Queens Gazette

Hallets Point To Develop Ferry Route



The Transportation Committee of Community Board 1 is scheduled to meet with representatives of the Durst Organization tonight, September 25, to discuss parking changes for Halletts Point and a new ferry route proposal.

Transportation Committee Co-Chairs Robert Piazza and Jose Batista announced the meeting in a September 12 memo to members of the Transportation Committee and all interested board members. The meeting will take place at CB 1’s office at the Pistilli Grand Manor, 45-02 Ditmars Blvd., LL Suite 1025 at 6:30 pm, Wednesday, September 25.

The Durst Organization opened a 404-unit residential building at 10 Halletts Point recently, the first of seven planned buildings totaling 2,020 units (about a quarter affordable) at Halletts Point, a development first proposed in 2013. Halletts Point is about a mile away from the Astoria Blvd. subway station on the N and W line and the Astoria ferry stop is a short walk away.

Durst is lobbying the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) for an extension of the Astoria ferry route to the East 90th Street ferry stop across the East River in Manhattan, and is seeking support for the proposed route change from both Community Boards 1 and 2 in Queens and Community Board 8 in Manhattan before presenting their proposal to the EDC which oversees NYC Ferries.

“What we’re trying to do is build support for this to put together a coalition of people on both sides of the river to go to EDC and make the case and say that this is something we want that is relatively easy for (EDC) to implement and roll out, and will have tremendous benefits to a lot of people,” said Durst spokesman Jordan Barowitz in a May 3 online post of Curbed New York.

Last May, Durst went to Community Board 8 with its proposal, which they estimate would be a five-minute trip in comparison to the roughly 40- to 50-minute trip other public transit alternatives would take to get from Astoria to Carl Schurz Park where the ferry pier is located.

According to the online report in the May 3 Curbed New York, the Community Board 8 Transportation Committee has passed a resolution in favor of the Durst proposal with some additions: The board wants Durst to explore subsidizing ferry rides for NYCHA residents living near the ferry terminals and improvements for the East 90th Street pier.

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