Summer is FINALLY here!  PortSide has been preparing for it. Please join us—the crowdrise campaign for Summer Youth Employment is in full force and a few intern positions are still available. Get on board! 

Restoration News   

In case you missed our BIG NEWS from May, the Mary A. Whalen was determined to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. This is very exciting because eligibility increases funding opportunities and visibility for the ship, for PortSide and for Red Hook

This summer PortSide can employ five youth from Brooklyn public housing to complete the restoration of the Captain’s cabin through NYC’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). Below, see how to help us offer this program or go straight to the fundraiser page here. To learn more about the restoration work click here.

Join the effort! Spread the word! Help fund the TeenTeam!  

Last week, we launched a campaign on crowdrise to raise the $16,000 needed to offer this opportunity. In the first two days before the holiday weekend, we raised $1,115. Thank you, donors!

We are off to a great start, but there’s still $14,885 to be raised by June 30. You can help! Please give what you can and use crowdrise to ask others to give. 

In September, we will invite donors on board for a party and private preview of the summer’s completed restoration work.

On crowdrise you can earn points for dollars you give—and dollars you raise—redeemable for prizes donated by sponsors. You can also set up a Project Team and run your own parallel campaign in support of our effort. 

To support this project or to monitor our progress toward achieving our goal click here.   

Internships Available for Summer 2011

Summer Intern positions available working on history and preservation research, cultural tourism, event planning and graphic and web design.

Please send a resume, your availability and a note about your interest to research.portsidenewyork@gmail.com 

Want to #rent a bike for this Saturday’s #Six To Celebrate #Bike Tour of Gownaus? Check out these websites.

http://www.bikerentalsnyc.com/, http://www.bikeandroll.com/, http://www.bikeshopny.com/, http://www.bikenewyork.org/resources/local/shops_rentals.html

Brooklyn Shops: http://ridebrooklynny.com/, http://mrccycles.com/, http://bklynbikes.com/

http://hdc.org/6tocelebrate-tours.htm

Come tour our 2011 Six to Celebrate neighborhoods. Learn about their diverse cultural and architectual histories. Throughout the summer we will be touring one neighborhood at a time.

Bowery-Sunday, May 1, 2011

Mount Morris Park: Thursday, May 19, 6pm

Goanus: Saturday, June 4, 11am (Bicycle Tour)

Inwood: Sunday, June 19, 10am

Bedford-Stuyvesant: Saturday, September 10, 11am (Bicycle Tour)

Jackson Heights: Saturday, September 24, 11am

The pastor of Sheepshead Bay’s oldest house of worship says he’s abandoning a plan to tear down its two iconic steeples, and will now restore the debilitated towers.

“We had a meeting with a new contractor who told us that it’s possible and affordable to restore them,” said Pastor Jay Kyung Kim. “We’re very happy.”

The two 142-year-old United Methodist Church towers are the tallest part of the Ocean Avenue skyline, and many Southern Brooklynites were shocked at the original plan to remove them.

“They’re such a tremendous part of the neig hborhood,” said Bay Improvement Group president Steve Barrison.

Church officials say that the steeples, which are about 80 feet tall, are so deteriorated they could fall off and rip apart the rest of the building. They received permits from the city earlier this year to demolish the spires, which Kim first insisted were too damaged to repair and too costly to replace. Kim would not say how much the demolition or restoration would cost. Neither the construction firm in charge of the demolition, Bencar Building Corp., nor the church’s new contractor, Brune Reich, returned calls for comment.

The possible loss of the steeples prompted one community member to launch a publicity and letter-writing campaign to preserve them. Valerie Landriscina, a Manhattan Beach resident and architect-in-training for RAND Engineering and Architecture, contacted local elected officials and blogged about trying to find alternatives to demolition.

“I’m not a member of the church, but I’ve grown up seeing and appreciating this old structure my whole life,” Landriscina said.

Unstable steeples are a perpetual problem for churches, as their height and limited access makes them difficult to maintain. Steeples can become damaged over time due to weather, and often have to be removed.

Another church in the area with faulty towers, St. Mark’s on Ocean Avenue between Jerome Avenue and Avenue Z, is restoring its steeples, which were damaged in a storm last year.

This is the first major renovation for United Methodist Church, built in 1869 between Voorhies Avenue and Shore Parkway, in more than 85 years.