COLUMN: Is Red Hook well served by government? (or do we even have one), by George Fiala

From time to time over the years I have written about the possibilities of Red Hook that seem to be limited by the lack of any type of governing authority specific to our unique neighborhood.

Obviously we are a part of a much bigger city, but so is City Island, for example. While it is officially part of the Bronx, you might never know it as a tourist there. Like us, it’s surrounded by water, but there the similarity ends.

“If some regular, in-person meetings could get started, if nothing else, we’d all get to know each other better… like in the old days.”

Here is City Island as described in Wikipedia:

The island is famous for its seafood restaurants; lobster[3] is a popular specialty. Over 30 eating establishments compete for business, ranging from fast food (Johnny’s Reef), to The Lobster Box, to The Black Whale, famous for its desserts. The Snug is an Irish pub connected to the City Island Diner. While a few of the restaurants close during the winter months, most are open year-round.

The City Island Nautical Museum displays maritime artifacts and antiques. It is located at 190 Fordham Street and is open only on Saturday and Sunday afternoons (other times by appointment). Admission is five dollars and there is a small gift shop. The building was PS17 in its prior life.

The Island has landmarks such as the Samuel Pell Mansion on City Island Avenue, near St. Mary Star of the Sea Church. It is where Arsenic and Old Lace was filmed for TV in 1969. There are a number of old Victorian mansions located throughout City Island, mostly on the Sound side, complete with tall pointy spires and gables with gazebos, such as Delmours Point on Tier Street.

The City Island Theater Group is the local community theater that produces shows year round.
City Island Gold Honey is produced by honeybees from the six hive apiary of the Kheck-Gannon family on Minnieford Avenue. It is marketed by the Kaleidoscope Gallery. Apiary tours and Beekeeping lessons are available.

All this in a community with less than half the number of residents that we have.
Back in 2014, before Thor Equities created the Amazon warehouse just opening on the former Revere Sugar property next to IKEA, I wrote about how Red Hook could develop there, which included this:

“A plan for the Revere Sugar land. This is the unused land that lies between the Beard Street buildings and IKEA. It once housed a sugar business owned by friends of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Revere went out of business in 1985, and the land was bought for what was then a real big number, around $40 million, by the rapacious Joe Sitt of Thor Equities. While Thor Equities has done real estate developments, they are also fond of using their vast cash horde to warehouse properties and then flip them as they become more strategically valuable. This was done most famously by them a few years back in Coney Island. When I think of Joe Sitt, I think of the Ferengi, who are the people with big ears who search the fictional Star Trek universe in search of deals. 

In any case, the guy, who according to Wikipedia named his company Thor because he was a fan of Marvel Comics, knows how to accumulate vast fortunes. That’s good for him but bad for Red Hook. All that land lying unused, probably waiting for a good flip, is holding back development in our little town.

What this newspaper is afraid of, however, is that someday something will happen to the property that we won’t like. It is zoned ‘as of right’ which means that whoever felt like it could open a cheesy shopping mall if they felt like it.

Our wish is that a local group get together and devise a real plan that would develop the area in a way that we would like. This would prepare us properly for an upcoming battle some day. A group of us could meet regularly, perhaps at our fantasy town hall, and do some urban planning ourselves.

The Star-Revue likes to go to City Island in the Bronx – another area that is cut off from the rest of the borough and has its own charm. It has lots of Brooklyn Crab type places, and it has shore. We’d like something like that, and that land is big enough to accommodate other ideas as well.”

Well, as predicted, something did happen that many in the neighborhood don ‘t seem to like. I still think that we are ill-served by our City Council, our Community Board, our local business association and our Tenant Associations. And we sorely miss the Red Hook Civic Association, which at least tried to look out for the best interests of the whole neighborhood.

It would be great if somebody would take the initiative to start an organization not in their own particular interest, but to further some sort of communicty vision hashed out by a consensus of concerned Red Hookers.

Maybe something like what Community Board Six came up with in the last century, a neighborhood plan which was our own 197A plan, something that community boards once did.

It might be difficult to actually forge a consensus, but it’s worth trying, and if some regular, in-person meetings could get started, if nothing else, we’d all get to know each other better… like in the old days.