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Greenpoint Open Streets War Escalates As Saboteur Tosses Barricades Into Newtown Creek
arrow The Berry Street Open Street (above) in Williamsburg has generated significantly less controversy than the Open Streets in Greenpoint on Driggs Avenue and Russell Street. Gothamist
Last week, a mysterious man wearing flip-flops and driving a supposedly “counterfeit” Amazon van stole a slew of Open Streets barriers in Greenpoint. How does one dispose of 16 huge, heavy metal barricades? Apparently by chucking them into Newtown Creek.
“We took a boat out and we were able to get two of them out of the water onto the shore,” said Kevin LaCherra, a coordinator for North Brooklyn Mutual Aid, one of several community organizations that have volunteered to look after the barricades and maintain the city’s open streets program in Greenpoint.
Open streets open question.
The de Blasio administration is at risk of squandering its impressive open streets initiative just as it is supposed to be made permanent failing to fill the vacuum created as community groups are struggling with material costs, volunteers are drifting away and car owners are moving to reclaim the few metaphorical inches of space that the city repurposed for healthy recreation during the COVID pandemic.
The mayor last year said his open streets program a haphazard collection of roughly 70 miles of street segments across all five boroughs would be a permanent addition to the streetscape. But the mayor has never defined what shape that permanent open space would take and how it will be fostered so that it doesn’t merely rely on thousands of volunteers setting up and removing barricades every day, replacing them when they are vandalized or damaged by car drivers, and dealing with hostilities from motorists who don’t understand the program.