But after two years of hearings, Ms. Mariano recalls, the board voted against the variance and her efforts won. “The last time I spoke in front of the board,” she says with a glowing grin, “audience members were stopping me and asking me if I could speak on behalf of their group!”
Ms. Mariano co-founded FROGG in 2004, soon after the 450 Union Street victory, along with her husband and longtime community members Margaret Maugenest and architect Marlene Donnelly, among others. Its inception can also be traced to the Gowanus Stakeholders’ meetings, a series of information sessions sponsored by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Army Corps of Engineers (the latter organization had nominated numerous sites along the Gowanus for placement in the National Register of Historic Places). Ms. Mariano and her cohorts used to attend bi-monthly talks from 2004 through 2006, although meetings themselves were mostly a “waste of time,” she says, since the government officials lacked much needed data. At one point they asked, for example, if the Atlantic Yards site was on the same
However, it brought together a group of concerned locals who were interested in learning more about the environmental conditions surrounding the canal. Soon they began meeting regularly through FROGG, acting as watchdogs for all of the actions of local developers and researching as much as possible about the environmental conditions surrounding the Gowanus.
FROGG co-founder Margaret Maugenest is an artist who has lived for 26 years in a Nevins Street loft (“at the heart of Gowanus”), and worked with Ms. Mariano ever since their efforts to save 460 Union.
“We wouldn’t be where we are now without Linda,” she said in a phone interview. “She gathers all of the information from every newspaper and printed source—she has boxes and boxes of files and clippings and printouts, from the EPA and the Army Corps, Columbia University studies, a vast library.”
According to Ms. Maugenest, Ms. Mariano is a “neighborhood scholar” who relies on cold facts to submit formal inquiries and responses to every brownfield applicant and developer proposal to use Gowanus land for development. She cites Ms. Mariano’s skill at calling agencies, putting in freedom of information requests and similar procedural motions. Without facts to back up their claims, FROGG wouldn’t be able to have the effects it has, she says.
“[Linda] is always very diligent in watching local papers for announcements of brownfield applications and being on top of new applications going in,” Ms. Maugenest said. “Developers are required to notify the community [and they do so] in the tiny print, tiny local paper. Unless someone were actively reading those on a weekly basis, you would never know and so Linda always keeps us informed.”
Katia Kelly writes the Carroll Gardens blog Pardon Me For Asking and also works with FROGG. “Linda’s one of the pioneers of Gowanus. She loves it for its rawness and that it’s just not Manhattan,” Ms. Kelly said. The 25-year Carroll Gardens resident and blogger finds that Mariano’s earnestness explains her passion for the saving the neighborhood.
“She has this spirit of calm, this belief that truth will prevail. Even with the mighty Toll Brothers, she just said ‘it’s not going to happen, right will prevail.’ She never gives up hope,” Ms. Kelly sighed melancholically, wishing she had the same level of optimism as Ms. Mariano.
NOWADAYS, WALKING DOWN Smith Street with Ms. Mariano is a slow process. Not because she moves slowly, nothing could be further from the truth, but because at least once every block someone stops her to say hello and catch up on neighborhood news. But despite her cheerful demeanor and buoyant declarations of love for her neighborhood (“I like the open sky and feel very comfy the way I live, and want to keep it that way,”) she sees herself forever fighting a community battle, even if it’s just over a piece of wall.
Most recently, she tipped off local bloggers about the possible destruction of a ConEd-owned Third Avenue wall said to be part of the original Dodgers stadium, known as Washington Park. After the story gained some attention, the Daily News and Brooklyn Courier picked it up—although the response from the preservation groups was as emotional as Ms. Mariano’s, with some stating that the wall was not part of the stadium. Armed with articles and clippings about the wall, Ms. Mariano thinks differently.
“Kathy Howe from New York State Parks and Preservation called me in the first week of January,” she said, “and she said to me, ‘That wall is just a remnant!'”
“And I said, ‘Excuse me!'” she said emphatically. “Remnants? I like remnants! They’re all we have and they’re part of our history.”
