Food

Greenpoint Next Frontier in Commercial-Scale Rooftop Farms

This rooftop at 148-02 Archer Avenue
in Queens will grow your next arugula.

Viraj Puri believes the future of farming is not about tractors or rolling swaths of quilted fields or even soil. Co-founder of Gotham Greens, New York City’s first hydroponic commercial-scale rooftop farm, he envisions a three-dimensional agricultural landscape sprouting across the city’s rooftops.

Toward this green-tinged skyline, Gotham Greens hopes to build 100,000 square feet of hydroponic greenhouses throughout the five boroughs by 2030.

Brooklyn is the next horizon for these sky-high tomato dreams. The startup will transform the vacant rooftop of a Greenpoint manufacturing plant into a 20,000-square-foot greenhouse brimming with a litany of earthly bounty: salad greens, basil, squash, eggplant, to name a few. Gotham’s first greenhouse, on the rooftop of a church in Jamaica, Queens, is projected to produce 30 tons of fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs annually, starting next year.

“Hydroponics lends itself really well to the urban environment, specifically because we don’t have a lot of arable land,” Mr. Puri said. “It’s also very water and land efficient: it uses about 10 times less water than conventional agriculture and a lot less land.”

Morning Roundup

  • Does Twitter do more harm than good for street vendors? (Midtown Lunch)

Morning Roundup

  • 59 ways the city can become more elderly-friendly (City Room)
  • Video of Mayor Bloomberg welcoming his 10,000th Twitter follower (Huffington Post)
  • A pop up skatepark in NYC! (PSFK)

Seven Questions: Andrew Rasiej

Flickr via edans

Andrew Rasiej.

In our new series, we send our questionnaire about the future of New York City to notable New Yorkers and post their responses. To start off, we spoke to Andrew Rasiej, the founder of Personal Democracy Forum and our partner in the New York Future Initiative.

What are some of the biggest challenges facing New York City right now?

To compete and remain relevant in the 21st century with other major cities around the world is its biggest challenge. Updating its antiquated infrastructure, continuing to attract talented citizens, connecting them to each other and the world, investing in new industries, becoming green, and creating a new generation of enlightened political leadership. These are just a few examples where we are woefully behind other cities.

Can you suggest a few innovative, outside-of-the-box ideas for improving daily life in this city?


Here are a few:

Morning Roundup

  • Green sanitation trucks will start making collection rounds in Queens in two weeks (New York Post)
  • There are 10 sites from New York on Time's 50 Best Web sites of 2009 list (NY Tech Meetup)
  • Transportation Alternatives' District 25 Council candidates debate is tonight in Queens (Streetsblog)
  • A meetup for people transitioning to a sustainable development career (GreenHome NYC)

Week in Review: August 17-21

Flickr via Ed Yourdon
  • There's a new Web site that tracks city candidates' positions on transit issues.

Morning Roundup

  • A report from Transportation Alternatives' 39th District council candidates debate (Streetsblog)
  • Green fitness in Bushwick (gbNYC)
  • Sustainable designs at the New York Gift Fair (PSFK)
  • Architectural critic James Russell weighs in on how the Mass Transit Tunnel will connect to existing and proposed transit infrastructure (Bloomberg News via PlanNYC)
  • Hungry? "There is a solar-powered biodiesel food truck serving all-local black bean veggie burger samples" (@civileater)

Urban Farming With BK Farmyards

Check out this video of urban farmer Stacey Murphy of BK Farmyards, which converts unused and underutilized New York City land into farms.

NYC's Cool New Backyard Farms: Growing More Than Just Produce from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

Some quick factoids we learned from the clip:

  • BK Farmyards' first farm, the 600-square-foot Foxtrot Farmyard, could feed eight to 10 people for six months of the growing season.
  • There's currently 10,000 acres of unused land in New York City.
  • This year, BK Farmyards is growing food on a total of 700 square feet of land in Ditmas Park, but it's working on eight other yards in the neighborhood and hopes to have three and a half acres of farmable land by next year

Thanks to noneck for the link.

Morning Roundup

  • Read about the schools, parks and organizations getting $21 million in stimulus money (Daily News)
  • Check out car-free Times Square's new and improved seating arrangements (Gothamist)
  • NY State Senate Office of the CIO's blog has a new home (nysenate.gov)
  • Techies facing off in softball (nextNY)

Morning Roundup

  • Mayor Bloomberg has pledged $50 million to strengthen the city's community colleges (New York Times)
  • Broadband and One Web Day get spots on Media Minutes (Free Press)
  • New photography corps will document how the city's built environment has changed since 2001 (Urban Omnibus)
  • Here's a short documentary about one farmer and the Union Square Greenmarket (Serious Eats)

Another Conference About New York's Future

via Empire State Future

Yet another conference about the future of New York: Empire State Future and the New York Department of State are hosting a summit on Oct. 7. called "Revitalizing NY: Building a New Economy Through Sustainable Development."

There will be panels on all the usual suspects—transportation, housing, green jobs, climate change, food systems, etc.

From Empire State Future:

There's no doubt that the economic crisis upon us is severe, the worst in many decades. Couple this with the ominous ecological and social challenges of our time, and the future of New York State may look bleak. But if we consider the remarkable human and natural resources, ingenuity, and history of innovation and determination of the people and communities of our state, we can be encouraged.

There is opportunity--and necessity--to apply this innovation and determination to an imperative: development of economies and communities that recognize and embrace the reality of scarcity, but through superior design of places and products, improve quality of life for all while using substantially less natural and financial resources.

Please join Empire State Future and The New York Department of State in Schenectady on October 7 for a Summit on revitalizing New York State through sustainable development. This Summit is designed for all participants to both learn about and contribute innovations and ideas for actualizing sustainable development in New York State, and to strengthen the connections among those working on this common quest.

No word on speakers yet, but you can view the schedule here.

Morning Roundup

  • There's great potential for New York's national parkland (Gotham Gazette)
  • Times' is taking questions about sanitation and waste disposal in N.Y.C. (City Room)
  • And here's some scenes from this weekend's Summer Streets event (NY1)
  • Here's a Google map of New York City street food (Grub Street)

Morning Roundup

  • Some coverage of yesterday's Twitter attacks (Bits, AP, CNET)
  • The State Senate has passed e-filing legislation for the New York court system (nysenate.gov)
  • Check out a presentation on Governors Island this weekend on the future of solar energy in New York City (Sustainable Cities Blog)
  • Lots of New York City restaurants are on board with a new iPhone app that gets you deals at local eateries (am New York)
  • The new DIYcity is coming soon (DIYcity)

Food Grows in Queens: Local Eating Takes Root a Stone's Throw from the L.I.E.

queensfarm.org

Even with a farmer who's a dead ringer for a rustic Owen Wilson telling you it's true, it can be difficult to believe that there's a farm reformation taking root in Queens.

Still, Michael Robertson is persuasive. He's the director of agriculture at the Queens County Farm Museum. Robertson spoke about the attempt to create a thriving farm in Queens while on a panel of young farmers at Brooklyn Food Conference held in Park Slope this spring. So, you visit. And there you find a place that is testifying through sight, sound, and smell that food can indeed spring from the ground right underneath our feet. Even, in fact, when that's Floral Park, Queens, a mile and a half off the Long Island Expressway.

Set on a 47-acre plot, the Queens County Farm Museum has been a working farm since 1697. It has, at times, been a family farm. The Adriance Farmhouse that oversees the site is named after Jacob and Catherine Adriance, a couple who ran the farm from its founding to 1808. In the early 1900s, it was a "truck farm" that supplied bulk crops to New York City stores. And from 1926 to 1975, it was operated by a psychiatric hospital that included farm work in its patients' treatment.

Morning Roundup

  • The New York Tech Meetup is now live (NYTM)
  • The Daily News is looking for a social media czar (Media Post)
  • The City is investing in a new shared commercial kitchen in East Harlem (nyc.gov)
  • More video: footage of last week's broadband/BTOP meeting (ISOC-NY)
  • Take a look at the future of city mobility (PSFK)

Morning Roundup

  • The city and federal governments are planning a $75 million facelift for Long Island City (New York Times)
  • The M.T.A. is putting security cameras in subway trains (New York Post)
  • Development plans threaten a Bed Stuy farm (Daily News)
  • The number of state, local and federal government officials using Twitter has increased tenfold in the past eight months (Government Technology)

Morning Roundup

  • More on Wi-Fi and laptop lending in the New York Public Library's elegant Edna Barnes Salomon Room (City Room)
  • The New York Metropolitan Transportation Council is seeking comments on its 2010-2035 regional transportation plan (Mobilizing the Region)
  • John Liu is ready to support the bike access bill and will explain his position on Friday (Streetsblog)
  • Eating Liberally's Kerry Trueman on curbing New York's carbon "foodprint" (Huffington Post)
  • A project to use old subway cars as artificial subterranean reefs off the eastern seaboard has failed (Gothamist)
  • Toyota's "Wi-Fi flowers" will be touring New York City (MuniWireless)

Morning Roundup

  • Scott Stringer on NYC food policy (Huffington Post)
  • "It's 2050, and you're walking through Union Square. Assume the city has changed for the better. What do you see?" (Regional Plan Association)
  • WTC cultural center may rise on the Deutsche Bank site (Daily News)
  • How to turn vacant condos into affordable housing (Gotham Gazette)
  • State Senate votes on the green jobs bill (Crain's)
  • WordCamp NYC 2009 has found a venue (WordCamp NYC)
  • Check out how this forthcoming iPhone app will help you find the nearest subway station to where you are standing (Gothamist)
  • And this one that will show you where the nearest bike rack is (noneck)

President Obama Makes Promises for Rebuilding 'Newer, Firmer, Stronger' Cities

Getty Images

Yesterday, July 13th, President Obama spoke at a day-long symposium about the future of America’s urban and metropolitan areas, promising a review and overhaul of federal agencies' policies in cities across the states. He said Adolfo Carrion, director of the newly created Office of Urban Affairs, will visit city governments and brainstorm on new, innovative policy ideas. Other departments are getting involved too, like Management and Budget office, the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council, and the Office of Urban Affairs to "conduct the first comprehensive interagency review in 30 years of how the federal government approaches and funds urban and metropolitan areas," Mr. Obama said.

Morning Roundup

  • There's a big, internationally-focussed bus rapid transit piece in the Times (New York Times)
  • The M.T.A. is planning to computerize the 7 train (New York Post)
  • Atlantic Yards court date is set: Oct. 14 (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
  • PATH train cars are getting digital screens that will play NBC's local New York content (New York Observer)
  • Sustainable seafood in New York City (Huffington Post)
  • The Lower East Side ecology center is hosting a free urban composting workshop Saturday on Governors Island (Sustainable Cities Blog)