New York Voices; 324

Walt Whitman described New York as a city of hurried and sparkling waters. A city of spires and masses. William Carlos Williams called the skyscrapers the moody, water-loving giants of Manhattan. New York is a city built on the water. And each generation has left its mark on its coastline. Tonight a look at the history and the changes ahead. On the Waterfront. New York. One voice at a time. New York Voices.

New York Voices is made possible by the members of . Additional funding provided by Michael T. Martin. Hello, I'm Rafael Pi Roman and in this edition of New York Voices. We're on the waterfront. You know if the many plans that are currently in the works ever become realities, the New York City coastline will be transformed once again. The trend is from traditional maritime industries to parks, waterfront apartments and commercial properties. Now whether that's a good thing or not depends on who you talk to. The city recently announced a massive rezoning of the Brooklyn waterfront in Williamsburg. We'll hear about that and other visions for the future in a moment but we begin with a look at the end of an era. We all know the Fulton Fish Market but some of us may not know that it's leaving. Yup. It's moving up to the Bronx. The market has been at its present location for almost 200 years. So we decided to pay a visit while it was still down on South Street. To hear from the people who know it and love it best. This is a little bit like a circus or a theater. It's like a resident

theater company or a reperatory company. The main thing is moving forward. But you've got to have fun while you're doing it. The fish comes by truck. All of it, typically on a, let us say, a very busy holiday weekend. You'll see trucks beginning to arrive here mid-day Sunday. There may be 30 40 or 50 semi's lined up along South Street between the fish market and the Manhattan Bridge. Let's walk around take a look at some merchandise as we go. Swordfish here was a little slice made out of the tail so that the buyer can take a look at the color and the character of the meat inside without having to dismantle a whole fish. If we're lucky we'll see some people cutting. And that's the exciting part to see people working on the fish.

Let's go. If you're in the food business. Time is money. And if you're buying a whole fish to take back to your store or your restaurant and you're taking the time to cut it yourself you're eating into your other time. What you're doing here is paying a professional to produce a product far better than anything you could do in your own store or in your own restaurant. Trying to describe the fish market is trying to describe a bunch of ants running around on a hill. They each have a job. They're doing something specific but unless you sort of live with it for a while it's really very hard to tell him. It's like combat loading of a amphibious vessel for a war. You put things where you're going to need them. Rather than where it's necessarily most convenient. The market as we know it now stems from the early part of the 19th century. Prior to that, the markets had been further south along the waterfront.

By early 1830s the fish market had moved out to a shed across the South St. On a water side of South Street. The reason of course is that that's where the fishing boats were coming in. And the fishing boats remember, did come in here until the 1970s. Most of the people that come to buy fish here are local fishmongers in the neighborhoods of New York or people that run small, sometimes family-run restaurants and they've been buying sometimes from the same vendors for generations. It's no more complicated than it is in a small town. In fact it may be easier because you get more choices. Specializes in swordfish and in Chilean sea bass. This is the hot fish of the time. This is the family which has been in the market for a very long time indeed, In fact, I can't even tell you how

long it may have been. My name is Nyma Ralem and I've been painting down here at the Fulton Fish Market for many years. In the beginning when I came to the Fulton Fish Market I did both oils and watercolors and now I do exclusively watercolor because I feel the medium is so well tuned to portraying different aspects of the market. The old buildings here are worn and shabby from from age so nothing is strange, nothing is pristine. I'm very fortunate to have my studio right in the middle of the Fulton Fish Market. And when the market moves up to the Hunts Point section of the Bronx my landlord tells me that he's got space for me so I will probably be the only artist with a studio at the Hunts Point food distribution center. Well we're all sad to know that the market will probably not be here a year and a half, two years. At

some point. Because it will leave a big vacuum in the neighborhood. It's now planned and in fact in process to move it to the Bronx from the Hunt's Point Industrial park area where most of the other major food wholesale markets are located. So, in a way, as progress moves along we lose a little bit. We gain a little bit. We like to think that in losing the market to the Bronx that it will be better for the fish. It will be better for the trade it will be better for New Yorkers in the long run. The sorry thing about it is that, instead of this vibrant unique, institution what we'll end up with is more retail, more residents. We need them. But do we need them here is the question? As we just saw the Fulton Fish Market will be leaving South Street after nearly two centuries. Whatever takes its place it's going to be a big transformation for that little part of the New York City waterfront.

Joining me now is someone who knows plenty about the endless transformation this city has undergone over the years, Urban historian Ken Jackson. Can the Fulton Fish Market moving up to Hunts Point in the Bronx really is an end of an era isn't it? Well, it's, it is the end of an era. The Fulton Fish Market's seen the ends of many eras over its almost two-century existance but it's own movement will itself be the end of an era as well. Has New York had a history of successful reinvention of its waterfront? Well Well, New York City has been reinventing itself almost for 400 years the water has been essential to even understanding why New York is here. It was the water that brought the Dutch here. It was the vastness of the harbor. The fact that it did not freeze in the winter time. The fact that it was an island so it was defensible. The fact that you have the Hudson River which leads to the interior of the continent and then the all water route to Chicago in the west of the Erie Canal. All this is about water. This is a vast world city that's almost like Venice. It's on water. But even if what the people of New York and the people of the country don't sort of think of New York

as a waterway city I think. And you said it's because quite frankly most New Yorkers don't see the water that much. You know most of the projects that are now in the works are the ones that have already been realized, have been turning the waterfront into public spaces into residential apartments into commercial areas. I wonder if that accessibility is transforming the relationship between New Yorkers and the water? Well, first of all let's remember that one reason New Yorkers were not drawn to the water in centuries past is because this was a working waterfront. You know, 500 plus miles of it and it was places where ships were loading and unloading good ships were being built. Frankly it was not a place where you necessarily wanted to have a picnic or jump in the water. So what we have done in the last half century and accelerating more recently in the last couple decades is as the kind of commercial activity of the waterfront has declined. We used to have hundreds of guys unloading bags and boxes of things. Now it's you know one guy with a hook another guy with a crane. Just take a look. So all those jobs are gone. This harbor used to be filled with sailing ships and old transports and steam ships and everything else. And

while we still see ships everywhere it's so many fewer than once we did. Now it's ferries carrying people and a few tankers and other things. But so much less than we would have seen a hundred years ago or even 200 years ago. The change of the waterfront. Through more public spaces is transforming the relationship of New Yorkers too. It is and what's so wonderful about it is that as the city reinvents itself and loses one aspect of its past let's say the kind of commercial aspect and industrial aspect. It's really discovering the water again so that we have these kinds of Esplanades along the water now. It's possible to ride your bike or walk from the George Washington Bridge all the way around. We see it more in recreational times now. It's only now that the water is becoming so attractive it's cleaning up. So that you find fish and all sorts of stuff that you didn't see 50 or 100 years ago. It's a cleaner more accessible waterfront in a way. One of the things that none of the projects that are in the works for the transformation the changing of the waterfront. One of things it doesn't have

is plans for an increase of industrialization or manufacturing. Does that have a future in New York City waterfront? Well, first of all it's been one of the most contentious issues in the city over the last, maybe more than a century, I'd say over a hundred and fifty years. What should the city do for industry or to encourage or discourage it or whatever else. Essentially New York has been in some sort of a process of the industrialization for a century. I think we're down about as far as it's going to go. There is some possibility for industry in some of the under-used parts of the waterfront. Let's say like Red Hook, Atlantic Basin, Erie Basin where there's some proposals. The real problem is you have to have direct access from either rail or trucks and the water. And the problem is that in Manhattan and in Brooklyn you don't really have that. If there are any project good that is now on the table that particularly excites you? I think what's what's great about it is the attempt to build kind of a bikeway and a walkway all the way around New York. We're not there yet but we have moved miles and miles from where we were 10 years ago so now that is possible really to experience the water. What New

Yorkers have been pushed for toward so long is push toward the the mass transit routes and the high density and the expensive real estate toward the middle. What you're seeing now, even though we don't have mass transit on the edges of New York City, Manhattan, now the waterfront is itself becoming an attraction. So people are bidding up their price of real estate along the water. They're putting up with the inconvenience of it's farther from the subway. I mean the subway is everything in New York. Right. You got to really like the water to walk farther to it to catch a bus. But it sounds to me as always you're optimistic and excited about the prospects of the New York City waterfront. Well I think that New York City itself has shown over its 400 year life that that here's this old city, really the oldest city in the United States has shown a remarkable resilience. It's completely changed its economy its population has completely changed. And yet there's something about this beehive of activity that's always open to new ideas that's always attracting people who I would say are different. Enthusiasm for life fuels you know gets energy from each other which is community. And New York is a celebration of

community and diversity and humanity and I think that's its strength and that's why I'm optimistic. Well, Ken as always, thank you very much. Well, Ken talked about the end of industrial activity in New York and specifically on the Brooklyn waterfront. In our next story we look at the last vestige of maritime industry on that waterfront. Sarcatucci's company, American stevedoring at the Red Hook terminal. South lease is up for renewal in 2004 but the city and the Port Authority have hired a planning firm to explore other uses for the site. Back in the 50's was probably the whole economic engine of Brooklyn. Everybody you knew was somehow connected to the waterfront because of the fact that he either drove a truck on the waterfront. He was a longshoreman or he owned a restaurant close to the waterfront where they ate. When I started working on the watefront it was 54 piers in Brooklyn alone,with over 3000 longshoremen working in Brooklyn. There would be nothing to go to a

pier and have 200 trucks waiting to unload their goods. They used to unload the ships like putting nets into the hole of the ships. And these 20 men would be filling up the nets with cargo. They would lift the nets out of the ship to the dock. Everything was brute force. You lifted, you pulled, You did what you had to to move that cargo. He's probably here on the waterfront. How long you on the waterfront? 38 years. 38 years. When containerizations came in they started moving the steamship lines out to port Newark to handle the containers. The port totally disappeared from New York and Brooklyn and went out to Jersey. It was like watching the whole waterfront decay. All the Bush terminal. There's nothing but skeletons of old piers. There used to be wooden piers with a metal structure. And all you see is the rotting metal on the top and

the stumps of wood coming out of the ground. When I took over this terminal in 1994, which is the last stevedoring terminal in Brooklyn. I was working ships next door to this terminal, Port Authority wanted to know if we were interested in taking over the lease at Redhook terminal. And I immediately said, "yes" and we have created this pier. From 1994 from 18,000 containers to 120,000 containers. We became the largest cocoa port in the United States. If you were to eat a Hershey Bar the chances are 70 percent that that Hershey bar originated as a cocoa bean in my warehouse. We do various other break bulk cargo like coffee and lumber, salt pumice.

It's like a fine-tuned instrument. It just runs like, like you're a symphony there. I have to fight for everything that we've got here. Now my fight is with the city. This probably is leased to me by the Port Authority and for some unknown reason to me the city decided that they wanted to see if there was a hired better use. They had a meeting that was put on by the consultants that were hired by the Port Authority and the City of New York. The current operator's lease expires in April of 2004. It's a very short period of time from now and what the Port Authority wants is that as our economy and as our city change that this site continue to make a contribution to job creation to the character and vitality of the community that surround it. These are just a set of

choices. Next time we talk to you we're going to come back and say here's some choices we think make sense. We hear from citizens about what they want with their aspirations are what their concerns are Living so close to a waterfront, to not have access to my own waterfront is something that I would hope that wouldn't happen. Housing and jobs have been complementary in the past and must be so once again. We feel that housing on the point would only conflict with economic uses on the port. One of the great things, one of the reasons why I live in New York, one of the reasons why I love New Yorkers is they care passionately. They love their city. They care about their neighborhoods. They express it with verve and energy. What is the guarantee that the people who who already working there will be getting employment there when these development come in? Well we need to do is we need to have a balanced economy and good high paying jobs on the waterfront in container terminals, are the way to go.

I'm very, very suspicious when you throw out the term, "jobs". I don't know how many of the longshoreman still live in Red Hook. I don't know how many people who live in Red Hook work on the piers. I'm actually thinking it, the term "jobs" is like the Weapons of Mass Destruction to you folks. Show them to me, where are they? I've become George Bush. My name is sal Catucci and I'm the CEO of Red Hook terminal and my businesses have been in Red Hook for all my life and I don't intend to move. And if they want to take me out of that terminal they'll bury me there. Some people call me the holdout. I was the holdout when I had my own trucking company because they were moving to New Jersey as the containment companies moved out there and I'm the holdout out here with the Brooklyn waterfront because I think it's needed. I made a pledge to my guys that they were going to have jobs and I think that I can keep these jobs going. One of my missions would be to create jobs for people and that's the joy I get out of

life. For more on how the New York City waterfront should be used, I spoke with Raymond Gastill an urban design expert and the author of Beyond The Edge: New York's New Waterfront. Ray, what's so new about the New York City waterfront? What's new on the New York waterfront is that there's a great deal of change happening right now in that the pace of change has increased since the past few decades. We've got new ferry terminals we have new parks we have new projects and all sorts of scales and they're happening throughout the city not just in Manhattan but in the other boroughs as well if you will from Staten Island here in Brooklyn. And they're the quality. There's actually a quality to the parks and quality to the types of buildings and projects we're doing now is actually higher in terms of creativity and the usefulness to the people in New York. You talk about the fast pace of construction but we're standing on the Brooklyn promenade overlooking the future site of the Brooklyn Bridge Park that's been 15 years in the making. And as we

can see, no ground has been broken. What's so fast about that? Well, as you know there's always you know, regular speed and there's New York speed (laughter). There were decades at a stretch where nothing happened, you know the 1970s there was like one lonely artist on the waterfront up in Queens or one lonely ecologists down on the, you know, what's north of Battery Park City today. So, when we talk about a pace of change there are the speed of like something like the New York water taxi that's beginning to actually operate you know that it just went ahead and happened after a couple of years. it took a while but it's operating now. Those things are happening at a pace that you know there's approvals there's like a recognition that there should be service at the waterfront, access to the waterfront, esplanades get built on the west side so things are happening at actually a decent pace. When will there be a park here? Let's give them the benefit of doubt and say they'll be a park in two thousand six or seven. Let's say that that's actually possible. Because when you actually start building. If you look at the examples in New York of esplanades and the other kind of waterfront projects once the permit is really underway, doesn't take that long. I mean they moved at an incredible pace on the Hudson River Park once

it was finally all ready to go. That, like here, it took a long time but once everybody says "yes", people make it happen. Now there's another big plan that's just been proposed to change the waterfront of Greenpoint, Williamsburg. Tell me a little bit about that. Well, that's a different kind of thing because there that's a plan which is likely to change ultimately the zoning and the uses. Basically the city and the community are taking the position that they don't want to be an industrial waterfront anymore at least not that kind of industrial waterfront. They don't want waste transfer they don't want power plants. And so what they're trying to do now is say, you know, we're going to let the actual waterfront part of this fall under waterfront zoning and fall allow a kind of housing development connected with a have a waterfront walkway or esplanade about 1.6 miles. You said that the city has decided that they don't want an industrialized waterfront. I mean is that a good idea? Don't we need at least in part an industrialized waterfront? I think the larger question is, you know, do you want the edge of the waterfront to just be park or can you let other stuff happen? And the answer is, you gotta let other stuff happen.

Well let's talk about that, we just saw a piece about the last vestige of the traditional maritime industry over there. Sarcatucci's operation. Was it inevitable? That that vast industry with stevedores and longshoremen, loading and unloading of ships. Was it inevitable that that was going to disappear from New York? Well there is, some things are inevitable. Depends what you're reading. If you read a study by an economist that says, you know, the ports subsidizing this, it's never going to work it's too small, it doesn't meet contemporary standards of board activity. You're going to sit back and say, well, it is the job of Economic Development Corporation and stuff to find out if there's a better way. But you know, that's a study, there's a lot of people that would argue these are going concerns. They work. We are making money within the framework of our lease and how we were told, you know so why take this business away if it's a legitimate economic activity? I think there will be continue to be some port activity happening here in Red Hook. But how that happens, what it's nature is, whether it's really successfully mixed with sort of urban

regeneration, it's very hard to say. It's a tough, in other cities of the world, it's a tough thing. It's been done. But it is a tough thing to actually have, you know, industrial port activity next to a changing district. You've got to recognize the waterfront is not just a front yard. It kind of has to do the back yard stuff too and that also includes all these amazing people that are sort of up and down, you know the amphibious people and ones that are back and for that water every day, if there's no place for them in this picture, we haven't done our job right. We've been n the Waterfront throughout this program but we close with a slightly different perspective. It's a look at the waterfront from the Hudson River. They run many programs of great kayaking here in the downtown boathouse. People just come up off the street. And we put them on the water we put them right out in the river. The plan today as I explained before, is to go, we're going to go across the river

to Hoboken. The current today as I said, is pretty mellow and should be a pretty easy tracks. Those of us who lived in the city, looked out at this beautiful river here. And there was no way to get to it. You couldn't get down and get in the water in anyway. So we got this idea, well, we'll start a kayaking program. And not just for us, we'll do it for everybody. All our programs and basically everything, is run by volunteers. You don't get any state federal or city funding. The volunteers who work here use their own money. We have a membership concept, we have a donation box. That's, that's pretty much how we get our money. A lot of times people think there's a catch. We had one guy came down, he watched for 20 minutes on the shore, thought it was some kind of a cult. We assured him it wasn't a cult, it's just people who like to go kayaking and want to get access to the river. This is a time when we're going to want to paddle somewhat quickly but all stay together. I've had diehard New Yorkers who've lived here for years and never even thought about going in the water

and just the kind of joy that comes over their face when you can take a family or a person who's been here all this life show and you know this is the river. You're right in the outdoors. They're amazed that there's all this great water here and there's all this great activity that they never knew was here. They've been sitting in their apartments or getting on the train and riding upstate or taking a long trip out to the Jersey Shore. They don't have to do that, they can get in the water right here right here, right here in New York. People a lot of the times think, Oh, the Hudson River! Ew, it's dirty. It's filthy. It's not, the river's very clean and it's getting cleaner all the time. Most of the time it's very nice and peaceful especially in the morning. There's nobody else out here away from all the hubbub of the city. It's completely quiet. You know it's beautiful. Hopefully the entire river will be covered with but it's not.