By Matt Chaban 11/07/12 12:15pm

recovery mode

(Photo illustration: Ed Johnson)

The Committee to Save New York: An Oral History of Hurricane Sandy

When Hurricane Sandy came ashore, it fell to the city’s leaders and the thousands of workers at their command to secure our coasts, to rescue those trapped by water and without power, to help the city rebuild. The Observer spent Monday and Tuesday talking with New York’s top public officials about Hurricane Sandy. These are their experiences in their own words.

The Storm

Joe Lhota, chairman and CEO, Metropolitan Transportation Authority: I have an app on my iPad that monitors hurricanes on the East Coast. I have always lived on the water. I always watch the app. So when I first got involved in this—it was long before it even hit Jamaica—I knew when it started as a tropical storm, and a hurricane, and a tropical storm, and then a hurricane again.

Joe Bruno, commissioner, NYC Office of Emergency Management: We follow the weather very closely this time of year as it comes off the tip of Africa, or wherever it develops. This particular storm came out of the southwest of the Caribbean. At 11 a.m. on October 22, we saw a tropical depression. At that point it’s just a depression, and you don’t know much about it. By 6 p.m., it was upgraded already to a tropical storm called Sandy. It continued to strengthen during the next day, and we kept track of it as it moved across Jamaica. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/11/12 3:41pm

Greensward

5 Photos

Open Space, Now Transmitting in Greenpoint

At Transmitter Park Opening, New Commissioner Veronica White Prefers Ribbon Cutting to Information Sharing

Big, fluffy Bob Ross clouds hung over the Manhattan skyline yesterday afternoon, in full view from one of the best vantage points in the city to view them: Greenpoint’s new Transmitter Park. Almost perfectly parallel with the Empire State Building, the park provides an unparalleled panorama of Midtown and the rest of Manhattan.

Mayor Bloomberg and his Parks Commissioner Veronica White had crossed the river not only to take in the scene but also cut the ribbon on the 1.6-acre, $12 million project. It was Ms. White‘s first official public appearance after replacing Adrian Benepe, who had been in the job since 2001. It was her coming out, if a quiet one, with limited fanfare and few workers. Just another day on the job.

“Our administration has been revitalizing old infrastructure and recasting it in new ways that makes sense for New Yorkers today,” the mayor said proudly, pointing to the success of other projects like the High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park as well.

But unlike those open space developments, heralded the world over, the waterfront of Williamsburg and Greenpoint has long languished. Read More