The Most Dangerous Neighborhood

The storm hit right at a spring tide on the ocean side of the city, hence the huge flood and wave impact on places like midland beach (another former seasonal community).

As we discussed yesterday, the potential impact zone is much larger. Areas on the Sound side of the city were hit closer to slack tide, and so had minor (or no) damage. But places like City Island, College Point and the like are just as vulnerable.

http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2013/feb/25/tricked-topography-how-staten-island-neighborhood-became-so-dangerous-during-sandy/

Legalizing Basement Apartments

I saw this article on Brownstoner today and it made me think about the apartments mentioned in the context of Sandy.  I don't know the details of the proposed legalization of these apartments and if it only refers to Manhattan, but this could be a really interesting point of investigation for us considering that these are the spaces that would be first to be flooded and leave people homeless in certain areas.  Perhaps we can follow this more closely and see if it should be part of our recommendation.

NYC Suspends Zoning Regs to Accelerate Rebuilding

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration today took a step to suspend some zoning restrictions to advance the post-Sandy rebuilding process

How NYC Will Use the First $1.8B of Federal Relief Funds

The largest portion of the funding, $720 million, is expected to go toward rehabilitating housing, including for mold remediation and so-called "resiliency measures." While private homeowners will receive the bulk of help through the funding, public housing will also benefit from $120 million.

02/08 “Rebuilding the Public Realm after Sandy” by Seth Pinsky, President, NYCEDC

Friday night there will be a lecture hosted by Pratt Institute's planning department.  Here are the details:

Friday 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm at Pratt Manhattan 144 West 14th Street, Room 213.

RSVP to the lecture series by emailing Dana Feingold at dfeingol@pratt.edu.

New York City Flood Zones and Water Height

These maps may be incredibly useful to us.  I put the link in the spreadsheet, but I want to make certain everyone gets a chance to look at them.  This could be a much faster starting point for looking for potential damage in our respective areas.

Past studio reports

There are still a few relevant studio reports that are lost in the ether of the GSAPP website, but here are links to some of the recent reports that are relevant to your work on specific neighborhoods/areas (many of these are pdf links):

2012 - Brooklyn/Queens Waterfront (interpretation - should be on the HP site by end of week):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/65280268/Brooklyn%20Queens%20Waterfront%20Final%20Presentation.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/65280268/Brooklyn%20Queens%20Waterfront%20Final%20Report.pdf

2012 - Port Richmond, Staten Island (planning and history)

2010 - Corlears Hook, Lower East Side (planning and history)

2009 - Red Hook, Brooklyn (planning and history)

2008 - Gowanus Canal Corridor, Brooklyn (planning and history)

2004 - Harlem River (planning and history - website link)

1995 - Lower Manhattan (planning, history - the report is in Avery)

Please check in the closet in studio - there are a couple of other past studios that might be relevant. In particular, there was a studio on the Williamsburg waterfront around 2000 or 2001, and I think that there was a second Lower Manhattan studio sometime in the past decade.

Also, since we discussed it yesterday, the Bushwick Avenue studio report is here, and the Bushwiki web site is here.

Your Guide to Using the FEMA Maps

Information from the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance about the new FEMA flood maps.

NYTimes - The Region’s Pockets of Wealth and Poverty

Here's a map that Beth posted on Facebook last semester... It might be useful for recovery analysis!

The Region's Pockets of Wealth and Poverty

It has census data from 2007-2011 and could be useful in analyzing recovery efforts in high/low income areas.

Cuomo Seeking Home Buyouts in Flood Zones

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is proposing to spend as much as $400 million to purchase homes wrecked by Hurricane Sandy, have them demolished and then preserve the flood-prone land permanently, as undeveloped coastline.

Questions:
1. Where would these buyout zones be?
2. If the buyout is using Federal funding (as proposed), does there need to be a Section 106 review?

MAS meeting

Hey everyone!
I was just wondering about the meeting with MAS tomorrow. Is it confirmed and if so is there a scheduled time? If anyone knows, please fill me in. Thanks!

New Blog!

Hi Everyone,
Hopefully you have all received a message inviting you to the blog.  I have made everyone an author so we should be all set for sharing ideas, links, images, etc. I have also made a few different pages for the blog, but we can certainly change those as we see fit for our organization.  Let me know if you're having trouble with posts or viewing.  Happy researching!