Open Thread Wednesday

By on May 12, 2021 12:31 am in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Andrew Porter
  • Andrew Porter

    Another photo from nearly a century ago: Court Street looking toward Joralemon, Dec. 1925. Brown Bros. photo. Streetcars and tracks, and the Fulton Street elevated train and platform at left. See another view in reply, below:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/69f4852b862441866d4b72ce181a21a44fdfdfa25f662a3555aa72d034685b16.png

  • Andrew Porter

    Another view of Court Street, from 1933 (photo by Ewing Galloway). Electric overhead wires for streetcars visible:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e98cbdd9aa255bb12f4efec01959046f0bab0b13fcab1222fd543bf31bbfb4b.jpg

  • RickP
  • Andrew Porter

    I was actually going to post that next week, suitably cropped and enhanced.

  • Andrew Porter

    BQE Update from Jo Anne Simon:

    BQE Truck Weight Bill: Last year, Senator Kavanagh and I introduced a bill to establish a pilot program that uses mobile or stationary weigh-in-motion systems to enforce restrictions on overweight trucks on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) in Brooklyn and we continue to work hard to ensure its passage this year (A2316). This legislation is particularly important since overweight trucks contribute to the BQE’s crumbling infrastructure.

    This bill would create an enforcement program that would automatically issue violations for trucks that are recorded as having weights substantially above the existing legal limits. Weigh-in-motion systems record the axle weights and gross weights of vehicles that drive over the site of the system, without the need for the vehicles to stop. The program imposes fines upon the owner of the vehicle for failure to comply with existing weight restrictions.

    BQE Governance Authority Bill: I have also recently introduced legislation the “21st Century Approach for the BQE” bill (A6304). This bill establishes the BQE Authority that would ensure the viability of the I-278 corridor through Brooklyn from the Verrazano-Narrows bridge connection in Brooklyn to the Kosciuszko bridge, including addressing tunnel alternatives along the BQE, and environmental justice concerns.

    The final reports of both the NYC Mayor’s Expert Panel, and the NYC Council on the BQE, released in early 2020, found that this vital piece of infrastructure is in dire condition. The Panel’s report focused on the 1.5-mile stretch of the roadway from Sands Street to Atlantic Avenue, which includes the “triple cantilever” structure running along the edge of Brooklyn Heights with a northbound level, southbound level, and the Brooklyn Heights promenade, and found the structure to be deteriorating rapidly, with sections possibly unsafe for vehicular and truck traffic in five years if mitigations are not made expeditiously.

  • Andrew Porter

    Post on YIMBY about 30 Front Street in DUMBO, the massive new building that obstructs the north facing view on Henry Street of the Manhattan Bridge and the tower on Main Street. See my comment there:

    https://tinyurl.com/24b6amvh

  • RickP

    Did you find the date?

  • higgs

    The CDC is now massively relaxing *indoor* mask requirements for the vaccinated: https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2021/05/13/cdc-ease-indoor-mask-wearing-guidance-fully-vaccinated/

    Time to get on board, folks! The vaccines work, and it’s time to live life!

    (I happily voted for Biden, believe in science, and wore a mask everywhere for more than a year… but masking was never meant to last forever.)

  • Jorale-man

    No thanks, I don’t trust anyone, especially with the variants circulating. Still wearing a mask, indoors and out, for the foreseeable future.

  • meschwar

    Yes, we should definitely have this debate here, all over again.

  • TeddyNYC

    Personally, I’m looking forward to not wearing a mask outdoors on a typical hot and humid summer day here in the city. I’ll probably keep a mask with me for use in indoor locations like the subway or some crowded stores.

  • Alex

    So… You’re anti-science? If you’re wearing a mask outdoors might as well wear a seat belt on a parked car.

    Not to mention you wearing a mask won’t protect you from the variants, you wear it to protect others and if you’re fully vaccinated it’s highly unlikely to transmit it either, per the recent CDC study.

  • Jorale-man

    Yup, anti-science all the way. Nothing I hate more than science.

  • Jorale-man

    Apparently a new restaurant is moving into the Jack the Horse space. According to the Brooklyn Heights Association:

    “We are thrilled to announce that twice-nominated for Best NYC Chef by the James Beard Foundation Chef Sean Rembold and his wife and partner, designer Caron Callahan, are bringing a delicious new neighborhood spot to the former Jack the Horse space on Hicks Street.” Sounds promising.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    Yeah I hear ya, I’ll still wear the mask indoors but I’m done wearing it outdoors. I am asthmatic and it adversely affects my breathing. Besides, I already had the Rona last year and I am double vaccinated.

  • CassieVonMontague

    I’m definitely wearing a mask in the subway now that I know the air quality down there is worse “than some of the worst days in Beijing or Delhi”

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/millions-of-subway-commuters-and-workers-in-northeast-u-s-are-facing-potentially-fatal-side-effects-from-air-pollution/

  • Banet

    If you read the bio of the chef the BHA sent around it’s clear this chef has some serious chops. He’s worked as the top chef at 3 or 4 of Williamsburg’s best restaurants.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn
  • Susan O’Doherty

    Why does it matter to you if someone else chooses to keep wearing a MSK, though?

  • Kit

    Notice how the teaser film deliberately does not show how the building will ruin the skyline looking north or how swaths of residents and workers will be blinded by sunlight bouncing off all those glass panels.

  • Jorale-man

    That’s great. I hope they don’t tinker with the ambience and decor too much. I always liked the classy yet casual vibe of JTH.

  • aeshtron

    Agreed that the change in the view caused by “Olympia” is disorienting and that I don’t like it. I’ll grow to accept the presence of the new building and am generally all for dense tall development. The new building at 30 Front must be particularly vexing for residents of 70 Washington who had views of Roebling’s old bridge and the harbor until recently.

    I still feel sour grapes about 70 Henry and miss Heights Cinema. Change is often difficult and upsetting to me.

  • Alex

    It frustrates me because it’s utterly pointless. It shouldn’t be normalized unless you’re actually sick. It also makes the transition to normalcy slower. I used to shame people who didn’t wear a mask last year when we didn’t have vaccines and were irresponsibly spreading the virus. Now that we have vaccines and the science points to not needing masks, I will absolutely shame the people who still wears them out of PTSD.

  • Alex

    I hit you with facts and this is your response?

  • meschwar

    Ah yes. Shame is widely known to be the best treatment for PTSD.

  • Cranberry Beret

    Not sure if you’re talking outdoors only or not, but it’s reasonable to continue wearing a mask indoors. For the same reason the CDC says you still NEED to wear a mask inside a hospital or transit, there are probably other indoor situations where it’s a judgment call depending on crowding and ventilation as long as community transmission rates continue to be high.

    Fully vaxed people CAN become infected and transmit, even if more likely to be asymptomatic or only minorly ill. Look at what happened to the Yankees coaches this week.

    It’s not as if the world was unsafe on May 12 and suddenly became safe on May 13. There’s a spectrum of reasonable masking behaviors that will continue to change as vaccinations go up and community transmission goes down.

  • Cranberry Beret

    It’s nice she wrote up some bills, but is she actually spending any effort to convince the legislature to pass? My impression is she’s spending all her time campaigning to be beep

  • Alex

    I’m talking about outdoors. Regarding your point that fully vaxxed people can become infected again, yes, but they won’t die or get hospitalized and it’ll just be very mild. Can they transmit? Studies show that at least Pfizer and Moderna are 90% effective stopping transmission. I think we can all live with that risk.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    When the Empire State Building was under construction, New Yorkers were completely up in arms because it would “ruin the skyline”.

    Lots of valid arguments against certain buildings being built in certain places for certain reasons. (Good point about the sunlight reflecting off glass, for example!) “Ruin the skyline” is not among the strong arguments.

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