Activist Shapes Renaissance in Long Island City

Erik Baard arrived at the Kew Gardens Community Center in Queens one evening this week, anxious to find a bike rack. Then, helmet in one hand, vegan snack in the other, one pant leg still rolled to his knee, he strode into a room full of somber-suited bureaucrats. The Department of Buildings commissioner for Queens, the Queens parks commissioner, and the director of the Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability were all there. To the rest of those gathered, Mr. Baard — boathouse keeper, environmentalist, librarian, and art gallery codirector — was a community leader who had come to discuss the future of the fast-growing Long Island City.Mr. Baard, once a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal, left his career to focus on his volunteer work and is now a living example of the mingling of aggressive expansion and environmental vigilance driving Long Island City’s rejuvenation. The strip of old warehouses and new high rises in the southwest corner of Queens has long been considered up and coming, eyed by artists and investors alike. Far from rejecting development in the area, Mr. Baard sees a role for himself in Long Island City’s renaissance. “I want to make urbanization as humane and green as possible,” he said.Unlike community leaders in other fast-changing neighborhoods, Mr. Baard welcomes towers, like the new 15-story office building by Citigroup, and three new condo complexes, the highest rising to 20 stories, that are on the way. “They are efficient in terms of land use and energy use,” he said.With the pace of Long Island City’s growth, it would be difficult for Mr. Baard effectively to oppose the new buildings. The local City Council member, Eric Gioia, estimates that 10,000 new housing units will be created in the Queens neighborhood in the next five years.Mr. Baard says diversity in land use is key. He listed eco-friendly businesses he would welcome to the neighborhood, such as a drycleaning company that uses carbon dioxide captured from the air as a cleaning chemical, a biodiesel production plant, and a company that recycles discarded inkjet printer cartridges. “Not everything can be a condo, even if it’s a condo with a windmill on top and a green roof,” he said.“I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to make cities more livable,” Mr. Baard said. “We have to retain urban density in a way that allows nature to thread its way through.”His ideas have joined currents already flowing through planning discussions about the local waterfront community. Mr. Gioia recently finalized plans for a 16-mile waterfront greenway, for which he received $20 million in federal funding.Pollution concerns color rezoning issues; lingering toxic material from the 50-year old Standard Oil spill in Newtown Creek, which runs along the southern edge of Long Island City, has made the conversion of many of the waterfront warehouses to mixed or residential use from commercial costly and difficult. Mr. Gioia, who joined a federal lawsuit against Standard Oil’s heir, Exxon, for polluting Newtown Creek, will announce an expansion of the suit today.Mr. Baard has his own reasons for anticipating Newtown Creek’s restoration. He wants to replant the area with apple trees donated from the estates of Presidents Washington and Jefferson, he said. The Newtown Pippin apples the two Founding Fathers loved were grown along the waterway in the 18th century.Mr. Baard also is trying to secure cheap space for artists. He and his fellow volunteers at the Long Island City Community Boathouse, who organize kayaking trips on the East River, share space in an old meat processing plant with fabric artists, a gallery, and a documentary filmmaker. An artisan food vendor and Recycle a Bicycle also call the building home; Mr. Baard takes partial credit for the population of the building. He said he thinks his landlord is taking a loss on the property, but that the sacrifice is worth it in the long run. “We’re bringing this creative life to the area,” he said.Mr. Baard laments the fact that the L.I.C. Bar, a local institution, has earned the nickname “the Far Bar” by newcomers he calls “the tower crowd.” He said he wants to draw the neighborhood’s newest residents to the already established waterfront community with a proposed boatbuilding museum and a program for underprivileged children to construct boats from around the world.Though his dreams may be far from realization, Mr. Baard has a good reason to be optimistic. “It’s very rare that New York City ever has a blank canvas, and here we have a blank canvas,” he said.

Activist Shapes Renaissance in Long Island City

Activist Shapes Renaissance in Long Island City

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