Wards Island Sewage Treatment Site

Completed in 1937, the Wards Island Sewage Treatment plant was the first to use the activated sludge process to treat sewage by removing solid matter, known as sludge, to leave behind clean water that could be released back into the environment. Prior to this only a fraction of the city’s sewage received treatment. Instead, most spilled from sewers directly into surrounding waterways where it strangled marine life and polluted city beaches. The project was realized with more than $11 million in grant monies from the Works Progress Administration. By 1939, both the Bowery Bay and Tallman Island sewage treatment plants were also in operation with more being planned. Today 14 Wastewater Resource Recovery Facilities treat over 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater every single day and New York City’s waterways are cleaner than ever.

Below is a photo of the sewage treatment plant in 1950.

The area to the north, where the FDNY training facility now exists, was a marshy peninsula, sticking out towards the Bronx.

Here is an image of this plant being build during the New Deal 1930s:

And the completed Administration building:

New Uptown Gallery and Exhibition

Be sure to check-out the AHL Foundation’s new gallery in Harlem (on FDB at 139). Their inaugural exhibition features Buhm Hong, Gyun Hur, Devin Osorio and Dianne Smith and is well worth visiting.

The exquisite drawings and digital art by Buhm Hong is mesmerizing and somehow both calming and disquieting at the same time.

https://www.ahlfoundation.org/ahl-foundation-announces-opening-of-new-gallery-in-west-harlem-in-april-2022-inaugural-exhibition-featuring-buhm-hong-gyun-hur-devin-osorio-and-dianne-smith/

New York, NY – AHL Foundation is proud to announce the opening of its first gallery in West Harlem in April 2022. The wheelchair-accessible gallery is located on the ground floor 2605 Frederick Douglass Blvd, New York, NY with a basement space for additional programming. The new space houses the Archive of Korean Artists in America (AKAA) and an educational space for the community.

Following AHL Foundation’s move to Harlem after its 19 year history, it is fitting that this inaugural exhibition in the new space uptown responds to its new neighborhood. Guest curated by Amy Kahng, the inaugural exhibition, Space Uptown opens to the public on April 30, 3-6pm and is on view until May 21, 2022.

An exhibition about locality and neighborhood history, the exhibition features artistic practices that reflect the local neighborhood. Participating artists Buhm Hong, Gyun Hur, Devin Osorio, and Dianne Smith, three of whom live and work in upper Manhattan, consider the communities, histories, memories, and environments that make up Harlem and Upper Manhattan more broadly.

Dianne Smith’s dynamic video work, The House of Lois K. Alexander-Lane, celebrates Harlem’s Black cultural history by weaving together footage from Smith’s participation as a young model in the 1985-1989 iterations of Harlem Fashion Week. Buhm Hong’s intricate and labyrinthine architectural designs, rendered both digitally and on paper, draw on various architectural references from his personal biography including his current homebase in Harlem. Devin Osorio’s fantastical paintings and sculptural works document his neighborhood of Washington Heights, highlighting the quotidian experiences of community, work, commuting, and familial connections. The twelve teardrop vessels filled with Hudson and Harlem River water by Gyun Hur reflect on loss, commemoration, and memory, particularly for the victims of the 2021 Atlanta Spa shooting. Installed here in Harlem, Hur’s work takes on new resonances within the current and historical movements for racial justice that have taken place in this neighborhood.

A Modest Proposal: Density

Gotham Gazette has a well thought out essay on how density should be a planning goal for our community in light of the 2nd Avenue Subway extension:

High-quality planning and significant upzoning could boost ridership on the new line and remake East Harlem into a place that more comfortably accommodates current and future residents–of all income levels. The New York City Department of City Planning, the MTA and its New York City Transit division, and NYCHA need to plan proactively and “think big” for the neighborhood’s future.

The first phase of the Second Avenue line (with stops at 72nd, 86th, and 96th Streets) serves the Upper East Side. This affluent district is characterized by large apartment buildings permitted primarily by R8 and R10 zoning. Major institutions like Hunter College and hospital complexes attract thousands of daily subway commuters. The first stops of the Q Line quickly attracted about 200,000 riders per day, and patronage is rebounding amid pandemic recovery.

This strong ridership was predictable. Upscale, high-density redevelopment of the East Side tenements has been a civic priority since the 1940s. Big, bulky apartment buildings are often frowned upon in NIMBY circles, but the vitality of the Upper East Side demonstrates the value of concentrating hundreds of thousands of people together in suitable housing near transit. The apartment buildings frequently have stores at the base and wide sidewalks. Many remaining tenement buildings have been renovated for higher-income renters. Population density of this type is one of New York’s enduring assets–and a key to its rebounding fortunes in the post-covid era.

Extending the subway line in East Harlem along Second Avenue between 96th Street and 125th Streets is a different story. The neighborhood’s threadbare low-rise tenements remain a dominant feature. Developers, due to redlining, ignored the area for decades. Overcrowded apartments, rent-burdened families, and building code violations in the area are well documented. The longstanding Puerto Rican and Black communities in the area have thrived despite widespread housing exploitation and poor living conditions.

The city and NYCHA redeveloped sections of the district since the 1940s, but these efforts have lost their luster. East Harlem retains one of the nation’s largest concentrations of “tower in the park” public housing. The iconic red-brick towers, built far below the allowable zoning envelope, were once a showpiece of the city’s social vision. Today, however, growing maintenance issues, because of limited capital and operating subsidies, have undermined resident quality of life.

Despite their Manhattan location and the Lexington Subway line running nearby, planners built the NYCHA housing projects at low-density levels with acres of lawn and surface parking. The local stations through which the current Lexington Subway runs (103rd, 110th, and 116th Streets) have modest ridership compared to stations below 96th Street. Very few NYCHA developments have stores at ground level, creating empty zones along major Avenues.

Read the full article, here:

https://www.gothamgazette.com/130-opinion/11193-east-harlem-nycha-second-ave-subway-housing-transit

New Art Exhibit

Make sure to head over to 2605 Frederick Douglass Blvd (at 139th Street) to AHL’s Space Uptown, for a new exhibit featuring a number of uptown artists, including our neighbor Buhm Hong:

https://www.aaartsalliance.org/events/space-uptown

The exhibit will continue until May 21.

Watch Blurring the Color Line

Blurring the Color Line is being shown at the Harlem International Film Festival.

Following director Crystal Kwok’s personal journey of discovery, BLURRING THE COLOR LINE digs deep into how her grandmother’s family navigated life as neighborhood grocery store owners in the Black community of Augusta, Georgia during the Jim Crow era.

This documentary serves to disrupt racial narratives and bridge divides.

To watch a conversation about this film see:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16dtI5Ao4do8NYs0OMG8D4u2uDIUqImqn/view

And here is more about the film:

https://www.blurringthecolorline.com/events

Join Jane (Walking East/West Harlem)

Event Registration

Jane’s Walk 2022: A Great Day in Harlem: Crossing the 5th Avenue Divide

05/08/2022 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM ET

Admission

  • Free

Summary

Take your mother for a stroll around East and Central Harlem above 125th Street, straddling Fifth Avenue, the traditional dividing line between East and Central Harlem. Members of Landmark East Harlem (LEH) will introduce you to the treasures of the second historic district that LEH has proposed for listing on the National and State Registers of Historic Places. Featured sites include 19th-century wood frame houses, Victorian-era rowhouses, landmarks associated with James Baldwin and Langston Hughes, former church buildings that have been given new purpose, and the brownstone stoop that served as the site of the iconic 1958 photograph of jazz musicians by Art Kane for Esquire magazine. A virtual live stream will be available on Landmark East Harlem’s Instagram channel: @LEH_NYC.

Free Concert in MGP

Gabriel Chakarji Group
Join us for a concert with an amazing composer and musician: Gabriel
Chakarji. As a Venezuelan immigrant in NYC, by linking together his
past and present, he combines contemporary jazz and improvised
music techniques, with elements of the rich Venezuelan music culture,
especially the African influences of rhythm and drum parts, call and
response, and the spiritual and social context of the music.


Wednesday, May 4, 2022 || 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

This event is FREE, but space is limited. To RSVP, go to jazzpf4.eventbrite.com
Pelham Fritz Recreation Center | 18 Mount Morris Park, New York, NY 10027
Located at 112th St. Phone (212) 860-1373