Future Monitor Museum Site Will Not Be Taken

Originally published March 2016 · p. 23

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — It took 12 years, but in December the Greenpoint Monitor Museum learned that New York City will not take the site of its future museum honoring the USS Monitor by eminent domain. The 20-year-old museum organization was created to honor the famous ironclad, which was built and launched at Continental Iron Works in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where the inlet meets the East River. The property is in an area where the city has been talking for years about building a park. The acre parcel was donated in December 2003 by Motiva Enterprises, a refinery and terminal operator. Museum officers approached the company about a donation shortly after it bought almost three undeveloped acres on Bushwick Inlet in 1998. George J. Weinmann, a museum founding member and commander of Oliver Tilden Camp 26, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, said, “A few months after the donation, the City of New York threatened to use eminent domain to acquire the land. Since then we have refused to give up the property.” In addition to the eminent domain threat ending, the museum learned it was awarded a Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund $599,200 grant. The funds will support shoreline restoration and stabilization. A conceptual drawing shows the tract with green space and a walk along the water. Weinmann said the effort to end the eminent domain threat began Jan. 30, 2015, when members of the Museum, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s

(NOAA) USS Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, Oliver Tilden Camp and supporters met with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and Deputy Borough President Diana Reyna. They were asked to reach out to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration to end the eminent domain threat. In a press release issued on the Dec. 23 anniversary of the land donation, Adams announced the city’s changed position and the environmental grant. He said that dating back to 2005, the threat of eminent domain impacted the ability to pursue grants and funding “that would make it possible to build the museum and a dock for research vessels, as well as achieve the goals of flood protection, public access, and shoreline restoration.” “The legacy of the USS Monitor is the flagship of Brooklyn’s rich military and shipbuilding history, which we must maintain for future generations,” Adams said. The museum works with NOAA, which oversees the USS Monitor Sanctuary 16 miles off the coast of North Carolina where the ironclad sank on Dec. 31, 1862. Museum members participated in two expeditions to recover the engine and turret and expect to display some Monitor artifacts in the future museum building. Last May, officials Adams and Reyna helped unveil NOAA’s USS Monitor Trail Marker in Greenpoint, part of an effort to link historic Monitor sites in New York, North Carolina and Virginia. For more information go tao http://greenpointmonitormuseum.org