28 JUNE 2019 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
Photo via nysenate.gov
Senator Michael Gianaris
Legends
GO ASK ALLIS
"I do not foresee that atomic energy
is to be a great boon for a long time, I
have to say that for the present it is a
menace. Perhaps it is well that it should
be.” Albert Einstein
"We do not choose our problems,
we do not choose our products; we are
pushed, we are forced — by what? By a
system which has no purpose and goal
transcending it, and which makes man
its appendix.” Erich Fromm
At Ravenswood, on the East River, within
the heart of a city of eight million, Con
Edison once proposed to build the world’s
largest nuclear power plant. Its capacity, one
thousand megawatts, was to be equal to
all the atomic plants in the United States
at that time. Advocates of atomic energy
were sanguine, touting it as an inexcus-able
source of clean energy without the
dangers of air pollution from fossil fuels. It
was called "Big Allis.”
But for most, the word "nuclear” has the
taint of fearsome images from Nagasaki
and Hiroshima and of frightening mushroom
clouds in the Nevada desert or Bikini Atoll.
When Con Edison and Westinghouse
announced in December 1962, plans for
a nuclear reactor in Ravenswood, the first
public meeting on February 19, 1963 at
St Rita’s Church drew hundreds of people.
They quickly made up their mind in opposi-tion
when they heard that nuclear industry
standards mandated various population
exclusion zones around reactors that were
measured in miles, not, as with Ravenswood,
a few hundred feet.
It was a meeting that would inaugurate
the nation’s first public protest against
nuclear power facilities.
Hearings were duly conducted over
the course of the next year. At City Hall,
State Senator Seymour Thaler (D-Queens)
told City Council, "The mind of man has
not yet invented an accident-proof piece
of mechanical equipment.” Queens Bor-ough
President, Mario J. Cariello, voiced
the community’s sentiments stating "I am
opposed, and I will continue in that stand
until convinced otherwise.” The utility’s chair-man,
Harland C. Forbes, responded to their
comments, "It seems to me that the public
in general has reached the point where it
has accepted nuclear plants as a matter of
course.” He further stated he would have
no objection to "building a nuclear reactor
in Times Square as for that matter.”
When David Lillenthal, first Chairman of
the Atomic Energy Commission, opined at a
Senate House Atomic Energy Commission
hearing that he wouldn't dream of living
in Queens if the plant is built, resistance
grew. He was immediately slammed by
chairman, John Pastore (D-Rhode Island),
who condemned Lillenthal’s comments
for speaking "rather loosely,” and his criti-cism
– that governmental backs the atomic
industry – "very unfair.”
The chorus of voices hostile to Con
Ed's proposed Ravenswood nuclear reac-tor
continued to grow: the possibility of
sabotage, the East River might be polluted
by millions of gallons of water used each
day by the plant, accidental emissions of
nuclear waste which could contaminate
food manufacturers and processing plants
in Long Island City.
Opponents argued that these, and
other fears, would discourage people
from becoming Queens residents. They
darkly hinted it would delay the borough's
development.
That point won the argument. Con Ed
announced that it would purchase electricity
from Canada. The Ravenswood nuclear
reactor was dead.
G.A.H.S. Has Moved!
New Home! New Look!
Astoria History @ Court Square
Our new office is:
Greater Astoria Historical Society
LIC Arts Building # Suite 219
44-02 23rd Street
Long Island City, NY 11101
718-278-0700 / info@astorialic.org
Serving the communities of
Old Long Island City:
Blissville
Sunnyside
Sunnyside Gardens
Hunters Point
Dutch Kills
Ravenswood
Astoria Broadway
Norwood
Old Astoria Village
Ditmars
Steinway
Bowery Bay
/www.qns.com
link
/www.qns.com
/nysenate.gov
link
