation measures to the East River, from the Brooklyn Bridge to E. 38th Street.
Who: Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer, Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh, Community Boards 3 & 6, Lower East Side Ecology Center, NYS Department of Coastal Resources, WXY architecture + urban design, Hundreds of East Side residents
Where: Cooper Union, Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, 41 Cooper Square (3rd Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets)
When: 6-8 p.m.
One proposal — the most costly to execute — would elevate the bike and pedestrian path over the F.D.R. Drive at 14th Street, where the path currently narrows to four feet near the Consolidated Edison substation.
The plan calls for a new pedestrian bridge that would rise gradually from blocks away, allowing users to avoid that difficult bottleneck. The bridge would also serve as an inland sea wall that could help prevent flooding and an explosion like the one that rocked a substation during Hurricane Sandy, which contributed to the blackout across Lower Manhattan.