Last week, when we posted a video of workers bringing an era to an end in Red Hook by digging up the paving stones on Beard Street in advance of the opening of Ikea, we joked that they might make a reappearance in the sprawling parking lot or the waterfront “esplanade.” We had watched a truck driving the paving stones into the lot. Well, it turns out it’s not a joke. Ikea is using the paving stones that the city is ripping from Beard Street somewhere on its property. A short item in the Brooklyn Paper notes the removal of the paving stones saying that it “set off a momentary panic” in Red Hook, but that everyone should relax because an Ikea spokesperson “reminded” that the paving stones will end somewhere in the humongous parking lot. We suspect they’ll end up near the “esplanade” along the parking lot, but speaking of being “reminded” of things, if Ikea has any appreciation for irony perhaps the paving stones can be used as part of the parking lot over the filled-in Graving Dock. Also, is it too late for the store’s eatery to include a mural of the Todd Shipyard so that people can be “reminded” of what Red Hook looked like before it looked like Paramus?
2 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Nov 23, 2007 at 9:32 am
GL, I think you are not very far off the mark about them using the cobbles to pave over the graving dock. Having some familiarity with a very early iteration of the plan, Ikea was going to use a band of cobbles to “outline” where the dock is buried under all that fill and asphalt.
2 Anonymous // Nov 24, 2007 at 7:26 pm
But how will this work with all the “BMP’s” (Mayor’s Office Best Management Practices) to keep rain water from running off the parking lot into the river?
Aren’t they supposed to build vegetative swales and such all over the parking lot? How do these pavers fit into the “green” plans for this waterfront area?