In  June of 1979, scores of local residents attended a meeting of Brooklyn Community Board 6 to voice their displeasure  with a plan for the construction of a 70-acre containerport  to be built for the Port Authority centering around the Atlantic Basin, extending from Wolcott, Ferris and King Sts. On the southern end along Imlay, Van Brunt and Columbia Sts.  Finaly to Baltic St. on the northern tip.  The Port Authority  said that the resulting loss of 5 exiting firms and 200 jobs was worth it for the larger community benefit of a new and bigger port.   He said the plan, a scaled down version of a 1973 one, would relocate 20 units of housing.   Community members were not happy with the loss of jobs and housing, voicing concerns the promised housing would later be dropped from the plan because of the City’s financial struggles. 

Complete text of the June 14, 1979 Phoenix article below:   

Scores of Red Hook Residents Protest Board Six Proposals

By Linus Gleber

Amid shouts of “Build houses first!” and “We need our jobs!” from some 300 residents of the Red Hook waterfront, Community Board Six held a public hearing June 7 detailing the proposed plan for a Port Authority containerport and unveiling a new Urban Renewal plan for the area.

Residents, angered by the prospect of relocation, demolition and elimination of jobs in the neighborhood, came out in force to protest the plans and to demand more say into the governmental process, chanting, “Work, work, work” and “No unemployment.”

“We are here tonight to protect our houses and our jobs – we must fight and be heard!” cried resident Freddy Roman to applause as the hearing began.

Presented by Marilyn Gelber from the City Planning Commission and Ed Weinstein from the Port Authority, the plans call for a 70-acre containerport  to be build for the Port Authority centering around the Atlantic Basin, extending from Wolcott, Ferris and King Sts. On the southern end along Imlay, Van Brunt and Columbia Sts.  Finaly to Baltic St. on the northern tip. This is a step down from the project originally designed in 1973, which described a 230-acre facility sprawling from Kane St. to the Erie Basin. 

Weinstein urged the audience to support the containerport, saying that the area “lost several shipping-related industries and several hundred jobs because the city did not go ahead with the last plan.”  Current designs, he said, will relocate 20 units of housing and cause the loss of “five firms and 200 jobs as opposed to 80 firms and 1000 jobs” under the previous program.  The containerport will be built I three stages: the first two, financed by the city and state, will cost $20 million and allow the Authority to immediately move into one berth; the Port Authority will then reinvest a percentage of its profits in continuing the development of the third stage, a second berth for the port  “I think if you have a healthy waterfront in this area, you will have a healthy community,” Weinstein said. 

Gelber then described the Urban Renewal Plan for Columbia St., a new part of the containerport package.  It provides, she explained, for the construction of 57 two-family buildings on Columbia and President Sts., with the additional rehabilitation  by the city of 34 units of existing but damaged housing along the strip.  Eleven lots in the area, now vacant, will be turned into neighborhood parks or paved over, as appropriate.  She said that the housing project had already lined up Catholic Charities as a potential sponsor.

When Board Six Chairwoman Anitia De Martini threw the meeting open to questions, most centered around complaints from residents who were losing jobs or houses, or feared the effects of additional demolition  and abandonment in an already crumbling area.   Many expressed a fear that those displaced would never see the houses promised them, posing a scenario where the city, short on funds, as it is right now, might leave the plan only half-completed, ruining the area and leaving local people without homes. 

 “What kind of track record has New York City got for relocation?” Gelber was asked by local Albert Toriani.  “The worst is the United States!”  Later, citing Weinstein’s comments about toning down the containerport area, Toriani grumbled, “100 jobs or 200 – what are we doing, selling  potatoes?”

Assemblyman Michael Pesce, who arrived late in the meeting, told the crowd that he felt “the first priority is to save the jobs, and the second priority is to stay where you are now.  And, with the kind of community activism we have here tonight, I think you will start the machinery to do just that.”

Following Pesce’s speech, the audience began chanting, “Built a house, don’t tear them down…we don’t have to relocate,” and yelling questions and complaints at the Board officials and representatives on the stage.  Sonn after, Chairwoman DeMartini adjourned the hearing  more than two hours after it began.

“I think it was a good meeting,” she strained afterward, hoarse from shouting.  “I may not have a voice left tomorrow, but I think a lot got said here tonight.”

At its June 13^th Board meeting, Board members will discuss and vote on the proposals. Board recommendations will then be taken up by the City Planning Commission and the Board of Estimate.