***7/9 UPDATE***
For those following the fight to save Lidgerwood and protect Valentino Park, the community meeting will be tonight at 6 PM. Stop by on your way to our opening night screening of TOP GUN. If you can’t make the meeting, please consider signing the petition.
***UPDATE***
This just in from Nydia Velazquez’s office (6/4/19, 5:37 PM):
THERE WON’T BE A FRIDAY MEETING BECAUSE OF POSITIVE DEVELOPMENTS
The community meeting is being postponed because of a very positive development. In a nutshell:
UPS’s chief engineer ordered a new engineering analysis this morning, informed by community desires to preserve a portion of the south façade of the Lidgerwood building. While the analysis is taking place, no additional demolition of that portion of the Coffey Street façade side will take place, though demolition will continue on other parts of the site.
UPS is also creating a dedicated email: redhookcommunity@ups.com (will be active tomorrow) for community input for ideas that might help with the new engineering analysis and design . In fact, UPS has already gotten very helpful ideas and suggestions from 9 people in the community and they want an organized way of collecting additional input, hence the specific email address. They also want to be sure to get people’s phone numbers for quick communication and idea exchanges as they work through doing the new engineering analysis and developing the site plan.
As soon as UPS has something ready to share we will schedule a community meeting with them. This seems fair as the meeting and new email account, set up specifically to collect input, will help to frame the new engineering analysis.
This is good news–for now. We will post updates on the fate of Lidgerwood here on the site in between our usual summer programming news.
***
As we get ready to announce our summer slate of films, something else is weighing heavily on our minds at Red Hook Flicks. The Lidgerwood Building, seen above, has long been part of the backdrop of Valentino Park and, for over a decade, our series.
UPS now owns it and instead of adaptive re-use, they have rushed to demolish it, despite community protest and a request to landmark, in order to build a big box distribution center across from Valentino Pier. Part of the building is already lost, but much of the facade seen here still exists. We fear what a large, industrial building with flood lighting and constant truck traffic will do to the iconic character of the area, as well as the environment of Valentino Pier and the respite it has long provided for the neighborhood and visitors alike. The fabric of this beloved waterfront park, bounded on three sides by historic buildings, some dating back to the Civil War, will be irreversibly torn apart.
Red Hook has already lost so many of our historic buildings to the wrecking ball, if you’d like to help prevent another, please consider signing this petition. More importantly, UPS has granted the community a meeting this Friday, June 7th, at 7 PM in Red Hook to finally hear our concerns. This will be our one chance to show up in force and communicate to UPS how important this park is to us–and that as a neighborhood we matter. We will update with a location as soon as it becomes available.
Red Hook Flicks 