10
BROOKLYN WEEKLY, NOV. 3, 2019
FLOOD
PREPAREDNESS
informed than we were prior to Sandy, but
we’re not fully prepared yet.”
Major long-term mitigation efforts to
defend against rising sea levels exist today
as pipe dreams. The US Army Corp of Engineers
proposed an ambitious multibillion
dollar, miles-long fl oodgate that would
stretch from Jamaica Bay, through Coney
Island, and out to New Jersey, but that project
remains in the early design phase and
is at best decades away from completion, according
to a report by the Army Corps.
Other projects are closer to completion,
such as the upcoming repairs to the bulkhead
along Coney Island Creek that was
damaged during Sandy, but those won’t be
fi nished until 2023, and will only protect
against small storms, not hurricanes the
size of Sandy, according to reps for the Economic
Development Corporation.
As things stand today, Coney Island is
more-or-less as vulnerable to a Sandy-level
storm as it was in 2012, when the storm
caused roughly $19 billion in property damage
in New York City and claimed 53 lives
throughout the state, and locals are sick
and tired of feeling like sitting ducks in
their own homes.
“If a storm happened tomorrow, we’d
still get fl ooded,” said Eddie Mark, the District
Manager of Community Board 13.
“The people are aware of what can happen,
but they can only be as prepared as their go
bag.”
LIBRARY
DEBTS
2029, most of which is being
allocated towards small,
easily managed projects,
such as fi xing roofs or airconditioning,
and not overhauling
decades-old structures,
according to a senior
fi nance offi cial with the organization.
“We have lots of piecemeal
projects,” said Karen
Sheehan, the library’s executive
vice president for fi -
nance and administration.
“We don’t have a reserve of
capital dollars that are earmarked
for the major overhauls.”
And in lieu of another
$200–300 million taxpayerfunded
windfall, Brooklyn
Public Library has been
forced to explore alternative
strategies for generating
revenue, including
some deals that readers
have found unsavory.
In 2014, the book lender
sold the historic Brooklyn
Heights branch at Cadman
Plaza West for $52 million
to developer Hudson Companies
, which razed the
building in 2017 and is in
the process of erecting a 38-
story luxury condo tower,
which will feature a threestory
library branch at its
base come 2020.
The deal relieved the library
system of an ailing
branch and paved the way
for construction of a new
one, but locals nonetheless
condemned the scheme as a
deal with the devil, and accused
library executives of
pandering to developers.
“The public’s interest
has not been the primary
concern,” Pearl Hochstadt
said back in 2014. “There’s
been too much consideration
for real estate interests.”
Other partnerships have
been less controversial. The
library system partnered
with a nonprofi t affordable
housing developer, the Fifth
Avenue Committee, in 2016
to demolish the old Sunset
Park Library and redevelop
the site to feature a much
larger branch, along with
49 units of affordable housing
due in 2020.
“The old library was
about 12,000 square feet and
was one of the busiest in
our system,” said David Woloch,
executive vice president
for external affairs at
Brooklyn Public Library.
“It was essentially bursting
at the seams and we’re
going to get a library that’s
about 20,000 square feet.”
The library is also taking
advantage of a 2011
settlement with Exxonmobil
over an oil spill in Newtown
Creek to replace its
Greenpoint branch, and
has worked out a deal with
Brooklyn Children’ Museum
to move their Bower
Street branch into the
Crown Heights cultural institution.
But for all of Brooklyn
Public Library’s wheeling
and dealing, the book lender
remains buried under the
burden of aging buildings,
according to Woloch, who
claims the city must act if
it wants to salvage a library
system that isn’t getting
any younger.
“The smart way to do
this work is to do as much
of the work holistically,”
he said. “The longer we
go without tackling those
needs the larger they
get.”
Coney Island after Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Photo by Paul Martinka.
Continued from page 1
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