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| [ARTICLE] Bob Diamond Leaving Brooklyn (974377) | |||
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[ARTICLE] Bob Diamond Leaving Brooklyn |
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Posted by Newkirk Images on Thu Sep 2 19:33:27 2010 Brooklyn Eagle Article LinkTunnel Tours Were Popular, But Trolley Plans Weren’t By Raanan Geberer Brooklyn Daily Eagle BROOKLYN — Bob Diamond — the Flatbush transit buff whose discovery of the old Long Island Railroad tunnel under Atlantic Avenue and his tunnel tours were met with enthusiasm but whose efforts to revive trolleys in Red Hook were sidetracked — informed the Eagle Wednesday that he is retiring and leaving Brooklyn. “The last public tunnel tour will be on Sept. 12. After that, I’m discontinuing them and leaving Brooklyn,” he said in an e-mail. He also made angry comments about Joseph Palmieri, the city Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Brooklyn commissioner, accusing him of not only stymieing his Red Hook project but also sitting on grants secured by Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez and others that could have been used for a streetcar system in the borough. The DOT did not reply to a request for comment by press time. In the late 1970s, Diamond, a young engineering student at what was then Polytechnic University, discovered an entrance to the old LIRR tunnel, unused since the mid-1960s, after poring over old maps at Borough Hall. With the help of other transit enthusiasts, he was able to dig out the tunnel after accessing it from a manhole, and soon began his popular tunnel tours. The tunnel itself, which ran to the waterfront, was filled in around 1864 after a law supported by real-estate interests banned steam trains from Downtown Brooklyn. Recently, National Geographic Television had expressed interest in filming a TV show in the tunnel in which crews would break through one of the tunnel’s walls. It has long been rumored that an 1860s-era steam locomotive is buried behind the wall. “If they can get us together, we’ll still do that — National Geographic has the money,” said Diamond. He again blamed city bureaucracy for holding up the necessary permits. The idea of a streetcar line in Downtown Brooklyn was suggested to Diamond by former Congressman Fred Richmond, although that plan fell through. After Diamond’s interests in trolleys became known when he appeared on a local radio show, a Staten Island resident donated a circa-1897 Norwegian trolley to him. Diamond was able to find storage space in DUMBO, and in 1985 ran the trolley through the area on old tracks using a temporarily-hooked-up overhead wire. In the 1990s, developer Greg O’Connell, owner of Pier 41 and the Beard Street warehouses, heard about Diamond’s plans, liked them, and offered him space in one of his warehouses. Eventually, Diamond was able to collect a small group of early-1950s “PCC” trolley cars from Buffalo. The space was eventually supposed to become a trolley museum. Diamond organized a volunteer group known as the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association and formulated a plan for a Red Hook trolley loop. Diamond was able to get a federal grant for his trolley project with the support of the city DOT and started laying tracks and overhead wire, not only on O’Connell’s property but on the streets of Red Hook. However, the city denied him support for a second grant, claiming he hadn’t tried hard enough to raise private funds for the project. "We’re not clear exactly what he is referring to and what federal grants he believes he is unable to obtain," said a DOT spokesperson. "We hope to start a study soon on the feasibility of a streetcar service in Brooklyn, so it may be early to discuss federal grants for a system whose need has not been determined." In 2003, the tracks on the nearby streets together with their accompanying trolley poles and overhead wire were ripped up. “At that time,” Diamond told the Eagle Wednesday, “the incoming [Bloomberg] administration decided to scrap the project, at a cost to them of about $800,000, rather than complete it for $300,000.” Today, one of Diamond’s trolleys remains in the Beard Street warehouse space; three are behind the Red Hook fairway, exposed to the elements; and the rest, which were stored at the Navy Yard, were “disposed of” by the city after financial troubles. The 1897 Norwegian trolley is now in a museum upstate. O’Connell, around the same time, began eviction proceedings against Diamond. In 2006, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez was able to secure several grants for “design and construction of a light-rail system along the Brooklyn waterfront from Red Hook to Downtown Brooklyn.” At the time, Diamond remarked about how the plan was similar to his own. “They’re still sitting on it,” he said. About 10 years ago, one of Diamond’s former volunteers, former teacher Arthur Melnick, formed his own organization that aims to reintroduce trolleys to Coney Island. “I wish him well in trying to deal with the city,” said Diamond Bill Newkirk |
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