Lawmakers Roiling At Cement Boardwalk
Work quietly started to turn the iconic boardwalk straddling Brighton Beach and Coney Island into cement has several elected officials roiling amid concerns that chunks of cement could come barreling down Brooklyn’s seaside streets if another Superstorm Sandy were to hit, SheepsheadBites reports.
Assembly member Steven Cymbrowitz and City Council members Chaim Deutsch and Mark Treyger said they want work stopped on the portion of the boardwalk between Brighton 15 Street and Coney Island Avenue until an impact study considers the performance of concrete in storm surges.
In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, chucnks of the Rockaways Boardwalk went barreling down the street while Coney Island’s wooden boardwalk was relatively unscathed.
Some of the work being done was funded through $10 million in state funds that Cymbrowitz and Assemblyman Alex Brook-Krasny allocated to the city’s Parks Department for the boardwalk – money that Cymbrowitz now wants rescinded.
“I am outraged that Mayor [Bill] De Blasio and Commissioner [Mitchell] Silver have fast-tracked the destruction of an iconic landmark in southern Brooklyn. As I wrote to Mayor de Blasio, concrete and composite plastics are a poor approximation for a boardwalk. It’s a boardwalk, not a sidewalk. There are also significant safety concerns with this project since no impact study has been done,” said Cymbrowitz in a statement. “This is an underhanded misuse of the money and the mayor knows it. I will work to make sure that the millions of dollars I allocated are cut off. I fought hard for the boardwalk to be repaired, not to fund the elimination of the boardwalk as this community and all New Yorkers know it.”
“The money came from Assemblyman Cymbrowitz, and whoever gave the money for the boardwalk should have a voice in it,” Deutsch told Sheepsheadbites.
Treyger told the news website he was very disappointed that the Parks Department moved forward with this major change to the boardwalk without completing any safety studies.
“The Parks Department is also ignoring the will of the local state lawmakers who allocated this funding for repairs, and not for a new concrete road down the middle of the iconic boardwalk,” Treyger said.
Todays events:
2:30 p.m. – The New York City Coalition Against Hunger joins elected officials to release the group’s annual survey on demand at soup kitchens and food pantries and new findings on food insecurity, Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger Food Pantry, 2004 Fulton St., Brooklyn.
Note: Kings County Politics will not do posts during the Thanksgiving weekend and will return Monday morning. Send all press releases to StephenWitt1@gmail.com
