By Oona Milliken | omilliken@queensledger.com

On Sept. 29th, 2023, heavy rainfall flooded the streets of New York City prompting Mayor Eric Adams and NY State Governor Kathy Hochul to declare a state of emergency. In Brooklyn, areas like Gowanus, Williamsburg and South Williamsburg were particularly hard hit with flood water falling more than eight inches in some parts of the city. Now, local Brooklyn politicians are attempting to prevent the next flood incident by proposing rainwater legislation to allow for a fee to fund more comprehensive water and run-off infrastructure.

At a press conference in front of McCarren Park, where flooding submerged cars in September, State Senator Emily Gallagher, alongside residents affected by the floods, as well as Councilmember Lincoln Restler and State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, introduced legislation that is expected to collect anywhere between $266 million to $892 million a year. In a press conference, Gallagher said the legislation is intended to raise money for the creation of green infrastructure in Williamsburg and Greenpoint.

“You can imagine the terror as you watch the water rise. That’s what many of our neighbors here experienced with little warning from the city [on September 29th],” Gallagher said. “Green infrastructure is what we call the array of practices that use or mimic natural systems to manage stormwater runoff, rain gardens, infiltration basins, stormwater green streets, green roofs, permeable paving, the list goes on. But now take a look at this map of green infrastructure projects in New York City. There’s almost nothing in Greenpoint or Williamsburg.”

The legislation is a little bit “wonky” according to Senator Gallagher. She is not proposing an implementation of any type of fee but legislation that would allow the city of NYC Municipal Water Finance Authority to collect revenue from property owners in New York at their Finance Authority’s discretion. Right now, the Authority does not have the jurisdiction to add new fees.

According to John Paraskevopoulos, the Legislative Director for Gallagher’s office, the fee is meant to be implemented on those who own impervious surfaces such as concrete parking lots. Paraskevopoulos said that any additional revenue acquired by the Water Finance Authority would go to alleviate high water and sewer bills.

“It doesn’t mandate anything, but it creates a framework within which a stormwater fee could be implemented and authorizes the creation of one by any sewer authority in the state,” Paraskevopoulos said. “And also, if there’s any revenue left over, hopefully, it can help balance or make more equitable people’s existing sewer rates and water bills.”

Gallagher’s office is basing their legislation in part on a study on rainwater by New York’s independent budget office. The study modeled their findings off of rainwater fees in other large cities, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. in order to create revenue predictions for New York City.

Brenda Suchilt, a horticulturist for Newtown Creek Alliance, an organization dedicated to restoring and revitalizing Newtown Creek, said that creating more greenspace to absorb excess rainwater can do more than just help prevent flooding.

“There’s a lot of value in green infrastructure aside from obviously diverting a lot of this local flooding from our combined sewage overflow,” Suchilt said during the press conference. “It has an encompassing benefit for the community. Aside from the safety side, there’s an encompassing value with green infrastructure, aside from beautifying these neighborhoods and creating habitat for local wildlife, it can also help with our urban heat island effect.”

Attendee of the press conference Kelly Marks, a Greenpoint resident, said she had to help her downstairs neighbors on Sept. 29th when a wall collapsed on them with their one-year-old in the apartment. Marks said she feared another dangerous flood and hoped that the new legislation would go towards preventing potential deaths due to excess rainwater.

“The water flooded five feet on the first floor. It came in through one of the windows. It was so powerful and came in so quickly that it knocked the wall that separates [the apartments],” Marks said. “Something has to be done, because my biggest fear, besides losing lovely neighbors, watching them lose belongings and feel afraid in their own homes, I’m so afraid someone is going to die if something isn’t done soon.”

Slow Night at Bridge and Tunnel Brewery Features an Eclectic Crew of Local and Notable Standup Comics

By Daniel Cody | news@queensledger.com

A slow but steady rain reached Queens on Sunday night, yet Last Call Comedy’s first dog-friendly event of the month at Bridge and Tunnel Brewery still raged on.

A meager but ever-present group of comedy-enjoyers came to 15-35 Decatur Street to laugh alongside man’s best friend… but only one canine attended.

Last Call Comedy’s “DIY” Sunday night performance has been a recurring  neighborhood treat for around six years, says organizer and performer Daniel J. Perafan, along with his colleague Eric Schleyer.

“I called Dan, and I was like ‘hey, do you want to run a comedy show at the brewery?’ And Dan is like, ‘yeah sure!’ So, fast-forward six years later, we’re still doing it and it’s pretty good,” Schleyer told the Queens Ledger.

“I knew Dan from college. We went to a few shows in college, and we were still in touch after college.”

“It started off like that,” says Perafan.

When comedy originally started showing at Bridge and Tunnel, it was not consistently an indoor performance.

During the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, the show took to the outdoors (out on the street in front of the brewery) to maintain precaution. Drivers passing by would slow down to listen in on the best jokes – Schleyer and Perafan say this was an early bellwether of quality material.

The Sunday night show is a good place for comedians to work out the kinks in their new humor, says Schleyer.

“A lot of the comics that come in, they’re trying out new material. So, when you bomb here, it’s not a big deal, you know what I mean?”

“They’re really honing their craft.”

Sometimes, new jokes can be a bust.

“A lot of comedians are like: ‘Are you here for the comedy or is the comedy happening to you?’”

The venue at Bridge and Tunnel has all the staples of a healthy Ridgewood–Bushwick dive: an indoor chain-link fence and motley, lacquered furniture. Sticker-plastered walls and hipsters discussing idiosyncratic localisms over specialty brews.

“We were on a few comedy specials on Amazon Prime,” says Schleyer.

“Shelflife” on Amazon Prime heavily features the Last Call Comedy crew at Bridge and Tunnel.

Sunday’s featured comics included Gina Ginsberg, Johnny MacDonald, Keenan Steiner, Stephen Pratt, Brandy Thomas – who was the host for the evening’s festivities – and Perafan.

At the beginning of the performance, Thomas asked two audience members why they decided to come out that night, and pointedly, they responded, “Free event! Why not?”

As the show went on, comics worked their way around the audience, oftentimes stifled by its small size, but persistent in their edgy, quality and hard-hitting humor. Nothing was off the table: sexuality, diet, race, relationships.

Last Call Comedy is for people who like jokes that don’t hold back.

“The comedy that tends to work here is not long-form – it’s shorter, punchier stuff,” Brandy Thomas told the Queens Ledger.

More prominent and indie comics float around from Queens and Brooklyn’s various comedy clubs to Bridge and Tunnel on Sundays.

“Sometimes we get the area comics and sometimes we get the Manhattan comics. It all depends,” says Perafan.

“Especially if they like working on something new [the comics] love coming to a place like this. You have a subsection of the American audience.”