Pete McGuinness left an indelible mark on the neighborhood he loved.
GEOFFREY COBB | gcobb91839@Aol.com
Author, “Greenpoint Brooklyn’s Forgotten Past
Greenpoint, Brooklyn today is an area of luxury high-rise waterfront properties, pricey, Michelin star restaurants and chic boutiques. Its residents are increasingly Ivy League graduates who live an affluent lifestyle, but not long ago, Greenpoint was the heart of industrial, working-class Brooklyn, an area of blue-collar factory workers and longshoremen, and no one personified working class Greenpoint more than its Irish American political boss Peter J. McGuinness.
A born and raised Greenpointer and former longshoremen, McGuinness represented Greenpoint on the City Council and then ran the area’s political machine from the end of the First World War until his death in 1948, as the last Tammany Hall style ward boss in the Borough’s history. People often said that McGuinness so embodied Greenpoint that it was hard to think of the one without immediately thinking of the other.
On Wednesday, February 25th, I will speak about McGuinness’ local legacy at the Oak and Iron Bar Local History Night, a forum where locals make presentations on aspects of North Brooklyn history. I have presented at the packed bar before and the atmosphere is great because we Greenpointers are really passionate about our community and its long, rich history.
I have written three books on Greenpoint history including, The King of Greenpoint Peter McGuinness: The Amazing Story of Greenpoint’s Most Colorful Character, which I published ten years ago. Though Greenpoint has over three hundred and fifty years of history, no character was as colorful as McGuinness and arguably no one left a greater legacy than Pete whose enduring contributions include playgrounds, the G Train stops, a bridge and the McCarren Park pool, just to name a few.
McGuinness, like the people he represented, grew up facing adversity and working hard. One of eleven children, Pete left school after eighth grade to work in the area’s lumberyards. An amateur boxer and a longshoreman, McGuinness was a powerhouse standing about six feet tall with a barrel chest, huge back and bulging biceps. Though he was a gentleman, he was well able to settle disputes with his fists. Once when six men tried to force him to accept a shipment of rotten lumber, a fistfight ensued, six-on-one. McGuinness knocked three of his opponents out and then lectured the remaining three on business ethics.
Nowadays, American politics is characterized by divisiveness, name calling and acrimony, but McGuinness, a Democrat, displayed a lifelong ability to work with Socialists and Republicans. He defied the Democratic Party and supported his childhood friend Republican John McCrate when he ran for the area’s congressional seat. When Fiorello LaGuardia defeated the Democratic candidate for mayor, McGuinness graciously stated, “The Little Flower is a most splendid gentleman. Under him, we know the poor people of this city will be looked after, irregardless of what may befall. What he done, he done honest and he done good.”
B. Charney Vladeck, a Socialist alderman from the Lower East Side and an enemy of corrupt Democrats was one of McGuinness warmest admirers. “That Irisher!” Vladeck used to say: “Sometimes he makes me wish I was a Democrat.” McGuinness won Vladeck’s friendship by giving Democratic sponsorship to a number of Socialist resolutions. “Many’s the time,” he said, “I used to say, Cheeny, old pal, if you got something you really want to get through this here board, give it to me, and I’ll make it Irish for you. I figured what the hell, if something was good enough for Cheeny, it was good enough for the other aldermen.”
McGuinness had a legendary sense of humor and there are a number of famous yarns about Pete. One of the funniest relates to Governor Franklin Roosevelt’s 1932 visit to Greenpoint as part of his presidential campaign. McGuinness and the future president were touring the area in an open car, and huge crowds lined the streets to greet them. Roosevelt saw Jewish businesses, Polish children dressed in traditional costumes and Italian Americans, but few Irish Americans. Roosevelt inquired about the absence of the Irish and McGuinness somberly told him that most of the area’s Irish were now dead and buried in Calvary Cemetery. A tense silence ensued and Roosevelt thought he said the wrong thing, but suddenly in a loud voice McGuinness retorted, “But don’t you worry Governor Roosevelt, those dead Irish will still turn out for you on election day.”
Though McGuinness had passed away some thirteen years previously, he was still so beloved that when Oakland Street was widened and made into a boulevard, both local Democrats and Republicans agreed it should be named in honor of its legendary political leader. Come out on Wednesday February 25th to hear more about this local legend.
Getting a denial letter on a workers’ compensation claim feels like a door slamming shut. You have been dealing with pain for months, maybe years. You finally reported it, saw a doctor, filed the paperwork, and then the insurance carrier said no. I understand the frustration, and I want to be direct with you. A denial is not the end of your case. In fact, for repetitive stress injuries in New York, initial denials are so common that experienced attorneys often plan for them from the start. The appeals process exists for a reason, and workers who push forward with the right strategy frequently end up receiving the full benefits they were owed all along.
If your repetitive stress injury claim has been denied or your benefits have been reduced, here is what is actually happening and how to fight back effectively.
Why Insurance Carriers Love Denying Repetitive Stress Claims
Let me be blunt about the dynamics at play. Insurance companies are businesses. Their job is to pay out as little as possible. Repetitive stress injuries give them more room to maneuver than almost any other type of workplace claim, and they know it.
With a broken leg from a fall on a job site, there is usually a clear incident, a date, witnesses, and a medical report that ties everything together neatly. With carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic tendonitis, or a deteriorating lower back from years of repetitive lifting, none of those clean facts exist. There is no single event. The onset is gradual. And there are almost always alternative explanations the carrier can point to.
I have seen denial letters that blame a worker’s age, their weight, a prior medical history, recreational hobbies, even genetics. One carrier argued that a food service worker’s shoulder condition was caused by playing with her children, not by the overhead reaching she did forty hours a week for six years. These arguments are not always made in bad faith, but they are almost always designed to test whether you will fight back.
Common Denial Reasons: The carrier claims the injury is not work-related, attributes it to a pre-existing condition, argues the worker waited too long to report, or states that the medical documentation does not establish a clear occupational link.
Strategic Testing: Many initial denials are a calculated bet that the worker will give up rather than go through an appeal. Statistics show that represented workers are far more likely to overturn denials than those who go it alone.
Burden of Proof Reality: Under New York law, repetitive stress injuries are classified as occupational diseases. That means you must demonstrate that your condition arose from hazards specific to your type of work, a higher standard than for acute injuries.
What a Denial Actually Means Under New York Law
A denial does not mean the Workers’ Compensation Board has reviewed your case and ruled against you. In most situations, it means the employer’s insurance carrier has decided not to accept liability, and now the matter will go before an administrative law judge for a hearing. Think of it less like a verdict and more like the other side saying, “Prove it.”
That hearing is your opportunity to present medical evidence, employment records, and testimony that connects your repetitive stress injury to your job duties. The judge evaluates the evidence from both sides and issues a decision. If the evidence supports your claim, the denial gets overturned and your benefits begin, sometimes with back pay included.
This is also where having a Queens attorney for workplace injury claims makes the biggest difference. The insurance carrier will have legal counsel at every hearing. Walking in without representation puts you at a serious disadvantage, especially in cases where the medical causation is being contested.
Hearing Process: You will appear before a Workers’ Compensation Board judge who reviews evidence from both parties and makes a determination.
Back Benefits: If your denial is overturned, you may be entitled to retroactive wage replacement going back to when your disability or lost time first began.
No Upfront Cost: In New York, workers’ compensation attorney fees are set by the Board and paid by the insurance carrier after an award is issued. You do not pay out of pocket to get representation.
Strengthening Your Case After a Denial
If your claim has been denied, the single most important thing you can do is improve your medical documentation. In my experience, weak or vague medical reports are the leading cause of unsuccessful repetitive stress claims, not because the injury is not real, but because the paperwork did not tell the full story.
Your treating physician needs to provide a clear, detailed opinion that your condition was caused or significantly worsened by specific, identifiable work activities. A report that says “patient has tendonitis” is not nearly as effective as one that says “patient has tendonitis in the right shoulder consistent with repetitive overhead reaching performed during employment as a commercial painter for approximately five years.” The second version gives the judge something concrete to evaluate. The first gives the insurance carrier room to argue.
Beyond medical records, gather anything that helps paint a picture of your daily work routine. Job descriptions, shift schedules, photographs of your workstation, communications with your employer about the physical demands of your role. If coworkers can attest to the repetitive nature of your tasks, their statements can add meaningful support.
Medical Report Upgrade: If your doctor’s initial report was generic, ask for a supplemental opinion that explicitly ties your diagnosis to the repetitive motions your job required. Specificity wins these cases.
Employment Evidence: Collect job descriptions, duty rosters, or any internal documents that describe the physical requirements of your position. These help establish that the repetitive exposure was a core part of your role, not incidental.
Witness Statements: Coworkers, supervisors, or even clients who observed your work tasks daily can provide written or verbal statements supporting the repetitive nature of your job duties.
The Pre-Existing Condition Problem (and Why It Does Not Disqualify You)
One of the most discouraging things I hear from Queens workers is, “They said I already had this condition before I started the job, so I cannot get benefits.” This is one of the most misunderstood aspects of New York workers’ compensation law, and insurance carriers rely on that misunderstanding.
Here is the reality. New York explicitly allows workers’ comp claims even when a pre-existing condition is involved, as long as you can show that your job duties made the condition measurably worse. If you had mild arthritis in your wrist before you took a data entry position, and five years of constant typing turned that mild arthritis into debilitating carpal tunnel syndrome requiring surgery, your claim can absolutely succeed. The law recognizes that jobs aggravate existing conditions, and it provides benefits accordingly.
In fact, New York law even allows a worker who previously received comp benefits for a repetitive stress injury to file again if they returned to work and the condition worsened. The system is designed to account for the way these injuries evolve over time.
Aggravation Standard: You do not need to prove your job was the sole cause of your condition. You need to prove it made a pre-existing condition materially worse.
Re-Filing Rights: If you returned to work after a prior repetitive stress claim and the same condition has deteriorated, you may be eligible to file a new claim.
Insurance Carrier Tactics: Expect the carrier to use your medical history against you. An experienced attorney will anticipate this strategy and prepare counter-evidence, including updated medical opinions and functional assessments.
Do Not Let a Denial Letter Write the Final Chapter
Insurance carriers count on workers giving up after a denial. The paperwork is intimidating, the process feels adversarial, and the pain you are already managing makes fighting an uphill battle feel impossible. But here is what I have seen over and over again in Queens. Workers who push forward, who get proper representation and build a documented case, recover the benefits they were owed from the beginning. A denial is not a determination of your claim’s merit. It is just the starting line of the next phase.
If you have received a denial on a repetitive stress injury claim, or if your benefits were reduced or cut off, a Queens workers’ comp attorney for repetitive stress injuries can evaluate your case, identify where the gaps are, and represent you at hearings where it counts.
Contributed by Dan Rose,A Senior Workers’ Compensation Legal Analyst.
Dealing with a Repetitive Stress Injury from Work?
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Visit https://becklawny.com/ to schedule your free consultation and learn what your claim may be worth.
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Greenpoint City councilmember Lincoln Restler voiced his opposition to the Monitor Point development in a passionate speech. Photo by Cole Sinanian.
By COLE SINANIAN | news@queensledger.com
The moment Bryan Kelly began speaking, several of the more than a hundred Greenpointers packed into the Polish Slavic Center solemnly pulled out their signs: “600ft Luxury Towers? Hard Pass,” read one.
“Bushwick Inlet Can’t Be Replaced,” read another.
Tensions in the room were high. Kelly, President of Development at the Gotham Corporation, had come to pitch an enormous mixed-use development that would add 3,000 residents to Greenpoint by its completion in the early 2030s. The sign-bearers had come to voice their disapproval before the Community Board.
Hanging in the balance is the fate of Monitor Point, a spit of land north of Bushwick Inlet that’s Greenpoint’s last swath of undeveloped waterfront. A section of it is part of a 27.8-acre parcel that the City set aside in the 2005 Williamsburg/Greenpoint rezoning for the long-awaited Bushwick Inlet Park.
Local activists with Save the Inlet and Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park have fought for years to prevent private developers from acquiring the promised parkland. Twenty years later, the Gotham Organization — in collaboration with the MTA — is seeking to remove the park designation from the City Map and upzone the adjacent property in order to build three high-rise apartment buildings, the tallest of which would rise to 600ft. The three towers would include 1,150 housing units, 40% of which would be affordable at 40-80% Area Median Income (AMI), and could add some 3,000 residents to the neighborhood. These towers, developers say, would provide much-needed affordable housing to the district, and help fund major public benefits, like a building to house the Greenpoint Monitor Museum, public waterfront access, shoreline rehabilitation, and crucial MTA funding.
But critics argue that the project is a land-grab. The 80,000-square-foot MTA-owned property located at 40 Quay Street will be leased to the Gotham Organization for a century, while air rights at the Greenpoint Monitor Museum-owned 56 Quay Street — designated on the City Map as park land but never acquired by the City — will be acquired by Gotham. It’s a betrayal, critics say, of the City’s 2005 commitment to integrating the land into Bushwick Inlet Park.
Other critics are longtime Greenpoint residents with the trauma of the displacement and gentrification brought by the 2005 rezoning and the luxury high-rises that followed fresh in mind, fearing that such a population bump of mostly wealthy residents will only lead to more gentrification. And for others still, it’s an environmental issue; rare birds and sea life live around the Inlet, which was just a century ago toxic with pollution. Now, years of care and rehabilitation have allowed the public to access the estuary once again, just in time to be overshadowed by residential skyscrapers that activists fear could turn the park and the Inlet into little more than a playground for the wealthy.
Still, several groups in attendance came to support the Monitor Point project, including the labor unions SEIU 32BJ and Local 79, whose workers expect it to bring them good jobs, as well as Los Sures, a local Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC) cooperative.
The hearing, held on January 20, was the beginning of the project’s ULURP, set to go before Community Board 1 for a recommendation vote on February 3.
Affordable for who?
Outside the Polish Slavic Center, activists with Save the Inlet rallied before the hearing, braving the cold to chant and hold signs that read “Public Land for Public Good!” and “Stop Stealing Public Parkland for Luxury Towers in GPT!!!”
Inside, developers began by presenting their vision for an integrated, mixed-used community space that would finally connect Bushwick Inlet Park, the East River, the Greenpoint Monitor Museum, and the rest of the North Brooklyn waterfront esplanade via a series of public walkways and open spaces, while restoring a degraded and flood-vulnerable shoreline on Greenpoint’s last remaining plot of undeveloped waterfront. They argued the project goes far beyond housing, and will unlock more than 50,000 square feet of public open space that would include retail, park land, public plazas and lobbies, and the Greenpoint Monitor Museum itself. Part of this is a $20 million investment in “site resiliency, waterfront infrastructure, and pedestrian connections.”
“It adds 51,500 square feet of new open space — some of which was expected in the ‘05 rezoning and more — for the community, for public equity, not just for residents of the new building,” said Kelly. “It’s an open gate to the community, not a gated community.”
It would be all connected by a meandering path inspired by Bushwick Inlet that would finally connect the Williamsburg and Greenpoint waterfronts. Dan Kaplan, senior partner with FX Collaborative Architects, said that the project’s architects were working on a “bird-friendly” design that would integrate texture and setbacks into the buildings to avoid bird collisions, and that an all-glass facade would be avoided “at all costs.”
The 690 units of luxury housing would finance the public benefit, developers said, like an additional 460 units of “permanently affordable” housing at 40-80% Area Median Income (AMI), publicly accessible “open space,” and an expanded Greenpoint Monitor Museum. Key to the development team’s presentation was that the land’s current use — housing a degraded MTA mobile wash warehouse — adds nothing to the community, prevents the public from accessing the waterfront, and won’t protect the shoreline from the effects of erosion and climate change. And in leasing its property to the Gotham Organization, the MTA will earn more than $600 million over the course of the lease that could be put towards transit improvements throughout the city. Money for Bushwick Inlet Park, meanwhile, will begin at $300,000 annually, and increase over the course of the 99-year lease.
Throughout their presentation, the development team repeated that their plan does more for the community than is required by law. At 40% affordable housing at 40-80% AMI, the Monitor Point towers will far exceed the 25% affordability at 60% AMI requirement in the City’s mandatory inclusionary housing law, Kelly pointed out.
“We have had about 150 outreach meetings,” he said. “That’s to your elected officials, religious organizations, civics, friends of open space, people who are not friends of the project, and people who are friends of the project. Because the result is, we’ve done our best so far to make changes to address your concerns, and that concern is 40% affordability.”
Activists from Save the Inlet held a protest against the development outside the Polish Slavic Center before the January 20 hearing. Photo by Cole Sinanian.
Restler weighs in
Much of the public, however, was unimpressed. While Kelly was explaining the annual park funding, some audience members shook their heads and shouted “shame!” When he said that the towers would stand 56, 40, and 20 storeys, respectively, someone in the crowd shouted “Way too high!” And as Kelly explained the goal of the project — to create “intergenerational, mixed income housing and ultimately fighting for the goal of creating open space for everybody,” he said — shouts rang out from the audience: “Liar! Liar!”
At several points throughout, Community Board 1 Second Vice Chair Del Teague, who moderated the hearing, had to silence unruly audience members.
“We have 85 people who want to speak,” Teague said. “I don’t even know if I can give people a full minute.”
The mood turned, however, when Greenpoint City councilmember Lincoln Restler — whose City Council vote will likely determine the fate of the project — got up to speak.
“I want to just say plainly where I’m at on this project to all of you, which is precisely what I’ve said to Gotham and the MTA,” Restler said. “I’m a no on this project.”
A raucous applause broke out before he’d even finished the sentence. Some audience members were on their feet in standing ovation. Kelly and the development team, meanwhile, looked uncomfortable as they retreated into the shadows in the room’s far corner. Someone catcalled: “Atta boy, Lincoln!” After about 30 seconds of applause, Restler approached the mic again:
“We built significantly more new housing in our district than any other district in the city,” he said. “We built well over 26,000 units of housing, but the vast majority of that housing is market rate, luxury housing, housing that our communities quite simply can’t afford.”
He continued: “This is the last large public site in Greenpoint, and the idea that we would build predominantly luxury housing on this site, I have to say, I find it offensive. This was the central jewel of the Greenpoint Williamsburg rezoning. And 20 years later, we do not have a fully funded park. In fact, most of the park is in need of significant remediation before we see construction move forward.”
Scot Fraser, a long time Greenpointer and member of Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park. Photo by Cole Sinanian.
Union jobs, Trojan horse
After Restler’s speech, the some 85 members of the public who’d signed up to speak lined up in waves to deliver their testimonies. First up was the SEIU 32BJ union, which represents building maintenance workers. Several members attended the hearing to express their support for the project, which they argued would deliver reliable, well-paid union jobs to working-class Brooklynites.
“I’m happy to report that developers of this proposed project have made a credible commitment to good jobs at the project,” said Theodore Perez, a worker with SEIU 32BJ. “Good Jobs mean prevailing wages. They mean benefits, and they mean a pathway to the middle class for the people who work them. We need housing built in every neighborhood in New York City to ensure that working families are not displaced by dwindling supply and skyrocketing rents.”
According to an unnamed Gotham Organization spokesperson, communicated via William Roberts with a PR firm called Berlin Rosen, both the unions SEIU 32BJ and Local 79 — which was also present at the hearing — have partnerships with the company that guarantee union employment at all Gotham properties.
“32BJ and Local 79 have been longtime partners of The Gotham Organization,” the spokesperson wrote. “All Gotham-owned buildings are staffed by 32BJ members, and we have worked closely with Local 79 across numerous housing projects. We look forward to continuing this partnership with Monitor Point.”
Sarah Roberts, also known as “the Brooklyn Bird Lady,” opposed the project on ecological grounds:
“I am here to oppose the proposed Monitor Point development not because I dislike change or I don’t want affordable housing,” but because we must protect what is truly irreplaceable,” Roberts said.
“Bushwick Inlet is not just another piece of industrial shoreline,” she continued. “These tidal wetlands provide natural climate resilience. They slow down storm surge, absorb blood water, store carbon and buffer our community from increasingly frequent and severe weather events
George Weinmann, Vice President of the Greenpoint Monitor Museum, testified in support of the project, highlighting the educational value of the museum, which showcases the USS Monitor, the legendary Civil War battleship that was built in Greenpoint. Weinmann traced his family history in Greenpoint back to his ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, and explained how local children recognize him and his wife, Janice — who serves as the museum’s president — on the street as the “Monitor people.”
“We tell them that we are going to build a museum on the land that shares the launch site of the USS Monitor, the ship that saved the Union, and we don’t want to disappoint them,” Weinmann said. “Please approve and make the Monitor Museum a reality.”
Chris Duerr, a longtime Greenpointer and father, had a different take. He described how his son was eight-years-old in 2016 when Mayor de Blasio assured the community it would get the full, 27.8-acre Bushwick Inlet Park. Now, his son’s off to college, Duerr said, and the full park still isn’t built.
“This is not about affordable housing,” he said. “Affordable housing and this museum are the Trojan Horse for luxury tower development.”
Duerr continued, addressing Gotham directly: “The plans that you guys presented are very compelling, but we’ve seen a lot of plans, and we would appreciate not being gaslit one more time.”
The state approved National Grid’s bid to expand fracked gas, but also ordered it to engage with its staunchest opponent: Greenpoint’s community board.
By JACK DELANEY | jdelaney@queensledger.com
WILLIAMSBURG — The two groups shuffled in from the cold, unzipping their coats as they settled uneasily into opposite sides of the room.
On Thursday, January 15, representatives for National Grid — which provides energy to nearly 2 million customers in the New York metro area — met with Brooklyn Community Board 1 (CB1) at Swinging Sixties Older Adult Center, the first in-person forum since the state approved the company’s request to expand its fracked gas infrastructure last fall.
But this wasn’t a victory lap. While the approval of its “Long-Term Plan” was a major coup for National Grid, the regulator’s decision included some caveats. First, it noted that a new pipeline project running from New Jersey to the Rockaways, known as NESE, could eventually render National Grid’s 120-acre gas depot along Newtown Creek unnecessary, a boost to locals who have been calling for it to be decommissioned for decades.
Second, the ruling ordered National Grid to engage with CB1 and “take part in its meetings,” as a way for the fossil fuel giant to “hear the community’s concerns and attempt to address [them].”
The exact parameters or duration of that engagement are unclear, but the upshot on Thursday was clear: National Grid’s emissaries would have to answer questions from residents who have spent thousands of hours trying to shut down its primary foothold in North Brooklyn.
The meeting began with a presentation by MaryBeth Carroll, director of gas scenario planning for National Grid and a lead architect of its Long-Term Plan, who foregrounded the discussion with an overview of the company’s operations throughout New York City. Nearly all of its fracked gas is sourced from the Marcellus Shale in Northern Pennsylvania, she explained, before being carried by pipelines to two storage facilities — one in Holtsville, Long Island, and the other in Greenpoint.
“Do you all acknowledge that Greenpoint residents don’t want this LNG storage in the neighborhood?”
The audience, exclusively composed of local environmental advocates, wasted no time in interrogating Carroll’s high-level summary. One bone of contention during the two-year legal battle over the Long Term Plan was whether the quantity of natural gas stored inside the Greenpoint Energy Center made sense. National Grid claimed that the hulking tanks were a fallback in case the demand for gas spiked far above supply amid an extremely cold spell. But an independent consultant found that those reserves were almost never used — and as one attendee noted, the corporation’s forecasts are based on a hypothetical “design day” in which the average temperature drops to 0º Fahrenheit, something that has not happened in NYC since 1934.
“It has not gotten within 10 degrees of that in the last 15 years,” noted a member of Sane Energy Project, a Greenpoint-based advocacy group that was out in force for the CB1 meeting. “If there’s evidence to show that it should be raised, are you currently working to raise it? Because clearly this is not appropriate design day, and that’s costing all of us who pay bills here a lot of money.”
The presentation next turned to safety protocols. “We want to make sure that everybody who is a customer stays safe, that everybody who is living in the communities around our customers stays safe, and that our employees stay safe,” said Carroll. “It’s just something that we are uncompromising on.”
But the Greenpointers in the crowd shot back with several pointed questions. Kim Fraczek, director of Sane Energy Project, brought up an explosion at the nearby gas depot in 2022 that knocked a worker unconscious, asking why the community board was never informed. (“I’m aware of that incident,” replied Carroll, promising to loop in CB1’s Steve Chesler in the future. “I don’t know the details.”)
Next, Laura Hoffman inquired about the extent of soil pollution at both the depot site and an adjacent Little League field that was opened by National Grid in 1999 as a gift to the community before being closed in 2022 as revelations of contamination came to light. “To my knowledge, the lead that was on the property from previous demolitions was never cleaned up, which was part of the reason why the kids were no longer allowed to use the ball field,” she said. “My grandson was one of the kids that played there. Since you’re talking about the commitment to safety, I want to hear about that.”
Another prominent topic was National Grid’s initiatives to promote non-pipeline alternatives (NPA), a range of measures — such as heat pumps, improved insulation, and managing demand — that limit the need for companies to build more gas infrastructure. Residents noted that National Grid refers many customers to Con Edison’s program rather than investing in one of its own.
“We would be very interested to work with you on that. If you’re considering doing pipe replacements, you can work together with us from the community to organize blocks to do that,” said Fraczek. “The last time you had a community engagement person come to CB1, he told me and a few others that the only thing he does with his job is tell people when to move their cars. I wonder if there could be a better partnership.”
“We’re happy to do it,” said Carroll. “We want to deliver on these things, we just need willing customers.”
The final word, before the National Grid contingent ceded the floor to a representative of an organization working to abolish microplastics, went to fourth-generation local Kevin LaCherra, who refocused the conversation on the Greenpoint Energy Center.
“This community does not want this facility here. It is on some of the most polluted land in North America. It’s 120 acres — you could fit every park in the neighborhood on that facility,” he said. “We’re asked to subsidize it; we’re asked to live next to it. So I do think, with all of this, what I really want to know is do you all acknowledge that Greenpoint residents don’t want this LNG storage in the neighborhood?”
“What I am most interested in going forward is how your planning, as you come back here, is going to reflect what we as residents are asking for,” added LaCherra. “That needs to be a part of this going forward — otherwise, it’s a lot of fancy slides.”
The other night I met James Nunez, a lifelong Greenpointer of Puerto Rican heritage and we reminisced about the long history of Puerto Ricans in North Brooklyn. Though Puerto Ricans still comprise a vibrant part of our community, many have been forced out of our area, victims to gentrification. James’ grandmother ran a Puerto Rican restaurant in the area until the 1990s. When I first arrived in Greenpoint in the early 1990s, walking north of Greenpoint Avenue meant experiencing Puerto Rico’s exuberant culture. Families sat outside on the street often playing dominoes while listening to salsa music, the smell of pork or chicken being barbecued on a grill wafting through the air.
Many North Brooklyn residents are surprised to learn that Puerto Ricans have lived in our area for over a century. In 1924, Congress passed the first immigration law, severely restricting immigration by establishing national quotas based on the 1890 census, heavily favoring Northern and Western Europeans, and completely barring Asians, particularly Japanese, reflecting widespread nativism and xenophobia. This act dramatically reduced overall immigration, created the first U.S. Border Patrol, and aimed to preserve a perceived homogeneous “American” demographic makeup for decades. In the 1920s, North Brooklyn was the beating heart of industrial New York City, then the planet’s largest industrial city. Local factories, heavily dependent on immigrant Jewish, Polish and Italian labor, facing a manpower shortage, looked to Puerto Rican whose residents were American citizens legally able to work in New York.
One of the local industries hit was the by the labor shortage was the American Hemp Rope Manufacturing Company located on a sprawling campus on West Street. Desperate for workers, the firm sent a ship to Puerto Rico and returned with 130 Puerto Rican women to make rope and shoelaces for the company Other local industries also recruited workers in Puerto Rico including Domino Sugar, which once ran the world’s largest sugar refinery in Williamsburg.
Puerto Ricans who spoke Spanish as a first language encountered many problems, including racism, discrimination and language issues because local schools for many years had no programs for immigrant children to learn English as a second language. Puerto Rican children suffered a very high dropout rate in schools. In 1961, Puerto Rican woman Antonia Pantoja founded ASPIRA (Spanish for “aspire”), a non-profit organization that promoted educational reform to help struggling Hispanic students. In 1972, ASPIRA of New York, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit demanding that New York City provide classroom instruction for struggling Latino students and bilingual and English as a Second Language instruction was born helping Hispanic students learn English and stay in school.
By the 1950s, North Brooklyn had become home to thousands of Puerto Rican migrants. Many white residents left Brooklyn in the 1960s for the suburbs and Puerto Ricans quickly replaced them. The North end of Greenpoint became predominately Puerto Rican and the south side of Williamsburg also grew into a huge Puerto Rican quarter.
By the late 1960s, Puerto Ricans comprised about a third of the local population. Many Puerto Ricans bought houses left by locals fleeing the area for the suburbs and a generation of Puerto Rican Greenpointers came of age locally. Although some Puerto Ricans owned their own homes most were renters who were forced out by rising housing prices.
Puerto Ricans soon organized to fight gentrification. In 1972, Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics in the south side of Williamsburg helped organize Los Sures, a community organization that still exists, which fights to help working-class people secure their housing rights. Los Sures was also perhaps the first North Brooklyn organization to provide a number of vital community services including education, senior citizen services and even a food pantry. Los Sures began responding to problems that confront tenants today, including withdrawal of city services, lease violations and illegal evictions. The organization also fought property owners trying to vacate their buildings to gentrify and whiten the neighborhood. Los Sures promoted community-based control of housing, both through management and ownership. In 1975, Los Sures became Brooklyn’s first community-based organization to enter into agreements to manage City-owned properties. It also became one of the first tenant advocacy groups to undertake large-scale rehabilitation. Still fighting for local people, Los Sures is a vital force in community activism.
Though the Puerto Rican presence in North Brooklyn is far smaller than it once was, many Puerto Ricans still and work in our area. Many Puerto Rican Greenpointers run local businesses including lifelong resident Catherine Vera Milligan who runs a wonderful coffee shop at 269 Nassau Avenue. If you want to eat delicious authentic Puerto Rican food try Guarapo restaurant on 58 North 3rd Street, Chrome at 525 Grand Street or La Isla at 293 Broadway. These places prove that Puerto Rican culture is still a vital part of the gorgeous mosaic of cultures that make up North Brooklyn. The other night I met James Nunez, a lifelong Greenpointer of Puerto Rican heritage and we reminisced about the long history of Puerto Ricans in North Brooklyn. Though Puerto Ricans still comprise a vibrant part of our community, many have been forced out of our area, victims to gentrification. James’ grandmother ran a Puerto Rican restaurant in the area until the 1990s. When I first arrived in Greenpoint in the early 1990s, walking north of Greenpoint Avenue meant experiencing Puerto Rico’s exuberant culture. Families sat outside on the street often playing dominoes while listening to salsa music, the smell of pork or chicken being barbecued on a grill wafting through the air.
Many North Brooklyn residents are surprised to learn that Puerto Ricans have lived in our area for over a century. In 1924, Congress passed the first immigration law, severely restricting immigration by establishing national quotas based on the 1890 census, heavily favoring Northern and Western Europeans, and completely barring Asians, particularly Japanese, reflecting widespread nativism and xenophobia. This act dramatically reduced overall immigration, created the first U.S. Border Patrol, and aimed to preserve a perceived homogeneous “American” demographic makeup for decades. In the 1920s, North Brooklyn was the beating heart of industrial New York City, then the planet’s largest industrial city. Local factories, heavily dependent on immigrant Jewish, Polish and Italian labor, facing a manpower shortage, looked to Puerto Rican whose residents were American citizens legally able to work in New York.
One of the local industries hit was the by the labor shortage was the American Hemp Rope Manufacturing Company located on a sprawling campus on West Street. Desperate for workers, the firm sent a ship to Puerto Rico and returned with 130 Puerto Rican women to make rope and shoelaces for the company Other local industries also recruited workers in Puerto Rico including Domino Sugar, which once ran the world’s largest sugar refinery in Williamsburg.
Puerto Ricans who spoke Spanish as a first language encountered many problems, including racism, discrimination and language issues because local schools for many years had no programs for immigrant children to learn English as a second language. Puerto Rican children suffered a very high dropout rate in schools. In 1961, Puerto Rican woman Antonia Pantoja founded ASPIRA (Spanish for “aspire”), a non-profit organization that promoted educational reform to help struggling Hispanic students. In 1972, ASPIRA of New York, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit demanding that New York City provide classroom instruction for struggling Latino students and bilingual and English as a Second Language instruction was born helping Hispanic students learn English and stay in school.
By the 1950s, North Brooklyn had become home to thousands of Puerto Rican migrants. Many white residents left Brooklyn in the 1960s for the suburbs and Puerto Ricans quickly replaced them. The North end of Greenpoint became predominately Puerto Rican and the south side of Williamsburg also grew into a huge Puerto Rican quarter.
By the late 1960s, Puerto Ricans comprised about a third of the local population. Many Puerto Ricans bought houses left by locals fleeing the area for the suburbs and a generation of Puerto Rican Greenpointers came of age locally. Although some Puerto Ricans owned their own homes most were renters who were forced out by rising housing prices.
Puerto Ricans soon organized to fight gentrification. In 1972, Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics in the south side of Williamsburg helped organize Los Sures, a community organization that still exists, which fights to help working-class people secure their housing rights. Los Sures was also perhaps the first North Brooklyn organization to provide a number of vital community services including education, senior citizen services and even a food pantry. Los Sures began responding to problems that confront tenants today, including withdrawal of city services, lease violations and illegal evictions. The organization also fought property owners trying to vacate their buildings to gentrify and whiten the neighborhood. Los Sures promoted community-based control of housing, both through management and ownership. In 1975, Los Sures became Brooklyn’s first community-based organization to enter into agreements to manage City-owned properties. It also became one of the first tenant advocacy groups to undertake large-scale rehabilitation. Still fighting for local people, Los Sures is a vital force in community activism.
Though the Puerto Rican presence in North Brooklyn is far smaller than it once was, many Puerto Ricans still and work in our area. Many Puerto Rican Greenpointers run local businesses including lifelong resident Catherine Vera Milligan who runs a wonderful coffee shop at 269 Nassau Avenue. If you want to eat delicious authentic Puerto Rican food try Guarapo restaurant on 58 North 3rd Street, Chrome at 525 Grand Street or La Isla at 293 Broadway. These places prove that Puerto Rican culture is still a vital part of the gorgeous mosaic of cultures that make up North Brooklyn.
A proposal to build towers by Bushwick Inlet has drawn pushback, and a key hearing is next week. Here’s what you need to know.
By COLE SINANIAN
news@queensledger.com
On Tuesday, January 20, Greenpointers will testify to Community Board 1 regarding plans from the Gotham Organization to build three residential towers just to the north of Bushwick Inlet, marking the beginning of what is sure to be one of Greenpoint’s landmark land-use battles of the year.
The proposed development, located at 40 and 56 Quay Street on a small peninsula called Monitor Point, would also include museum and retail space and require a rezoning from medium to high-density. It has garnered serious opposition from local activists, who argue the towers are far too big for the location and betray a two-decade-old commitment on the City’s part to reserve the area around the inlet for public parks.
There are also environmental and gentrification concerns; the towers would sit on the banks of a rare and ecologically sensitive estuary that’s only just begun to recover from centuries of environmental exploitation. And with nearly 3,000 new residents expected to be added to the neighborhood — most of whom would be paying luxury rent — critics worry that the project will only accelerate displacement in an already gentrified community.
Developers and City planners, meanwhile, have highlighted the importance of boosting housing stock and the public benefits the project would fund. Namely, a new Greenpoint Monitor Museum — which would explore the history of the USS Monitor, an early ironclad ship built in Greenpoint — and an extension of the East River esplanade that would connect the Greenpoint and Williamsburg waterfronts.
But the land on which the proposed towers would be built — currently owned by the NYC Transit Authority and the Greenpoint Monitor Museum — was set aside as park land as part of the 2005 Greenpoint/Williamsburg rezoning, with the intention of eventual acquisition by the City Parks Department. For the local critics, at issue is the question of the role the public should play in deciding the fate of New York City’s treasured waterfront land, and the City’s responsibility in honoring the word of former administrations.
“There’s this choice that’s being presented to us that’s not fair or feasible,” said Katherine Thompson, one of the directors at Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park, at a January 8 presentation at the Greenpoint Library. “That you can have either open space and protect the environment or affordable housing— it shouldn’t be this dichotomy.”
The Plan
The mixed-use development would include three residential buildings, pedestrian connections along the waterfront that would connect Bushwick Inlet Park to the Shore Public Walkway to the north, retail space, and a building that would house an expanded Greenpoint Monitor Museum. The residential towers would stand 640ft tall, 490ft and 260ft tall and sit about 50ft from the Bushwick Inlet shoreline. The two properties, 40 Quay Street and 56 Quay Street, currently house an MTA storage facility and the current Monitor Museum, respectively.
The developers would need a rezoning to build towers of this scale. Currently, the area is zoned R6, which is medium density and requires developers to implement setbacks and other contextual considerations when building towers. They are seeking to upzone to R8, or “high density” residential.
The Gotham Organization estimates construction cost of $630 million. Altogether the towers will include 1,150 residential units.
The Opposition
As part of the consequential 2005 Williamsburg/Greenpoint rezoning that transformed the heavily polluted, once-industrial area into residential neighborhoods, the City set aside several plots of land around Bushwick Inlet to be converted into public park space. Monitor Point was one of these properties, designated as park land on the City Map. Another became the current Bushwick Inlet Park. Others have remained empty, the soil contaminated from years of housing petroleum and fuel storage facilities, still awaiting cleanup.
Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park was formed in part to hold the City accountable for ensuring this land became the public space that the rezoning designated it as, said Greenpointer Steve Chesler, who sits on the organization’s board of directors. In 2015, a paper storage facility owned by CitiStorage caught fire and burned to the ground. The City considered allowing the property owner to sell it to a private developer, but Friends of Bushwick Inlet launched an aggressive campaign, urging the City to purchase the property and keep its commitment to making this land available to the public.
For Chesler and Thompson, the move to build residential towers on a property once slated as park land represents a betrayal by the City, and an insult to years of activism aimed at preserving the waterfront around Bushwick Inlet for.
A petition by a group called Save the Inlet has already gathered more than 5,000 signatures. At the January 8 meeting at Greenpoint Library — organized to educate Greenpointers and to help them prepare their testimonies for the hearing on the 20th — community members expressed concern about the neighborhood’s population density, the shadows the towers would cast, the traffic construction could cause, and the use of small affordable housing concessions to justify what they have described as an unsustainable and out-of-context development.
Scot Fraser, a documentary filmmaker who sits on Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park’s Board of Directors, called out the long shadows the towers would cast over the adjacent neighborhood. He also pointed out the irony of the situation — the northernmost section of the park, known as the Motiva Parcel, is set to open in the coming months after years of cleanup and advocacy. However, should the Monitor Point Towers be built, the Motiva section’s opening will likely coincide with the noisy arrival of cement trucks and construction crews.
“That part of the park is just about to open, the Motiva section of the park, will be immediately devoured by excavating trucks,” Fraser said.
Some residents at the meeting called the city’s affordable housing designations out-of-touch. According to the Draft Impact Environmental study, the Gotham Organization will make 25% of the Monitor Point towers’ residential units affordable at 60% area median income (AMI), a salary that, in New York City, amounts to about $87,000 for a three-person family.
Others, meanwhile, criticized the City for making the discussion about housing at all.
“They love the idea about us spending time talking about what percentage of affordable housing, because then they’ve already forced the false choice,” said a Greenpointer named Andy.
“We don’t want to talk about what percentage of affordable housing. We want to talk about, find another site.”
The Process
Despite the already simmering opposition, the plan is still in the earliest advisory stages of the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP, which dictates the approval process for development.
ULURP goes like this: A developer submits its plan, along with a draft environmental impact statement, to the Department of City Planning, which reviews and certifies it. Next, the local Community Board has 60 days to review the application and provide a recommendation. This recommendation is non-binding.
“It’s not technically binding conditions,” said Chesler, who also sits on Community Board 1. “But the board kind of sets the stage. The borough president, and especially our city council member, have to answer to the people.”
The community board review stage is made up of several meetings, of which the public hearing on January 20 is a part. On February 3, the Community Board’s Land Use Review Committee will meet to deliberate, followed by a full-board vote on February 10.
After the community board’s recommendation, the plan goes to the borough president, whose recommendation will take into account the community board’s. Still, the borough president’s recommendation, like the community board’s, is non-binding, meaning the plan could still proceed without it.
The plans are then sent to the City Planning Commission (CPC) for a 60-day review. This decision is binding; the plan dies if the CPC rejects it.
If the plan is approved by the CPC, it then goes to the City Council for a 50-day review. “Member deference” is customary— that is, the City councilmember whose district the plans concern has the final say. In this case, that councilmember is Lincoln Restler.
Finally, the mayor has the option to veto the council’s approval. If he does not, then the project is approved.
The January 20th public hearing begins at 6:00pm in the auditorium of the Polish and Slavic Center at 176 Java St. The public will get one minute to read their testimonies. It might make sense to arrive early— if the January 8 meeting was any indication, the hearing on the 20th will be quite the spectacle.
One of the first things that our new Mayor Zohran Mamdani did was to come to Greenpoint and address the controversy surrounding McGuinness Boulevard, the four- lane traffic artery that divides the neighborhood and many local resi- dents. Before we address the present controversy let’s take a look at the history of the boulevard. Once, Mc- Guinness Boulevard was not a four- lane speedway at all/ It was once quaint Oakland Street; a charming cobblestoned street lined by pretty, wood-frame 19th-century homes typical of our historic district.
It is hard to conceive the mindset that wanted to destroy such a lovely street and replace it with a soulless four-lane highway, but in the late 1950s automobiles were seen as the future of transportation and the city was ready to carve up Greenpoint for motorists. Robert Moses, the in- famous power broker, had his sights on our area. Moses, who arguably had the greatest influence on New York’s infrastructure of any person who ever lived, wanted to destroy Oakland Street. The destruction of Oakland Street was only a small piece in the grand scheme of Rob- ert Moses who built the BQE, the Tri-borough Bridge, and the Cross-
Bronx Expressway. Moses wanted a city for motorists and tens of thou- sands of homes across the city fell victim to his projects.
Oakland Street was, sadly, the only north-south street, other than Manhattan Ave. that stretched to Newtown Creek. In the late 1950s the city determined that the rick- ety old Vernon Blvd. Bridge, which Greenpointers called the Manhattan Avenue Bridge, should be replaced. The north end of Oakland Street be- came the logical place to build a new bridge of the creek, and they built the Pulaski Bridge to funnel traffic between the Brooklyn Queens Ex- pressway in Brooklyn and Long Is- land City.
When the new bridge first opened, Oakland Street was widened, but only as far south as Greenpoint Ave- nue – and gas stations to service the heavy car and truck traffic quickly appeared. The narrow section of Oakland Street remaining beyond Greenpoint Avenue survived, but created traffic jams, dooming the quaint cobblestone street and its pretty houses.
All of the houses on the east side of Oakland Street and all the houses from Driggs Ave to the BQE were condemned by the City to create the new grand boulevard. Some residents tried to fight and save their homes, but their utilities were cut off, and they grudgingly accepted com- pensation for their beloved homes. Amazingly though, most people did not protest. They regarded losing their homes and the cobblestoned street as the price to pay for progress. The only defiance by the community was a proposal for more gas stations on the boulevard south of Meserole Av- enue. The commu- nity killed the idea and that is the only reason new hous- ing was built on the thoroughfare at all.
In 1964, Sal- vatore Tortorici pressed his local alderman, Joe Shar- key to rename the new boulevard in honor of the great- est politician in lo- cal history: Peter J. McGuiness, who had passed away in 1948. The City Council passed the name change unani- mously and Oak- land Street was re- named McGuinness Boulevard.
Many local residents have complained about the way motorists drive along the boulevard. The four wide lanes encouraged aggressive driving, illegal passing, and excessive speeding—conditions that routinely lead to serious motor vehicle collisions. Hundreds of pedestrians have been hit on McGuinness Boulevard, with over 200 fatalities since 1956, including 11 pedestrians or cyclists killed between 1995 and 2021.
Activists in the community pushed for the transformation of McGuinness into a two-lane, pedestrian friendly artery with bike lanes. Wealthy production company own- ers Gina and Tony Argento funded a movement to block the changes to the boulevard. After the redesign began in 2023, the Adams admin- istration abruptly switched course, throwing its support behind a re- vised plan for the northern section of the road that critics called wa- tered down and insufficient.
In August, the Manhattan district attorney charged Ingrid Lewis-Mar- tin, a top aide to Mr. Adams, with conspiring to kill the original pro- posal, in exchange for a relatively small sum of money and a speaking role on a television series owned by the Argento siblings. Ms. Lewis-Martin pleaded not guilty, as did the production company’s owners, Gina and Anthony Argento, who were also charged.
Last week, Mayor Mamdani, surrounded by supporters with signs bearing the names of crash victims on the boulevard, said he would finish the original, full plan for the roadway as soon as weather permit- ted, and that he would not be “bowed by big-money interests.” “Thanks to so many who went out and pounded the pavement, that pavement now will change,” he said. Some residents fear that the changes to the boulevard will lead to increased auto traffic on the streets running parallel to the boulevard. One thing though is certain, the boulevard will soon change into a narrower, more pedes- trian and cyclist friendly artery.
A few years ago, I was driving towards the BQE on a cold blustery early January day, not unlike the recent cold snap we have been having, when I was shocked to see a camel at the intersection of Graham Avenue and Meeker Avenues. Much to my delight, I realized that the camel was part of an old Hispanic tradition that is still celebrated in our area, the Feast of the Three Kings, a beautiful part of Puerto Rican and Latinx heritage that will be on display this week.
The Feast of the Three kings has its roots in Spanish and Latin American Catholic culture. The feast is a celebration of the Epiphany, the day the Three Kings, or Three Wise Men, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, reached Bethlehem, after a 12-day journey guided by a star, to where baby Jesus lay. The Kings, who arrived by camel, brought gold, frankincense, myrrh, and annotated oil to Jesus. According to Hispanic tradition, on the Epiphany before going to sleep, children leave grass or hay under their beds, or in their shoes, for the camels that carry the Three Kings on their travels to deliver gifts to children around the world. In the morning, children find gifts in place of the hay and families have a big celebration. Inspired by the Magi who brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Infant, in many Hispanic cultures families also celebrate the day with an exchange of gifts. Another tradition is the eating of a Roscon de Reyes (King’s Ring). This sweet bread shaped like a wreath has a figurine of a baby Jesus baked inside. Customarily, the person who finds the figurine is expected to host a party on Día de la Candelaria (Candlemas), celebrated on February 2nd.
Three Kings Day is widely celebrated in Spain and across much of Latin America, including Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Colombia, and parts of Central and South America. There are celebrations across New York City in areas where Puerto Rican and other Latino immigrants have settled including East Harlem, The Lower East Side and Williamsburg/Greenpoint. In Puerto Rico towns across the island, from San Juan to Ponce, hold vibrant celebrations every January 6 th . For many in the Latinx and Caribbean communities, this day represents faith, unity, and cultural resilience. It is a living and vital link for New York Hispanics to the culture and faith of their roots and one that they are fighting to keep alive.
Saturday January 10 th the Southside Williamsburg Hispanic community organization El Puente will hold its thirty-ninth annual Feast of the Three Kings celebration from 10- 6 at 211 South 4th St., Williamsburg with a parade. When the first feast day was celebrated almost forty years ago, there was a huge Hispanic presence in the area, but as a result of gentrification the Hispanic population, which comprised fifty percent of residents in 2010 is now down under 20%, but organizers of the festivities are determined to keep the tradition going. Parade founder and president, Radames Millan, says that the event was begun so that young Hispanics are aware of and continue to preserve the culture of their parents and ancestors. The parade often includes colorful floats, dancers in colorful Mexican costumes, a stilt walker waving the Puerto Rican flag, local merchants advertising their wares and of course vibrant Hispanic music. A Padrino, which literally means Godfather is chosen from the community as a special honoree of the parade. Two Madrinas, or Godmothers are also honored in the parade.
El Puente’s celebration features singing, dancing, acting by local elementary to high school students, highlighting their roles as future leaders. The tradition also blends culture with advocacy, focusing on important community themes like peace, justice, self-determination, and environmental sustainability, the same themes that inspired El Puente’s legendary late founder Jose Garden Acosta to found this community service organization.
Each year El Puente chooses a theme for the feast. Last year the theme was Planting a seed, honoring children as future leaders and focusing on nurturing their potential for peace and justice. For El Puente the celebration is also a means for local Hispanics to affirm their identity and culture, while maintaining their unique traditions, even in a new setting.
Another celebration of the Feast of the Three Kings will take place Tuesday January 6 th at the Moore Street market 110 Moore St., Williamsburg and the free celebration will include hot chocolate, gifts, and arts & crafts. Even if you are not Hispanic, the Feast of the Three Kings celebration is lively festive and rhythmic offering a fun way to learn about the rich Hispanic heritage of North Brooklyn. Come out and enjoy the fun.
Right after Thanksgiving in Greenpoint and Williamsburg every year, the sidewalks are suddenly transformed. Hundreds of cut Christmas trees magically appear, just like mushrooms in a forest after a heavy rain. Though the trees are plentiful, they are not cheap. Tiny trees will run you $50, while a premium tree can cost up to $300! Even though the prices are high, we always buy a tree and drag it home. Decorating the tree brings back happy memories of childhood long ago and the scent that fills the house is heavenly. Please don’t remind me about the pain of cleaning the ubiquitous needles and dragging the tree out of the house at the end of the holiday!
Seeing the trees for sale waiting on snowy local sidewalks reminds me of one of the most touching chapters in the best book ever written about Brooklyn, the 1943 classic, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The novel is a coming-of-age story of a young local girl, Francie Nolan who grows up in the poverty of Williamsburg tenements in 1912. The novel was a huge success, and it transformed its author Betty Smith into a famous author overnight. Twentieth Century Fox acquired the rights to the book and two years later it became a box office hit that won a special Oscar award.
Smith’s chapter about Christmas in our area long ago is one of the most poignant. Francie, the protagonist and narrator, paints a vivid picture of how the struggling local population experienced Christmas long ago. Christmas trees, sadly, were a luxury many could not afford. Ten-year-old Francie excitedly tells her readers, “Christmas was a charmed time in Brooklyn.” Though they were a charmed time for local children, they were also times of great cruelty as one local ritual the narrator vividly describes proves.
Over a century ago, local sidewalks were also transformed by a salesman hawking Christmas trees. Smith tells us that spruce trees began coming into the neighborhood a week before Christmas. She relates in her novel, “There was a cruel custom in the neighborhood. It was about the trees still unsold at midnight of Christmas eve. There was a saying that if you waited until then you wouldn’t have to buy a tree, that they’d chuck ’em at you.” This was literally true.
The kids in the area gathered where there were unsold trees. The man threw each tree in turn, starting with the biggest. Kids volunteered to stand up against the biggest. If a boy did not fall under the impact of the tree, it was his.
The impoverished protagonist, Francie, age ten, and her brother Neely, age nine, volunteered to catch a tree, the biggest in the neighborhood at ten feet. The tree was so large and so expensive that it remained unsold in this area of poor people. Tiny Francie and her brother stepped up to catch the huge tree, much to the delight of the snickering residents who had gathered to watch and enjoy the cruel spectacle. The tree seller admired the bravery of the little duo and thought about just giving them the tree, but rationalized that if he gave them the tree, it would encourage people the following year to wait until midnight and not buy the trees, hurting his business. The tree salesman finally hurled the ten-foot spruce at the tiny pair and though their legs quivered, they did not buckle under the weight of the tree, and it was theirs, though being hit with the heavy spruce had left them both bruised and bloodied.
The tree salesman finished the cruel ritual by telling the battered kids,” And now get the hell out of here with your tree you lousy bastards.”
The children then eagerly dragged the large tree back to their apartment to decorate it. The readers share in the Christmas joy of the poor children who have paid such a steep price for this symbol of Christmas. The scene re-enforces the theme of the book that poverty was hard in Williamsburg, but it made the kids who suffered through it even harder.
Thankfully, over a century later our area is far richer. Thousands of locals can afford even high-priced trees, and no child is reduced to the bloody spectacle of catching an unsold Christmas tree, a fact that we can all celebrate this Christmas season.
Located at 426 S 5th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211, 42 Hotel offers a refined, modern, and luxurious stay right in the heart of Williamsburg. With chic interiors, elevated service, and instant access to the neighborhood’s iconic restaurants, boutiques, galleries, and nightlife, the hotel captures everything that makes Williamsburg one of New York’s most desirable destinations.
Enhancing the guest experience even further is Blackbird, the hotel’s elegant on-site restaurant. Blending contemporary style with a warm, inviting atmosphere, Blackbird showcases seasonal dishes, elevated comfort classics, and craft cocktails- making it a perfect spot for a relaxed brunch, a refined dinner, or happy hour. Whether you’re staying at the hotel or simply exploring the neighborhood, Blackbird adds a delicious layer of sophistication to the 42 Hotel experience.
