Monday, March 9, 2009

Stimulus money for pier?

From Crain's:

The Hudson River Park Trust is seeking $57 million from the federal stimulus package to repair Pier 40, the crumbling structure that has for years failed to attract a developer.

Connie Fishman, president of the Trust, said it would be easier to entice a developer if the pier didn’t require so many costly repairs. However, the Trust, which rejected a development proposal last October, has no immediate plans to seek new ideas for the 14-acre site.


Yes, this is exactly what we should spend stimulus money on. Close the hospitals which would have cost $36M and open up the coffers for a $57M rehab of a pier that will not likely attract a developer for a decade or so and for which there is no vision.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let it crumble!

Who the hell builds this kind of poorly conceived over ambitious shit in the middle of a river in the first place?

It will always require expensive repairs draining money that could be better used elswhere.

Let the yuppies find another place to play or else fund this pier themselves!

There are plenty of sandboxes on terra-firma public parks
throughout NYC.

We need money spent on vital services and not on nonsense!

Anonymous said...

I agree. It also bothers me terribly that the reason these piers are crumbling is that the industry they were built for is completely destroyed. I understand that existing marine operations in Red Hook are also under attack.

We need to create economically-productive jobs in the city, even for those of us who are not Rhodes Scholars, and we need to ensure that we always have efficient ways of moving goods into and out of the city. We don't need Potemkin Villages or flower decals on the windows of the decaying homes.