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COURIER L 12 IFE, FEB. 22–28, 2019 M BR B G
TRUCK STOP: A big rig with Illinois plates parked illegally on 39th Street on Feb. 14.
Photo by Colin Mixson
Green streets
Industry City leaders want more massive
planters to curb illegal truck parking
BY COLIN MIXSON
They’re trying to stem illegal parking!
Sunset Park civic gurus blessed
Industry City honchos’ scheme to install
more giant planters outside the
sprawling commercial hub, in an effort
to stop big rigs from illegally parking
on streets surrounding it.
Bigwigs at the campus placed similar
dumpster gardens along its Second
Avenue border between 32nd and 36th
streets in 2017, and the number of tractor
trailers hogging that curb space
subsequently declined, proving the
structures’ effectiveness, according
to the head of Community Board 7’s
Transportation Committee.
“They did it on Second Avenue and
it worked,” Zak Jasie said at his committee’s
Feb. 11 meeting.
Now, Industry City bigwigs want
to place more of the 11-foot dumpsters
fi lled with trees — the fi rst batch of
which were originally built to soak
up storm water, and debuted along the
Gowanus Canal before landing in Sunset
Park — outside the complex’s Building
19 on 39th Street between First and
Second avenues.
The planters would be spaced
roughly 20 feet apart, creating gaps
with plenty of space for passenger vehicles
to park and box trucks to unload,
but not enough for truckers to
stow their 50-foot big rigs at the curb,
according to Industry City Chief Executive
Offi cer Andrew Kimball.
“We’ve been watching for years and
years,” Kimball told the committee.
“They are not doing business in Industry
City, or in the area.”
Building 19 is home to the Brooklyn
Nets’s massive twin-court training
facility, and the ballers worry the
illegally parked big rigs could prevent
emergency personnel from quickly entering
in the event of a fi re or other unexpected
incident, according to a rep.
“We have concerns if there was
some sort of emergency, and fi rst responders
had to respond to a fi re or
something like that,” Jordan Ballard
INDUSTRIAL PLANT: Industry City honchos
want to use garden planters like this to prevent
illegal parking on 39th Street.
Photo by Colin Mixson
said at the meeting.
But the building isn’t just where
the Nets practice — it houses multiple
businesses, including Gumption Coffee
and eye-glasses manufacturer M
Factory, which together employ hundreds
of people, Kimball said.
And the tractor-trailers don’t just
hog street parking outside of Building
19 — they also stymie commerce
by shielding the commercial spaces
from suppliers and customers, according
to the owner of Gumption Coffee,
which operates a cafe in the building
and roasts its beans on-site.
“Our suppliers can’t fi nd us because
we’re blocked by trucks,” said Hazel de
los Reyes.
CB7’s Transportation Committee
unanimously approved the installation
of more of the planters, but one
member worried that bringing them
to 39th Street would result in more
trucks illegally parked elsewhere in
the neighborhood
The committee chairman acknowledged
the larger truck-parking issue
across Sunset Park, blaming it on a
lack of enforcement.
“We have a problem with trucks
parking under the Gowanus, and all the
way down Second Avenue to 53rd Street,
and it’s seldom enforced,” Jasie said.
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