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Amazon coming to Sunset Park?
Brooklynites react to reports of potential facility in Industry City
Industry City
Biz group fi ghts MTA over bus cuts
Saturdays, August 3, 10, 17 from 7 AM to 1 PM • Park Avenue from Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park
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By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
With Amazon reportedly
eyeing up to 1 million square
feet of space within Sunset
Park’s Industry City for a new
storage and shipping facility,
locals are split on what the
tech giant’s presence could
mean for the largely working
class, immigrant community.
One longtime resident said
the neighborhood doesn’t need
the type of no-skill labor that
Amazon’s factories employ,
and that what Sunset Park
really needs are more highpaying,
skilled manufacturing
jobs.
“What do distribution centers
give?” asked Adrian Roman,
a Sunset Park resident
and a member of a community
organization called El
Grito. “Those are low paying
jobs. They don’t really
help the community.”
Amazon distribution facilities
have provided residents
in other communities
throughout the city with thousands
of jobs, but not all employees
have spoken highly of
the work. A disgruntled employee
at the Staten Island ful-
New Yorkers are split over how a huge Amazon logistics facility would impact
Sunset Park.
fillment center told the New
York Times in March that the
company cracked down on an
attempt to unionize, in addition
to forcing employees
to work long hours with few
breaks, although a subsequent
Times investigation disputed
some of those claims.
But the Staten Island employee
is not alone: In the last
few months, Amazon’s poor
working conditions have become
an international focus .
On July 15, workers across the
U.S. and in five countries went
on strike to protest the company’s
low wages and dangerous
working conditions. Sunset
Park’s Councilman Carlos
Menchaca echoed those complaints
when responding to
the potential Amazon facility
in Industry City.
“If Industry City is serious
about being a good neighbor
and having Sunset Park’s best
interests in mind, it will not
do business with companies
that are aiding in the terrorization
of immigrants or treats
its workers like robots,” he
said last Thursday.
Roman also worried about
Amazon’s use of facial recognition
technology, which the
company has pitched to police
departments so that cops can
find suspects. Since a large portion
of Sunset Park is undocumented,
Roman feared that
such technology could put residents
at risk of deportation.
But others see the potential
Amazon expansion in
Brooklyn as a sign of progress.
The company already
has a local presence, renting
a space in Sunset Park’s Liberty
View Plaza right next
to Industry City. And many
say that distribution center’s
jobs are already part of the
ecosystem of Sunset Park’s
working waterfront.
“It’s going to be a huge
plus,” said Jeffery Citron, a
real estate lawyer, who has
seen the positive impact of
tech companies on New York’s
economy.
“A distribution facility has
to have blue-collar jobs,” he
added. “That could be great
for the surrounding community.”
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
A brownstone Brooklyn
business group is standing
in the way of a Metropolitan
Transportation Authority
scheme to cut service along
a Bedford-Stuyevsant bus
route.
The Myrtle Avenue
Brooklyn Partnership is
calling on straphangers to
sign an online petition demanding
the Transit Authority
to reverse its plans
to reduce service along the
B54’s Bushwick-to-Downtown
bus route, which the
local group’s chief said is a
vital aspect of the community’s
transit network.
“For most of Myrtle Avenue
— but particularly in
Fort Greene and Clinton Hill
— the B54 is the only transit
link,” said the bid’s executive
director Chad Purkey.
The agency plans to eliminate
the amount of buses
and increase wait times
along the B54 — which
runs along Myrtle Avenue
through Bushwick, Bedford-
Stuyvesant, Clinton Hill, and
Fort Greene to Jay Street in
America’s Downtown — by
this fall, along with changes
to two other Kings County
routes, including the B38 and
the B15, documents show .
Transit honchos claim the
decision to cannibalize the
The MTA plans to reduce
service for the B54
bus this fall.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
B54 was inspired by ridership
figures along the bus
route, which will suffer from
longer waits ranging from
one to three minutes during
the morning peak, midday,
and evening hours, while
keeping the same schedule
as current during the evening
peak times.
And while busses will
run less frequently along
the route, the Authority predicts
that remaining buses
will stop make their stops
more on time, and that occupancy
along the route will be
higher 22 percent higher on
a bus-by-bus basis, according
to a spokeswoman.
“The B54 received minimal
schedule changes of
one to three minutes to align
more closely with ridership
and the actual travel time on
the route, so buses run more
on time – a priority we’ve
heard from our ridership -
and with fewer empty seats,”
said Amanda Kwan in an
emailed statement.
The agency will continue
to take suggestions
from straphangers as city
transit gurus redesign the
bus routes across citywide
in the coming months as
part of the organization’s
Fast Forward plan, according
to Kwan.
“We welcome customer
feedback as we approach our
planned redesign of the entire
Brooklyn bus network
in the coming months when
we will re-examine the route
network for the first time in
decades,” she said.
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