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  #41  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2007, 11:52 AM
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Not the east river proper, but close enough...
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories...aturewalk.html

Nothing stinks about this nature walk



A mother and daughter enjoy the new Newtown Creek Nature Walkway at its formal opening on Saturday.

By Sarah Rivette
October 6, 2007


Turns out, that new “nature walk” along side the Newtown Creek sewage treatment plant on Provost Street doesn’t smell like the Port Authority men’s room.

The much-mocked walkway, which is the only park space in the northern part of Greenpoint, opened to raves from the residents last weekend, and, most important, didn’t smell as bad as they thought it would.

“It’s better now than the old days,” said Ed Arlowski, who was sent by his congregation, the Church of the Ascension on Kent Avenue, to report back on the walkway.

Arlowski, who has lived in Greenpoint on and off for the past 30 years, found the area “gorgeous” and commended those involved for “doing a great job on the waterfront.”

The nature walk runs along the shoreline of the Newtown Creek and, indeed, borders the wastewater plant.

Where Paidge Avenue ends, the futuristic stainless steel railings usher pedestrians up stairs that lead down a path guarded on the right side by a 20-foot wall separating the path from the plant.

To the left is a small field of large metal containers, scrap metal and varying construction equipment that lay between the path and the creek. Once reaching the edge of the creek, there are tiered steps that go straight into the water, and the granite stairs, as well as many of the granite slab benches, are engraved with names of Indian tribes that once populated the area.


The path leads to a circular area, where the centerpiece is a marble engraving of what the original tributaries of the creek looked like before being filled in for development. When it rains, the engraving fills with water and flows toward the East River, as the tributaries would naturally do.

The path then extends inland, towards the plant and the infamous large egg shaped units, where there is a loading dock for kayaks and boats for access to the water, and railed areas for fishing.

Helen Geist, a Greenpoint lifer, brought her children to take part in the scavenger hunt organized by the Department of Environmental Protection, which runs the site.

“It’s nice to see something developed nice,” Geist said. “It’s nice to come down here and get away from it all.”

The Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee worked with DEP to complete the $3.2-million walkway, which was conceived over a decade ago as a way to ensure water access and cleaning of the creek.

“This will raise environmental awareness,” said Laura Hofmann, a member of NCMC. “The more people that use the waterway, the more it will improve.”

This section of the walkway is the first of three phases that will eventually ring the entire sewage plant.

Given that location, plenty of people joked on local blogs about the manure-smelling nature walk. But that snarkiness did little to cub the enthusiasm of NCMC Co-chair Barbara Milhelic.

“[Thanks to this path] I will be able to dance from one end of Greenpoint to the other!” she said.
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  #42  
Old Posted Oct 5, 2007, 8:10 PM
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http://www.therealdeal.net/breaking_...1191615528.php

City takes Williamsburg waterfront properties for park

Octoboer 5, 2007



A rendering of the planned Bushwick Inlet Park.

The city has taken two Williamsburg waterfront properties by eminent domain for the planned 28-acre Bushwick Inlet Park park, officials said.

The city took titles to two properties bounded by the East River, North 9th and North 10th Streets and Kent Avenue. Brooklyn judge Abraham Gerges approved the taking by eminent domain last month, said Lisa Bova-Hiatt, Department of Law deputy chief of tax and bankruptcy.

Now the city must pay for the properties, one owned by 9th Street Equities and the other by 50 Kent Associates. The sales prices will influence the price tags for the other three parcels needed to complete Bushwick Inlet Park, named for the waterway that divides Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The other properties are bounded by North 15th Street, North 10th Street and Kent Avenue.

A judge will determine the price the city must pay to the former owners.

Mark Lively, Massey Knakal director of sales for Greenpoint and Williamsburg, said the properties' zoning allows for retail and commercial development. While they could fetch at least $200 per buildable square foot on the open market, he predicted the city would pay only around $100 per foot plus relocation expenses, based on comparable sales figures.

Louis Silverman, a 9th Street Equities principal, said he wanted a fair compensation for the company's four acres.

"They have taken the property from us. All we are looking for is the fair market value of the property," Silverman said.

The three outstanding properties will not be acquired easily.

One owner, TransGas Energy Systems, is in litigation with the city. TransGas wants to build an underground power plant there with parkland above ground. A judge has issued a stay on the city's land-taking until a state commission rules on the proposed 1,000 megawatt power plant.

Another landowner, Norman Brodsky, chief executive of CitiStorage, is negotiating with the city over a price and relocation arrangement.

The third property, north of the inlet, is owned by an organization called the Greenpoint Monitor Museum, which plans to build a museum dedicated to the USS Monitor on an acre of property donated by Motiva Enterprises in 2003.
The famous Civil War ship was built and launched on that spot in 1862.

"We are fighting it. It was donated and we are not giving it up," said Janice Lauletta-Weinmann, president and co-founder of the Greenpoint Monitor Museum. "It is a disgrace."

The city wants to instead make the property part of the park and has offered to relocating the proposed museum off the waterfront and onto an undetermined street, she said.

Silverman said he already sold other properties that will be part of the park to the Trust for Public Lands in 2000.

Government agencies have been on a land-grabbing binge lately, said attorney Michael Rikon. Big planned takings include Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, Willets Point in Queens and the Second Avenue subway sites in Manhattan. New Jersey Transit is seeking land for a tunnel on Manhattan's West Side.

"There is a tremendous amount of eminent domain going on throughout the city of New York," said Rikon, a partner at the firm of Goldstein, Goldstein, Rikon and Gottlieb. "I can't remember as many takings."

By Adam Pincus
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  #43  
Old Posted Oct 6, 2007, 11:29 AM
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/ar...on&oref=slogin

Artwork, Assembled at the Last Minute, Explores the Long Ago



Thom Sokoloski’s installation artwork, “The Encampment,” has been assembled on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island.


By MELENA RYZIK
October 6, 2007

At about 7 last night, “The Encampment,” an installation of 100 19th-century-style tents by the Canadian artist Thom Sokoloski, was to open in an empty field at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island.

“The Encampment” A year in the making, the tents represent the patients who once lived in the island’s smallpox hospital, the remains of which loom nearby. Inside each, volunteers would arrange artifacts to memorialize patients and other island residents. As a final touch, the tents were to be illuminated from within, so “The Encampment” would be visible from both sides of the East River, a glowing link to the area’s history.

But first, it had to be finished.

In the 80-degree weather of yesterday morning, a dozen volunteers showed up to help; most encountered a locked gate. Though Mr. Sokoloski spent months assembling the proper permits, security had been a constant issue: the site, part of what will become Southpoint Park, is usually closed to the public. Homeland Security officials were on high alert because of the United Nations General Assembly meeting just across the East River, and the police threatened to shut things down because of a miscommunication.

By noon only a dozen tents had been set up, and few were filled. Mr. Sokoloski’s partners, Jenny-Anne McCowan, a choreographer and outreach coordinator, and John McDowell, a composer, busied themselves marshaling the volunteers.

Even the construction supervisors — four Canadian military re-enactors, with extensive experience in putting up tents — were sweating. The exhibition, part of the annual Openhousenewyork weekend, was several hours behind schedule.

But Mr. Sokoloski, a Toronto-based artist who seems younger than his 57 years, remained calm. A former theater director (he worked at La MaMa in the 1980s) and location scout for movies, he is adept at making big projects work, like an opera he staged in Toronto’s main train station in 1992.

“It’s one thing after another, but you get used to it,” Mr. Sokoloski said. “You just keep going till the last moment, because who knows what will happen tomorrow?”

“The Encampment” is the second in a series of tent-based installations Mr. Sokoloski has planned. A smaller-scale version was erected in Toronto last year for Nuit Blanche, an arts festival, and he hopes to create a larger version elsewhere in Canada next year. Each project is devoted to exposing an urban past that’s usually kept hidden: the history of mental health and addiction treatment in Toronto, the confinement and isolation of the many sanitariums that once dotted Roosevelt Island.

The idea, Mr. Sokoloski said, was to create “an archaeological dig into the collective memory of a space.” To enhance that collective spirit, he enlisted about 70 “creative collaborators” — artists, students and patients from the island’s Coler-Goldwater Memorial Hospital — to research and compile art for the tents.

Some people took on more than one tent. The interior objects — drawings, dioramas, mannequin heads, flowers — had to be small enough to be boxed up, though Mr. Sokoloski was not to know what they were. The volunteers had only two hours to install their work.

Ronit Muszkatblit, 32, a theater director from the East Village, was inspired by the story of Ernest Otto, an asylum patient who died in 1894 after choking on rice and bread. Her installation included a human silhouette buried in rice.

“I love site-specific work,” Ms. Muszkatblit said before dragging a cart laden with props to her tent. “The energy, the adrenaline, the rush of the last moment, the not sleeping and carrying everything back and forth.”

Mr. Sokoloski knows all about it. On Wednesday the tents — seven-foot-long canvas A-frames — were still at the manufacturer, the Fall Creek Suttlery, of Lebanon, Ind., which usually supplies tents for military re-enactments, because Mr. Sokoloski didn’t have the money to pay for shipping. By the time the funds materialized, he needed the tents shipped overnight— at a cost of about $4,000.

“I said, ‘I can’t pay that much,’” Mr. Sokoloski recalled. (“The Encampment” cost about $150,000, financed mostly by him, Ms. McCowan and donations.) He asked Andy Fulks, the company’s owner, for a cheaper alternative. Mr. Fulks came up with one: a guy named Wayne. So Wayne, a local resident, packed the 100 tents into his pickup and drove straight through from Indiana to New York, delivering the tents at 2:30 on Thursday afternoon. Then he turned and drove home.

The construction cavalry — Canadian re-enactors who specialize in the War of 1812 — arrived early Friday morning, hauling a trailer filled with 100 pounds of 10-inch nails and 300 beams to erect the tents.

But the beams were the wrong size. So hours before opening, volunteers had to cut them to fit, using the trailer’s fender as a sawhorse. Mr. Sokoloski savored the momentum.

“I find there’s a kind of excitement when you do it this way,” he said of his last-minute art. “It’s not a Cartesian way to achieve results. But there’s this other level of energy, of spontaneity.”

In the end they were able to erect only 90 of the tents on Friday. (Ten more will follow today.) But the lights went on just after 7.


http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/200...HOW_index.html



Early Friday morning, the construction cavalry arrived with 100 pounds of five-inch nails and 300 beams, to help erect the tents.




A view of the tents being constructed. The idea, Mr. Sokoloski said, was to create “an archeological dig into the collective memory of a space.”




The are tents illuminated from within.
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  #44  
Old Posted Nov 5, 2007, 1:44 PM
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http://tribecatrib.com/news/newsnov0...aterfront.html

CB1 Sees Latest Waterfront Concept









By Nick Pinto
POSTED NOVEMBER 2, 2007

Architects for the city revealed their most detailed plans yet for remaking virtually every aspect of the East River Waterfront.

Gregg Pasquarelli, a partner in SHoP Architects, presented to Community Board 1 the firm’s latest visual concepts for a lively promenade, a new Pier 15 dedicated to recreation and easy access to the waterfront.

The plan eliminates one of the major obstacles to pedestrians trying to reach the waterfront. South Street, running beneath the FDR Drive, is nearly twice as wide in some places as the standard New York City street and lacks curbs, well-delineated bike lanes, or sidewalks in many areas. The street would be narrowed, with more crosswalks, freeing up space for the esplanade, which will include planted areas, several kinds of seating, and at least 20 feet of uninterrupted pedestrian walkway at the water’s edge.

For much of Lower Manhattan’s East River waterfront—the stretch between Pier 11, near Wall Street, and the Brooklyn Bridge—pedestrians will take a path over the river, on a 58-foot-wide walkway that hangs above the water.


“This is going to be a destination in its own right,” Pasquarelli said.

Interspersed along the esplanade would be a series of glassed-in pavilions under the highway with garage-style doors that pull up to form an awning at their front entrances, perhaps equipped with acoustic baffles to shield visitors from the noise of the FDR Drive. Ranging from 1,500 to 8,000 square feet, the pavilions could house a range of uses, including flower markets, cafes, daycare centers and dance studios.

Unlike the current walkway, the new esplanade would be well-lit, but with soft, indirect illumination to preserve night-time river views. Some lights would be bounced off the elevated FDR, while others—possibly programmable LED arrays—would be installed in the railing at the water’s edge.

Pedestrians from Battery Park trying to get to the East River waterfront now face a daunting passage in front of the Battery Maritime Building, where the FDR emerges from its tunnel and the sidewalk narrows to barely over a foot wide. The plan calls for the creation of a pedestrian plaza in front of the building, making space by moving the tunnel entrance 350 feet to the northeast. Pasquarelli conceded that this part of the project isn’t expected to get underway anytime soon, however.

“It takes a lot of money and planning to move a highway tunnel,” he said.

The reconstruction of the decrepit Pier 15 is a centerpiece of the waterfront plan. The new pier would rest on more widely spaced pylons—a more hospitable environment for underwater life. The architects’ vision consists of an elevated park, complete with lawns and shrubs, connected by long ramps to the lower level pier, which is slated for maritime use by the South Street Seaport Museum.

Community Board members responded positively to the presentation.

“This is one of the most breathtaking public works projects in the world,” said board member Bruce Ehrmann.

But not everyone was pleased with the designs. More than a dozen boating enthusiasts crammed into the small meeting room to voice their displeasure at the plan, which they said offers little to boaters.


“This doesn’t work from a boating point of view,” said Carolina Salguero, the director of Portside New York, an advocacy group fighting for more boating opportunities on the city’s waterfront.

In particular, the boating advocates said they want Pier 15 to be a true working pier, with access for all sizes of private boats to tie up. William Kelley of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, the agency overseeing the East River Waterfront Project, noted that the South Street Seaport Museum holds the lease on the pier, so it is more likely to be used to showcase the museum’s collection of old ships.

South Street Seaport Director Mary Pelzer said the new Pier 15 will celebrate the city’s maritime past.

“This is a great opportunity for the museum to reprogram our fleet and let people see more of our historic ships,” she said.

Advocates for an active waterfront remained unimpressed, however.

Lee Gruzen, the co-chair of Seaport Speaks, a group advising planners on the area’s redevelopment, said she too was disappointed by the plan.

“I was hoping to see something here that I can’t do anywhere else in New York,” Gruzen said. “Instead, this plan makes us couch potatoes.”






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  #45  
Old Posted Nov 30, 2007, 1:13 AM
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http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...msburg_wa.html

If bill passes, Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront park will come

BY RACHEL MONAHAN
November 29th 2007


A planned 28-acre park on the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront will finally be built if a state Assembly bill to be introduced Thursday is passed.

Eight acres of the planned Bushwick Inlet Park is owned by the company TransGas Energy, which has repeatedly revamped plans for a power plant, in part to evade city plans to seize the property, critics charge.

Assemblyman Joe Lentol (D-Greenpoint) is slated to introduce legislation Thursday to put an end to the long delays by having the state seize the property through eminent domain.


"This is an appropriate use of eminent domain. We're not taking people's houses. We're not trying to aid a private developer," Lentol said. "TransGas has been very clever in trying to put off what has been recommended long ago."

The park was included as part of the 2005 rezoning of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and the city attempted to seize the property.

Two years ago, a judge forced the city to wait for a ruling from the obscure state Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment.

Public officials and local leaders had blasted the Pataki administration as early as 2004 for not ruling on the power plant. TransGas has revised the project several times - including once to move the whole plant under ground.

The board received the latest revisions to the power plant in July, said Public Service Commission spokeswoman Anne Dalton.

"The pleadings and filings are under review," she said.
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  #46  
Old Posted Dec 20, 2007, 10:45 PM
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http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...ming_soon.html

New waterfront park coming soon

BY JOTHAM SEDERSTROM
December 20th 2007, 4:00 AM

Construction on what will become a sprawling 1.3-mile Brooklyn Heights waterfront park could begin as early as next month, the Daily News has learned.

If approved today, the $18 million construction phase would include the demolition of the historic Purchase Building and the removal of portions of five piers, officials said.

"This is the first major step in constructing this park, and we're very proud to be moving forward," said Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp. President Regina Myer.

The Purchase Building, built with federal Work Projects Administration funds in 1936, had been used as a temporary headquarters for the Office of Emergency Management following 9/11, when its Manhattan office was destroyed.

Supporters of the $150 million park plan believe the landmarked building would bisect the park, interrupting its continuity and blocking views of the river.

But despite protests from preservationists bent on saving the Art Deco building, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted in favor of demolishing it in 2006.


"It's further evidence that the [Empire State Development Corp.] cares so little about what the community thinks," said Judi Francis, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund. "All parties, for and against the project, have wanted to preserve it because it's a landmark."

A shed on Pier 1, meanwhile, is also expected to be demolished during the construction phase as well as the partial removal of four other sheds on piers 2, 3, 5 and 6.

The piers will eventually be home to basketball and handball courts, a rolling landscape called Prospect Hill, soccer fields, playgrounds and a promenade, Myer said.

"I'm happy that the process is moving forward, but I hope there is a comprehensive plan for financing the park," said Roy Sloane, a critic of the project, which he believes has grown in cost.

The nine-month construction phase had been slated to begin last April, but complications including the reevaluation of the project by Gov. Spitzer, forced its delay.

Portions of the project will be open to parkgoers by 2009, said Myer, shrugging off concerns by critics who believe construction delays will continue.
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  #47  
Old Posted Dec 20, 2007, 11:41 PM
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How many nimbies have complained so far and said that they like their rat-infested under-highway parking lots the way they are?
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  #48  
Old Posted Dec 22, 2007, 10:29 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lecom View Post
How many nimbies have complained so far and said that they like their rat-infested under-highway parking lots the way they are?
Many, and they're still going at it.
Coverage from the Brooklyn Paper
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  #49  
Old Posted Jan 2, 2008, 1:53 PM
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http://tribecatrib.com/news/newsjan08/BMB.html

They Try a Different Top on Landmark

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By Nick Pinto
JANUARY 1, 2008

[cjolor=blue]Developers proposing to top the landmark Battery Maritime Building, next to the Staten Island Ferry terminal, with a dramatic glass addition, returned to Community Board 1’s Landmarks Committee last month with a number of concessions in their design. But it wasn’t enough to please the committee, who declared the addition, a four-story glass-enclosed hotel atop the historic 1909 ferry terminal, still too big and obtrusive.[/color]

The Economic Development Corporation, which owns and restored the building, gave the Dermot Company a 99-year lease in June. Dermot’s plans call for continuing ferry service to Governors Island from the building’s ground floor while turning the 9,000-square foot great hall on the second floor into a public space available for private events in the evening.

The controversial element in Dermot’s plan, designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, is the construction of a 146-room hotel and rooftop restaurant, housed in a four-story glass cap on top of the existing building, nearly doubling the landmark’s height. Rooms are expected to cost up to $500 per night.

It was Dermot’s second presentation to the committee, and board members found much improvement to the land side of the building: a more understated entrance; a window proposed for the building’s west side that is broken up into smaller, less jarring sections; a segmented southern façade (rather than the monolithic one first proposed) that reflects the architectural divisions of the original building.

Dermot partner Steve Benjamin argued that the addition of a three-and-a-half foot railing between the original building and the addition extends the profile of the original building, further diminishing the visual impact of the addition.

“There’s no question that this is a much better proposal,” said committee co-chair Bruce Ehrmann. “Many of the issues I had have been resolved. I just don’t understand why the addition is still so high.”

Benjamin told the committee the addition, which was brought down three-and-a-half feet from the one first proposed, can’t be made much smaller.

“We squeezed the penthouse as much as we could,” he said. “The hotel rooms are already smaller than standard. To make this project make financial sense, this is what we have to do.”


However, Benjamin’s argument didn’t satisfy the committee.

“If the developer is saying they need the addition to be so big to satisfy the financial side, that’s their problem,” said committee member Marc Ameruso. “Why should a historic landmark building have to suffer for a developer’s bottom line?”

The committee asked Benjamin to consider their comments and return with further revisions before taking the proposal to the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Benjamin agreed, but warned the committee that what they see now is very close to what they will get.

“We’ve tweaked this about as much as we think is possible,” Benjamin said. “We’re happy to come back and talk to you again, but it’s not going to look significantly different.”

When Dermot first took its proposal to the Landmarks Preservation Commission in October, commissioners shared many of the Community Board’s concerns.

The developer is expected to return to the commission in January, before the full Community Board makes its recommendation on the plan.







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Old Posted Jan 14, 2008, 12:33 PM
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http://www.nysun.com/article/69413

Waterfalls as Art To Be Installed in East River



Images of a planned waterfalls art installation have not yet been released; above, a waterfall and a view of the East River.


By KATE TAYLOR
January 14, 2008

As if it didn't already have enough, the East River seems to attract water: Last summer, its big draw was a floating swimming pool; this summer, it will be waterfalls — created by an artist.

Olafur Eliasson, a Danish–Icelandic artist whose installation "The Weather Project" drew 2 million people to the Tate Modern in 2003 and 2004, has designed what will likely be the city's biggest public art project since Christo and Jeanne-Claude's "The Gates": a series of freestanding waterfalls in the East River.

Mayor Bloomberg and the Public Art Fund, a private nonprofit organization that produced, among other works, Anish Kapoor's "Sky Mirror" and Jeff Koons's "Puppy," both at Rockefeller Center, are scheduled to announce Mr. Eliasson's project at the South Street Seaport tomorrow.

According to a source whom the mayor told about the project, the waterfalls will rise about 60 to 70 feet above the water — more than half as high as the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge. They will be visible from the area around the Seaport, from Brooklyn Heights, and from the Governors Island Ferry.

Someone who was briefed on the waterfalls project last year said that, at that time, it was estimated to cost between $9 million and $11 million.

The waterfalls project will coincide with a retrospective of Mr. Eliasson's work, called "Take Your Time," which will run at the Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 between April 20 and June 30. The exhibition, currently at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, is the first major retrospective of his work in America.

Mr. Eliasson is known for creating immersive environments that take their inspiration from nature and play tricks with viewers' perceptions. With "The Weather Project," Mr. Eliasson used mist, mirrors, and 200 monofilament light bulbs to create an image of a glowing sun in the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. In a work called "Green River," in 2000, he poured nontoxic dye into a river in Stockholm, turning it green. In an early work called "Beauty" (1993), he created a rainbow in a gallery by projecting light across a fine mist of water.

Born in Copenhagen to Icelandic parents, Mr. Eliasson has long been interested in waterfalls, which form an important part of the landscape of Iceland. A piece called "Reversed Waterfall" (1998), which will be included in the P.S.1 exhibition, uses a system of pumps and basins to send water jetting uphill. In 2005, he created a 20-foot outdoor waterfall as part of an exhibition at Dundee University in Scotland.

Many of Mr. Eliasson's works have a subtle environmental message. "The Weather Project" was partially intended to make viewers contemplate their personal experience of weather and climate. The exhibition at SFMOMA includes a work called "Your mobile expectations: BMW H2R project," in which Mr. Eliasson removed the outer shell of a BMW hydrogen-powered race car and replaced it with a translucent surface of steel mesh, reflective steel panels, and ice. A 1999 series of photographs, called "The glacier series," documented glaciers in various stages of melting.

Mr. Eliasson is one of a number of contemporary artists working on a scale that requires vast workspaces and fleets of assistants. According to a 2006 profile in the New Yorker, he has a 15,000-square-foot studio in a former train depot in East Berlin and employs about 40 people there, including mathematicians, technicians, lighting designers, and architects.

The New York City Economic Development Corp. estimated that Christo and Jeanne-Claude's "The Gates," a series of some 7,500 saffron-yellow gates that were installed in Central Park for 16 days in February 2005, attracted 1.5 million out-of-town visitors and generated $254 million in economic activity for the city. The project cost more than $20 million and was financed entirely by the artists.

A spokesman for the mayor declined to confirm plans for the waterfalls project
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  #51  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2008, 1:10 PM
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http://www.nypost.com/seven/01162008...ash_774849.htm

MAKING A SPLASH
B'KLYN BRIDGE WATERFALL PLAN




By DAVID SEIFMAN City Hall Bureau Chief
January 16, 2008

Four manmade waterfalls, 90 to 120 feet high, will be installed under and around the Brooklyn Bridge this summer in one of the city's most audacious art undertakings, Mayor Bloomberg announced yesterday.

"They really must be seen to be believed," the mayor declared, standing next to renderings of the awesome displays during a press conference at the South Street Seaport.

Although they're being built on scaffolding at the edge of the waterfront, some of the waterfalls appear to float above New York Harbor. High-powered pumps will dispense 35,000 gallons of water a minute over each of the structures.

The highest is expected to be as tall as the Statue of Liberty.

One of the most eye-popping falls has water cascading under the Brooklyn anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge .

"This project today is the most ambitious project the Public Art Fund has ever undertaken and, I dare say, the city has ever seen," said Susan Freedman, president of the nonprofit organization.

The $15 million project was commissioned in 2006 from Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, who created a sensation in London by erecting a giant sun made of 200 yellow lamps, mirrors and mist in the entrance hall of the Tate Modern in 2003.

Officials are predicting 86,000 tourists will be drawn to New York solely by the falls, which will be on view between mid-July and mid-October. The city's economy is expected to gain $55 million.

By comparison, the enormously popular "Gates," which enveloped Central Park in 2005, generated $254 million.

Private contributors, including Bloomberg LP, the mayor's information-services company, are picking up the hefty construction bill.




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Old Posted Mar 26, 2008, 5:29 AM
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http://gothamist.com/2008/03/25/demolition_unde.php

Demolition Underway for Brooklyn Bridge Park

Marc 25, 2008

The conversion of an 85-acre stretch of Brooklyn waterfront from post-industrial decay to pristine park is continuing apace, as bulldozers have begun demolishing the hulking warehouses that have barred access to the East River for years. But a Sierra Club lawsuit could yet stall the long-planned urban renewal project, and outcry from some community groups remains undiminished.

The Sierra Club objects to the “wave-calming systems and floating walkways” that are to be installed along five piers in the park to encourage kayakers, because the system could hurt East River marine life. Other critics like Fred Kent, founder of the Project for Public Spaces, opposes the park’s design, which he sees as uninspired “fields in the middle of a pier,” designed to appeal to future dwellers in the condos and hotels being built along the park – these will ultimately provide the revenue to cover the park’s operation and maintenance.

Kent would like to see the park accommodate markets, museums and other cultural life; other critics like Judi Francis, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund, fault the plans for not providing enough access to the waterfront from other places like the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. On the other side of the debate, Marianna Koval, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, tells the Times that the park, parts of which will be completed as soon as next year, will have enough activities to draw thousands of people to Brooklyn: “You can over-program a place and turn it into Disneyland.” Would that be so wrong? Part of the park is in DUMBO
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Old Posted Mar 26, 2008, 5:36 AM
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Photos of the demolition for the Brooklyn Bridge Park from epc










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Old Posted Mar 26, 2008, 5:50 AM
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I'm sorry but this plan is just rediculous, what the point besides ruining the bridge?

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Old Posted Mar 26, 2008, 6:04 AM
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Originally Posted by Patrick View Post
I'm sorry but this plan is just rediculous, what the point besides ruining the bridge?


Not everyone will get it, but the city has a practical interest in these types of things:

Quote:
Officials are predicting 86,000 tourists will be drawn to New York solely by the falls, which will be on view between mid-July and mid-October. The city's economy is expected to gain $55 million.

By comparison, the enormously popular "Gates," which enveloped Central Park in 2005, generated $254 million.
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Old Posted Mar 28, 2008, 9:12 AM
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WOW that waterfalls shit is ridiculous. ...and by ridiculous, I mean ridiculously COOOOOL!!!!!!!! I will definitely be goin' to see that shit this summer! I think a new New York tradition has been created. Housing huge, crazy temp art exhibits. Talk about getting more attention as a world art capital.

God, New York is just a World Everything Capital.
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Old Posted Mar 28, 2008, 9:22 AM
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Originally Posted by StatenIslander237 View Post
WOW that waterfalls shit is ridiculous. ...and by ridiculous, I mean ridiculously COOOOOL!!!!!!!! I will definitely be goin' to see that shit this summer! I think a new New York tradition has been created. Housing huge, crazy temp art exhibits. Talk about getting more attention as a world art capital.
Now if only they could put in in a plaza, or a park. Imagine it during one of those heatwaves...
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Old Posted Apr 3, 2008, 6:57 PM
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http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/artic...ver/12155.html

Art will gush over East River

by amy zimmer
APR 3, 2008

LOWER EAST SIDE. The stretch of the East River path near Rutgers Street is where men from Chinatown come with their fishing rods or the homeless find benches to sleep. But yesterday, a gaggle of media convened at Pier 35 to get a glimpse of what is expected to become a hot tourist spot.

Workers were erecting a 110-foot high steel scaffolding for one of Olafur Eliasson’s “Waterfalls,”
which is expected to start pumping river water (using green energy) in July, running through October.

A 90-foot-tall waterfall will cascade under the Brooklyn Bridge and there will be 120-foot falls at Governors Island and between Brooklyn’s piers 4 and 5. The Dutch-Icelandic artist “always knew he wanted to do something with water,” said Rochelle Steiner, director of New York’s Public Art Fund, which commissioned the $15 million, privately-funded project two years ago.

Steiner’s group has worked with 500 artists over the last 30 years, but this is its most “ambitious” project, requiring complicated permitting and meetings with nearly a dozen government agencies and environmental groups.

Eliasson initially envisioned 25 sites from the Battery to the Harlem River. NYPD concerns about homeland security and Coast Guard considerations about boat traffic limited the scope. Plus, they needed city-owned sites that didn’t interfere with neighbors.
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Old Posted Apr 3, 2008, 10:44 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NYguy View Post
http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/artic...ver/12155.html

Art will gush over East River

by amy zimmer
APR 3, 2008

LOWER EAST SIDE. The stretch of the East River path near Rutgers Street is where men from Chinatown come with their fishing rods or the homeless find benches to sleep. But yesterday, a gaggle of media convened at Pier 35 to get a glimpse of what is expected to become a hot tourist spot.

Workers were erecting a 110-foot high steel scaffolding for one of Olafur Eliasson’s “Waterfalls,”
which is expected to start pumping river water (using green energy) in July, running through October.

A 90-foot-tall waterfall will cascade under the Brooklyn Bridge and there will be 120-foot falls at Governors Island and between Brooklyn’s piers 4 and 5.
http://801a.info/blog/archives/466







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Old Posted Apr 5, 2008, 10:59 AM
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like I said before.....REEEDICKKKYOUULUSSS!!!!
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