A habitat for humanity on the water

This is the semi-industrial, semi-residential neighborhood that both the Noguchi and Socrates Sculpture Park call home, and where, significantly, the waterfront remains largely out of sight or reach. It’s this shoreline that Mayor Bloomberg’s $3.3 billion, three-year waterfront plan, unveiled last March, leaves completely untouched.

The exhibit at the Noguchi — less an “exhibit” in the traditional sense and more a collection of models, nascent blueprints and drawings — is just one facet of a multipronged effort to engage the neighborhood. In addition to a panel discussion with artists in the exhibit and waterfront experts, held last Sunday, the Noguchi is hosting two more events: one on Sunday, Dec. 11, in which visitors can tour the exhibit with its guest curator, Amy Smith-Stewart; and the second, on Sunday, Jan. 8, during which the public will have a chance to address the artists in what the museum is calling an “Artists Town Hall.” Finally, in the spring, large-scale models of the four teams’ designs will be on view at Socrates Sculpture Park.

“This can and should be the beginning of something,” said Carter Craft at Sunday’s panel discussion. Craft, who served as the panel moderator, is a waterfront veteran: he co-founded the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, which now represents over 500 organizations with a stake in New York’s waterways, and was instrumental in the construction of an oyster nursery and dock at Governor’s Island.

In a later phone conversation, Craft explained why he thought Western Queens had been almost entirely ignored in the city’s waterfront plan, including the $360 million it has earmarked for public access to the water alone.

“It’s complicated from a planning perspective, from a regulatory perspective,” he said. Because of the existing industry on the waterfront in the area, including the TransCanada Ravenswood power station and the Con Edison transformer station, creating public access wouldn’t be easy. “Water-heavy industrial buildings are precluded from having to provide public access,” he said. In fact, there are regulations in place that bar construction in close proximity to these buildings.

That didn’t stop artist George Trakas, however, from putting together his design, one of the most beguiling in the museum’s exhibit. The idea is simple: a walkway built with existing but long disused pieces of boardwalk and bulkhead that would wrap around Con Edison and TransCanada, connecting the shoreline from 36th Avenue to Socrates Sculpture Park.

Images on screens at the exhibit show what the walkway would look like, as envisioned by Trakas and Lyn Rice Architects. An entire area now completely inaccessible would be utterly transformed, with a bike path and even an “event pier.”

Trakas is in conversations with Con Edison and TransCanada about the feasibility of the design.

“The coastline here is ready,” he said during the panel discussion.

Despite the logistical difficulties of many of the artists’ ideas, Craft is hopeful.

“It’s all a matter of who pays attention,” he said. As an example, he cited the Friends of the High Line, who championed the cause of the disused freight line in Chelsea, at one point slated for destruction, beginning in 1999. Over a decade later, the $100 million project, which ultimately gained the mayor’s approval, is by and large considered a major success and evidence of how civic action can work.

Artist Natalie Jeremijenko, whose imaginative designs in the exhibit include creating a “salamander superhighway” and habitats for frogs, encouraged people present at the panel to think both small and big.

“We can demand an environmental commons,” Jeremijenko said.

“No one trusts an artist,” she added. “You’re only ever as persuasive as the things that you do.”

‘Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City’

When: Through April 22, 2012, Wed.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat. and Sun. 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

Where: Noguchi Museum, 9-01 33 Rd., Long Island City

Tickets: $10; $5 seniors and students

(718) 204-7088/noguchi.org