Enormous gantry cranes loading a container ship on the Brooklyn Marine Terminal in 2021.
Photograph by way of Getty Photographs
There is no such thing as a New York Metropolis with out New York Harbor. From the primary Dutch fur merchants to the stevedores hoisting cargo off steamships in the course of the nineteenth century, to the sailors setting off on Brooklyn-made battleships to struggle in two World Wars – the bustling waterfront is the setting for a lot of our historical past.
But, for many years, as containerized transport grew and large terminals had been developed throughout the river in New Jersey, Brooklyn’s working waterfront was uncared for. The products that maintain New York Metropolis shifted to New Jersey ports, solely to be trucked again into town. This inefficient system provides to our metropolis’s infamous visitors congestion and will increase air pollution, impacting the standard of life for all New Yorkers. It additionally leaves town’s provide chain dangerously fragile, counting on simply two chokepoints to ship important items to tens of millions.
We had a entrance row seat to the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and we’re proud that these piers acquired the provides used to construct the Oculus standing on the World Commerce Middle at present. And in the course of the COVID disaster, when companies shuttered and most New Yorkers stayed house, Pink Hook Container Terminal stayed open sustaining vital meals provide to town. It stands as the one port facility within the coronary heart of New York Metropolis able to receiving ocean-going vessels and barges.
It’s a important piece of infrastructure that ensures town stays linked to world commerce with out relying completely on a single, fragile provide chain.
Right now, after an extended decline, we lastly have an opportunity to chart a brand new course. In Could of final yr, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams introduced a brand new push to reimagine the Brooklyn Marine Terminal (BMT), a 122-acre website that features the Pink Hook Container Terminal and Passenger Ship Terminal. Since final fall, we’ve each been working as a part of a process power and advisory councils to finalize a imaginative and prescient plan for this area.
The town has provided a proposal that may lead to 60 acres of recent, sustainable, well-capitalized port to boost container enterprise operations, activate the “Blue Highway,” and accommodate future development. For the primary time in a few years, there’s a plan that provides an actual long-term path ahead to create a first-class facility for important transportation infrastructure.
On the desk is the chance to fund a state-of-the-art all-electric port with a revitalized container enterprise bringing meals items east of the Hudson River whereas serving as a key node on the “Blue Highway” getting vehicles off our streets. Right now, ships carry refrigerated containers of meals from South and Central America to BMT.
Sooner or later, with a contemporary port facility, that service can develop considerably whereas offering town with meals safety within the occasion, god forbid, our bridges are incapacitated. As soon as at BMT, these containers could be loaded onto barges and brought by way of the waterways to the huge meals distribution middle in Hunts Level within the Bronx. This barging service alone can take 400 vehicles off our road daily.
With 520 miles of waterfront, more and more giant development initiatives just like the redevelopment of JFK Airport are being staged from the waterside. A contemporary BMT can function a vital terminal for development supplies. Lastly, we all know all New Yorkers want to see last-mile supply truck visitors decreased. Over time, from UPS to FedEx to Amazon, distributors will notice that the Blue Freeway is extra environment friendly and reasonably priced than having vehicles caught in visitors. BMT can play a vital function in realizing this imaginative and prescient.
We’re urging the duty power to behave now as a result of time is of the essence. Federal, State and Metropolis grants totaling $358 million cling within the steadiness.
We additionally wish to specific our gratitude and appreciation to the elected officers who, for many years, have fought tirelessly to guard Pink Hook Container Terminal as a working port. Their steadfast dedication to preserving these good-paying, family-sustaining jobs and the financial advantages the port supplies has been vital in guaranteeing that Pink Hook Container Terminal and BMT stay important to the way forward for New York Metropolis.
Let’s put our waterfront again to work. Let’s construct one thing nice. Let’s push ahead and finalize the imaginative and prescient for BMT. Working waterfronts-built New York Metropolis. Now let’s rebuild our working waterfronts.
Michael Stamatis is president and CEO of Pink Hook Container Terminal; Frank Agosta is president of Native 1814 of the Worldwide Longshoremen’s Affiliation.
