By purpose. By a mix of uses that create energy throughout the day and across seasons.<\/p>\n
So we have to ask:<\/p>\n
Are we really going to accept a walling off of our waterfront with dull luxury towers?<\/p>\n
We shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
We can not.
Because what makes this even more frustrating is that bold, innovative ideas already exist\u2014right here in our own community.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve seen maritime-forward visions like the Tom Fox City Club<\/a> proposal, which reimagines the site as a hub in a revitalized Blue Highway network\u2014taking trucks off our streets and putting freight back onto our waterways where it belongs. We\u2019ve seen bold concepts like the Jim Tampakis plan<\/a>, grounded in the reality that this is one of the last working waterfronts in New York and should be treated as critical infrastructure, not just real estate.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen the Social Life Project bring global insight into how great waterfronts function\u2014not just as places to live, but as places to gather, to work, to connect. We\u2019ve seen innovative thinking from Portside New York, from the Community Energy Network Plan, and from Pratt students and independent visionaries like Adam Dore-Young\u2014each offering pieces of something bigger, something better.<\/p>\n And these are just some of the ideas.<\/p>\n There are many more.<\/p>\n Yet time and again, the community has been treated as a bystander in decisions that will shape its future. The process has too often felt closed, predetermined, and dismissive of the very people who live here.<\/p>\n That cannot be the standard for a project of this magnitude.<\/p>\n Because this is Brooklyn.<\/p>\n We should not accept a future that falls short of what we know is possible.<\/p>\n Great cities are not shaped by playing it safe. They are shaped by bold decisions, by imagination, by a willingness to think beyond what is easy and reach for what is possible.<\/p>\n Look at our history. The Brooklyn Bridge. Central Park. The High Line. These were not small ideas. They were ambitious, even controversial at the time. But they endured because they aimed higher.<\/p>\n That is what this moment demands of us.<\/p>\n We should be asking: what would it look like to truly honor this waterfront?<\/p>\n A place where maritime industry and public access coexist. Where working piers and public spaces are not in conflict but in conversation. Where resilience, climate adaptation, and economic opportunity are built into the foundation\u2014not treated as afterthoughts.<\/p>\n We can build housing anywhere.<\/p>\n But we only have one waterfront.<\/p>\n And once it\u2019s overbuilt, privatized, or stripped of its purpose, we don\u2019t get it back.<\/p>\n This is Brooklyn\u2014we don\u2019t accept mediocre or mundane. The EDC\u2019s plan is the laziest, most unimaginative waterfront plan we\u2019ve ever seen. Nothing that represents the spirit of the greatest borough in the most amazing city in the world.<\/p>\n Nah, not in BROOKLYN!<\/p>\n We demand a World Class Working Waterfront for All & nothing less!<\/p>\n Join us. Learn more. Get involved.<\/p>\n Visit\u00a0ColumbiaStWaterfront.com<\/a>\u00a0and sign up to be part of building the future this community deserves.<\/p>\n John Leyva has lived in his two-bedroom apartment at 63 Tiffany Place in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn for over 30 years. He moved into the building in 1994 under a tax agreement between the city and the landlord to maintain the apartment\u2019s affordability for the next 30 years. But Leyva now says his home may soon become too expensive for him and many of the other tenants in the 70-unit structure. He formed SAVE 63Tiffany to advocate for the building, and from that has become a true community leader. He has recently been elected Vice President of the Columbia Street Waterfront Association and smoke Cuban cigars when he can get them.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/John-Leyva-bug.webp.webp\")
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