Group pushing for waterfront connections

A group of 50 civic organizations wants the waterfronts of four bordering boroughs to be accessible, revitalized, and connected with public transportation.
&#8220Land uses along the waterfront are changing from industrial to residential, commercial and recreation[al], and opportunities exist to create a world-class waterfront,” Kent Barwick, President of the Municipal Art Society (MAS), told city residents during a six-stop tour of East River docking points in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens on Thursday, June 21.
The MAS and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, a newly minted group of 50-city civics, organized the water-taxi tour to depict key spots included in their &#8220East River Agenda,” aimed at increasing access, community planning and stewardship at the city's 532 miles of shoreline.
During the tour, guests, including City Councilmember Eric Gioia and Borough President Helen Marshall, viewed the Queens waterfront - as they traveled from the Bronx to Long Island City and then to Brooklyn.
&#8220My entire life growing up in Queens, we've been cut off from our waterfront,” said Gioia, who has been working to create a 10.6-mile greenway stretching from the Pulaski Bridge and Flushing Bay Promenade. &#8220Today, I join my friends, neighbors and advocates from across our great city to celebrate the progress we have made in reclaiming the waterfront and to lay out our future plans for the shores of the East River.”
In the Agenda, organizers listed 73 issues in Queens - broken down by the five City Council districts bordering the East River, Little Neck Bay, Flushing Bay, World's Fair Marina and Bowery Bay - where they believe the waterfront could be improved. Ideas ranged from grand-scale plans like creating a comprehensive Newtown Creek restoration scheme and ensuring that construction of the new Mets Stadium and Willets Point development do not pollute local waterways to ideas much easier to enact like adding &#8220safe fishing” guideline signs in several languages at potential fishing spots.
&#8220The Agenda is a response to the Mayor's bold plan to reclaim 90 percent of the city's waterways by 2030,” said MWA President Roland Lewis.
The groups would also like to see a water taxi dock created at Fort Totten, Little Neck Bay designated as a &#8220special natural district,” a historic trail created in Old Astoria Village, and a public library devoted entirely to New York's estuaries. In addition, affordable ferry access to LaGuardia Airport, a community boathouse near the Roosevelt Avenue Bridge in Corona, and a waterside performing arts space in Long Island City are all ideas that the groups would like the city to look into.
In Queens, local residents were quick to point out the Water Taxi Beach, a 22,000-square-foot sandy lot on Borden Avenue, as one place where they can currently enjoy the borough's waterfront.
During an hour-long stop at the beach, its founder and NY Water Taxi CEO Tom Fox had a chance to chat with members from other water-related organizations like the Long Island City Community Boathouse, about ways to improve sections of shoreline directly adjacent to his beach.
Fox explained that he added hospital-grade mufflers to all of his boats and made sure that they were all handicapped accessible. In addition, he hopes to plan a tour of just the Queens waterfront.