Ikea Applies for Ferry Dock Permit as It Severs Red Hook Piers

Our email inbox was flooded yesterday with material from activists that want to prevent Ikea from chopping up several usable piers on the Red Hook waterfront. The retailer already has permission from the Army Corps of Engineers to hack them up, but activists are submitting comments objecting to the plan as part of Ikea's application for a permit to build a ferry dock, which the Corps must approve. At issues are two piers that could serve as docks for historic ships or, even, be used for emergency purposes in case of some sort of crisis. Waterfront advocates say that once the docks are cut up, it will be virtually impossible to get permission to rebuild them. Part of a conversation we had:

The piers that still exist would be disconnected from land. There's no use for a pier that the public can't get to or that a ship's crew couldn't get to without a boat. If Ikea severs those piers, we'll never get a permit to build them back and that infrastructure will be lost.

The interesting things is aerial photos from Microsoft Virtual Earth show Ikea may already be "severing" the piers. As for the comments submitted to the Army Corp, a source notes:

This new permit gives us another chance to ring in. It is a different type of permit requiring public comment, thus the notice. Of course, all the buildings are now gone and Graving Dock No. 1 is filled. But maybe we can keep the piers from being severed and maybe influence the development of the esplanade.

Assuming they haven't already been chopped. A letter from the Roebling Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archeology is below. You can view an image of the letter to the Army Corps from the Waterfront Museum by clicking here.