NYC Construction and the BQE by Joel Chaffee
NYC Construction and the BQE
 New York, NY
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 by Joel Chaffee
 
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Construction in New York is ubiquitous, and mysterious. Sure, the  
Department of Transportation (DOT) issues press releases about  
upcoming and in progress projects. But try to find out what is going  
on in any place of interest, and you enter a dead zone.
 
A friend and I came across an enormous project in the middle of  
Broadway at West 4th Street, on June 11th. A large tube, perhaps  
fifteen feet below street level, appeared in the dug-up patches. Not  
electricity. Sewage? Secrets? A few days of calling the DOT for  
information proved fruitless. Not that they didn't know; only that  
they could not be reached.
Across the East River, there is talk of new construction on the  
squalid BQE; though when you ride the mogul-strewn FDR or pretty much  
the rest of the city, how much difference is there on the city's  
highways?
 
The Brooklyn Paper is reporting on a "long overdue effort to shore up  
and modernize the aging BQE." The DOT's wonderful announcement stated  
that they were planning to "rehabilitate" the downtown Brooklyn  
section of the Interstate, at a cost of a cool $255 million. And even  
then, the BPaper quoted the DOT's Peter King as saying, "To the extent  
that we can, we'll bring it up to standards. But sometimes it's not  
possible."
 
But it is dangerous. "From 2004 to 2007, a total of 674 accidents were  
reported between Tillary and Congress streets - a figure that is 10  
times the statewide average," the article reported.  And it is no less  
dangerous to the areas the BQE traverses.
 
One might be inclined to assume that neighborhoods around the BQE have  
higher rates of asthma, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory  
illnesses. The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOH),  
found this to be true in some areas, but not in others. Greenpoint  
residents, where the BQE was first put into play connecting Queens and  
Brooklyn at the Kosciusko Bridge, have less chance of having asthma  
than the rest of the borough, and all of the city. In Williamsburg and  
Bushwick, however, residents were almost twice as likely to have  
asthma. The DOH did not directly trace the asthma to the Interstate,  
but with the Earth itself sick from the fumes of automobiles, what  
chance has Brooklyn?
 
Many people who live close to the BQE, from Greenpoint to Fort Green,  
claim to have fresh dustings of black soot on areas near open windows.  
(I suppose they should follow the advice I received from one of the  
free doctors at the city health clinic when I myself complained of  
respiratory problems: Close your windows, always.)
 
Whatever happens with the BQE - and it will be years before the  
happening - the best that could come about is that community interests  
are considered chiefly; with the vision of another Robert Moses or  
two, but the sensibilities and optimism of George Washington Plunkitt  
in an 1882 NYTimes: "Once let a man grow up amidst Brooklyn's  
cobblestones, with the odor of Newtown Creek and Gowanus Canal ever in  
his nostrils, and there's no place for him except Brooklyn." And may  
God keep our nostrils.
 
 
in New York is ubiquitous, and mysterious. Sure, the  
Department of Transportation (DOT) issues press releases about  
upcoming and in progress projects. But try to find out what is going  
on in any place of interest, and you enter a dead zone.
 
 
 
A friend and I came across an enormous project in the middle of  
Broadway at West 4th Street, on June 11th. A large tube, perhaps  
fifteen feet below street level, appeared in the dug-up patches. Not  
electricity. Sewage? Secrets? A few days of calling the DOT for  
information proved fruitless. Not that they didn't know; only that  
they could not be reached.
 
 
 
Across the East River, there is talk of new construction on the  
squalid BQE; though when you ride the mogul-strewn FDR or pretty much  
the rest of the city, how much difference is there on the city's  
highways?
 
 
 
The Brooklyn Paper is reporting on a "long overdue effort to shore up  
and modernize the aging BQE." The DOT's wonderful announcement stated  
that they were planning to "rehabilitate" the downtown Brooklyn  
section of the Interstate, at a cost of a cool $255 million. And even  
then, the BPaper quoted the DOT's Peter King as saying, "To the extent  
that we can, we'll bring it up to standards. But sometimes it's not  
possible."
 
 
 
But it is dangerous. "From 2004 to 2007, a total of 674 accidents were  
reported between Tillary and Congress streets - a figure that is 10  
times the statewide average," the article reported.  And it is no less  
dangerous to the areas the BQE traverses.
 
 
 
One might be inclined to assume that neighborhoods around the BQE have  
higher rates of asthma, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory  
illnesses. The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOH),  
found this to be true in some areas, but not in others. Greenpoint  
residents, where the BQE was first put into play connecting Queens and  
Brooklyn at the Kosciusko Bridge, have less chance of having asthma  
than the rest of the borough, and all of the city. In Williamsburg and  
Bushwick, however, residents were almost twice as likely to have  
asthma. The DOH did not directly trace the asthma to the Interstate,  
but with the Earth itself sick from the fumes of automobiles, what  
chance has Brooklyn?
 
 
 
Many people who live close to the BQE, from Greenpoint to Fort Green,  
claim to have fresh dustings of black soot on areas near open windows.  
(I suppose they should follow the advice I received from one of the  
free doctors at the city health clinic when I myself complained of  
respiratory problems: Close your windows, always.)
 
 
 
Whatever happens with the BQE - and it will be years before the  
happening - the best that could come about is that community interests  
are considered chiefly; with the vision of another Robert Moses or  
two, but the sensibilities and optimism of George Washington Plunkitt  
in an 1882 NYTimes: "Once let a man grow up amidst Brooklyn's  
cobblestones, with the odor of Newtown Creek and Gowanus Canal ever in  
his nostrils, and there's no place for him except Brooklyn." And may  
God keep our nostrils.

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Last updated  New York, NY 10.06.21  by Joel Chaffee

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