To either the surprise, or the apathy, of local residents, Mayor Eric Adams announced that MSC Cruises will be coming to Red Hook in the spring of 2023 bringing year-round cruise ships to the Atlantic Basin. The terminal was inaugurated in 2006 as the NYC home port for the Queen Mary. Another ship, The Regal Princess, has been using Red Hook for about five trips a year, which began in 2017. Much more of the time, Atlantic Basin activity is mostly the NYC Ferry.
While the Mayor announced that cruises would begin in April, an MSC spokesperson told us the new service would start in November. Their ship, the Meraviglia, would be making Red Hook it’s homeport, but at present their website shows local departures from Bayonne.
Pollution is a big issue for the cruise industry. An issue in Red Hook with the Cruise Terminal has been diesel emissions from the Queen Mary while in port. A campaign to equip Red Hook with the capability to run a ship on electricity while in port led to the construction of a shore power facility at a cost of $20 million, back in 2016, but it is unclear whether it is being used. While MSC states that they will use shore power in ports where it exists, they did not respond to our request whether they would use ours.
Mayor Adams, at his press event, proclaimed that MSC would be donating $236,000 to Red Hook parks, specifically seven GreenThumb Gardens.
While that money goes toward an environmentally-friendly cause, according to Carolina Salguero, founder and executive director of PortSide New York, “There aren’t actually seven GreenThumb Gardens in Red Hook that I’m aware of, so while the donation is nice, that doesn’t mean it’s going to directly benefit Red Hook.”
The official list of GreenThumb Gardens lists only two locally, Amazing Garden (261-265 Columbia St.) and the Urban Meadow (125 Van Brunt St.).
Adams also said that the cruises would create 10,000 jobs to which Salguero said, “I’m skeptical of that because these bold statements about how many jobs will be created are often overestimates.”
Jobs are nice, but probably more so is the impact on the environment, as locals are already complaining about increased trucks because of last mile facilities that have been built here.
“For us at MSC Group, sustainability is at the very center of everything we do,” said Pierfrancesco Vago, Executive Chairman of MSC Cruises. “We are taking meaningful steps to decrease our fleets’ environmental footprint through the development and scaling of new fields and technologies. Just like New York City, our vision is to reach net zero by 2050.”
Why are we not on the table?
Local City Council member Alexa Avilés is concerned. “Red Hook residents have long demanded that if cruise ships are to land here, they need to be hooked up to the electric grid,” said Avilés. “However, as we know many ships and ports do not possess this technology and are left spewing noxious fumes over our communities. We never heard from MSC Cruises, New York City Economic Development Corporation [EDC,] or the Mayor’s Office in advance of the announcement. While MSC Cruises has offered to invest in the NYC Junior Ambassadors and the NYC Green Thumb programs, it remains to be seen how these investments will go directly back into Red Hook.
“Other communities are not only consulted but are given specific carve-outs. But not here. Our assets are used to benefit others and Red Hook residents continue to be disrespected and left with more carbon emissions that will lead to higher rates of asthma and sickness. Despite their assertions, this is yet another example from the EDC and this administration imposing top-down decisions without mean-ingful consideration and using our communities for their profit.”
Former Red Hook resident Adam Armstrong was the prime mover for getting shore power to the terminal. who is an expert on the issue. His blog, A View From the Hook, documents his work.
Low environmental rating
In a phone interview, Armstrong said: “MSC Cruises got a low rating on the Friends of the Earth 2021 Cruise Ship Report Card largely because a lot of the ships are not equipped to accept shore power.”
“When Carnival struck a deal to come to Brooklyn, it was a set series of ships that would regularly come here including the Queen Mary 2 and a few Princess ships. One of the positives is that Queen Mary 2 has always been equipped to use shore power. The problem is, even though the system was built in Brooklyn, the Queen Mary 2 didn’t use it.”
Though it would benefit the community for cruise ships to use shore power, there is no legal requirement. This means that MSC Cruises and Carnival ultimately have the final say in whether or not they decide to use it.
Armstrong continued “Like I think they mentioned in The New York Times article, the EDC was saying the system was operational and in use but I would take the ferry into Manhattan and I could see that the ships weren’t plugged in,”
“Admittedly, there were legitimate problems with the system which is why it wasn’t being used some of the time but there were a lot of questionable excuses too.”
Even though Mayor Adams made the big announcement with Vago, it is difficult to get information from anyone about any specific Red Hook plans.
Since there has not been communication with the Red Hook community, it is not surprising that many local leaders are concerned about what kind of neighbors MSC Cruises will be.
