Odds and Sods, by George Fiala

Usually I spend a month trying to figure out what momentous topic I will be making pronouncement about in this column.

But for this month at least, I’m going to tackle a bunch of possibly less momentous issues that have been on my mind.

Law and Order

My office is inside the warehouses on Van Brunt Street across from Food Bazaar. This means that I am often walking and driving across their entrance. Above is a photo of that entrance, taken from within the parking lot.

Notice the red sign to the right. In all caps, just like Donald Trump writes online, it says DO NOT ENTER. In addition to that sign, there are yellow arrows in the pathway that leads away from the above entrance, all the way across the lot, to the exit, which is on Conover Street.

More and more, drivers of expensive vehicles are ignoring the sign and making a dangerous and illegal left turn onto Van Brunt Street.

Back when John McGettrick was leading the local civic association, he would occasionally petition DOT for a stop light. I believe the last one that he had a hand with was on Van Brunt and Pioneer.

That was after a mother and daughter got hit at that intersection (see below photo, courtesy of the Star-Revue photo taken by Steve Farber.

Do we need another heartbreaking event before somebody does something about this? Food Bazaar? 76th Precinct? Red Hook Neighbors Assembly? Anybody!!!

Multi Modal shipping

A while back the Star-Revue was lucky enough to have the services of Brett Yates, a highly thoughtful and talented reporter. He would come to the office no matter how hot or cold it was riding his bicycle all the way from Bushwick. He introduced me to the idea of multi-modal transportation, his idea of paying a single fare for bicycle rental, ferry trip, subway trip and whatever else, using the most efficient mode of transportation used on the different legs of trips.

Jim Tampakis, a local businesman that you have read about in these pages, has been advocating a long time for multi-modal shipping for the last mile warehouses. His efforts are finally starting to bear fruit as the Brooklyn Borough President, in his State of the Borough address, called for just such a thing, using Red Hook as his example, appearing on his slideshow.

A recent issue of the Gothamist detailed an EDC plan to introduce “maritime shipping hubs as a way to handle the booming number of e-commerce deliveries across the five boroughs.”

Over the years Jim has showed me and city officials  different versions of what he calls “mini-hubs.” Instead of using trucks and sprinter vans to both receive and deliver the goods from the last-mile warehouses, small barges would bring small containers closer to their eventual delivery points.

In addition to barging, replacing the delivery vans with electric versions seems to be finally happening.

I took the previous photo driving up Van Brunt Street one day. It is a flatbed truck with two Rivian electric trucks clearly marked Amazon, on their way to the warehouse. It’s starting to happen.

Jumping to conclusions

Before I say anything else, get that I am totally against shooting any police officer. The death of Officer Diller in Far Rockaway should never have happened.

The immediate hue and cry that was pushed by media outlets such as the NY Post and the NYPD railed against the bail reform laws which are now a  scapegoat for any criminal action.

Anyway, here is how I see this, and I fully admit that I could be wrong. What reporting I’ve seen says that two guys were sitting in their car in a bus stop. A patrol car stopped and all I hear is that the passenger was asked to exit the vehicle, and he resisted. There was a struggle with the door and the officer demanded that the passenger take his hands out of his hood pocket. The result of that was that he shot the officer. Nothing good about that, but was proper police procedure followed? A man is dead, in this case a police officer, in a situation that, before the actions of the police, was not very criminal (parking in a bus stop).

I look forward to the police report and the body cam footage which will hopefully follow.