👩‍💻👨‍💻 Working Together to Improve Our Blocks

🌟 Author’s Note

Good morning to the 125 members of the Better Block Project 🌆 This week, I was included on three separate efforts from community members to make improvements in Bed Stuy, and I wanted to highlight each of them. While working with the city is often painfully slow, it was inspiring to see the continued persistence of several our neighbors to improve our blocks in each of their own ways. Here is the TLDR:

• Members of the Lefferts Place Block Association continue to advocate for improvement on Franklin Avenue between Fulton and Lefferts place, after more illicit activity and garbage was observed this past week

• Flo from Brevoorts Place is working to demand a deeper refurbishment of the S Shuttle overpass, to ensure the deterioration of the bridge is addressed

• Omar from the Jefferson Block Association has united with neighbors to demand City Council address the street tree maintenance situation, and proposed a new program for reimbursement of private tree maintenance

• If you want to be included to support on any of these efforts, just reply to this email!

🚏 Improving the Situation on Franklin between Fulton and Lefferts Place

Despite the progress we’ve made at the bus stop on Franklin, between Fulton and Lefferts, the corner still remains a spot for garbage and illicit activity. I heard from one community member this week that they saw three men doing illicit activity in the middle of the day, and a shopping cart under the shuttle train that had been left there for a week was still unaddressed despite 311 complaints.

In addition to this, I also heard from Andre, leader of the Lefferts Place Block association, highlighting how elected officials have known about the conditions at Franklin Avenue and Lefferts Place for nearly 5 years, yet little progress has been made.

We still haven’t heard back on the upcoming meeting between MTA and DOT on improvements to the bus stop, but it’s inspiring to see the continued persistence of all the neighbors involved to better the situation.

As a next step, in addition to encouraging DOT and MTA to meet to make the improvements we’ve asked for, we’re also planning to follow up with the media. We want to share the story of how this block has been so problematic for so long, and the city has failed to take meaningful action to improve it.

🚉 Demanding a More Robust Improvement of the S Shuttle Train Bridge

This week, I also heard from Flo, from the Brevoort Place Block association, about improvements to the S Shuttle train bridge. For those that have walked under or by the bridge, you have probably noticed the rust that covers much of it and the disintegration on both Fulton Street and Lefferts Place.

The city has shared that as a part of the Atlantic Avenue Mixed Use Plan, they plan to repaint the bridge, however, they haven’t elaborated on any deeper improvements to the structure. Our hope is they will do a deeper improvement, as supposed to just painting over the rust as has been done in the past.

As a next step to demand more, Flo has filed a FOIL request to understand historical maintenance inspections of the bridge, to ultimately work with elected officials to demand deeper investments into the quality of the overpass.

🌳 Raising Awareness About Lack of Tree Maintenance

Finally, this week I wanted to spot light Omar from the 200 Jefferson Block Association, who has banded together with neighbors to advocate for improved street tree maintenance in Bed Stuy. Following our update last week about the lack of tree pruning in Brooklyn for the last 6 months, Omar has asked all neighbors to reach out to City Council directly ([email protected]) highlighting the lack of tree maintenance and proposed a reimbursement program for neighbors to have arborists trim the trees on their own. Omar shared he received several responses to this effort, highlighting how this issue impacts so many neighbors.

👩‍💻👨‍💻 Putting it All Together

While working to make change in New York often feels like a sisyphean effort, it was re-energizing this week to hear from four separate community members each demanding more from our local government. Individually, our efforts are small, but collectively I am confident we will make an impact.

If you want to help support any of the efforts above, just reply to this email and I will put you in contact or let you know how to support. The more individual people the city hears from about these issues, the more likely we are to see change happen on our blocks.

That’s all for this week’s update! As usual, if you like what we’re doing at the Better Block Project, forward this to someone you know that is looking to get more engaged in the neighborhood.

See you next week,

David