Even though the city has reduced boat access to Newtown Creek, a Greenpoint group is dreaming of a maritime future for the polluted waterway.
The Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning wants to create a boathouse in the ground floor of the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center, a brick industrial warehouse adjacent to the creek at the end of Manhattan Avenue.
The public facility would provide storage space for small non-motorized crafts, contain a training and education center for recreational boating and rebuild the crumbling bulkhead to allow for public access to the creek.
Perhaps the highlight of the plan is a public esplanade between the creek and the boathouse, part of a continuous pathway from Greenpoint to South Side Williamsburg, complete with a place to launch boats without worry.
Community Board 1 member Dewey Thompson, who submitted the plan, believes that the Greenpoint Boathouse could become a reality within four years.
“This is an ambitious and visionary project that will dramatically enhance this community’s open space, educational and recreational facilities and also enhance the perception of the Newtown Creek and Greenpoint’s relationship to its waterfront,” said Thompson.
The project is one of many competing for funding from a pool of money that stems from a pollution settlement between the city and state.