Did the last Roosevelt Island goslings perish inside their eggshells on the rocky shore in FDR Four Freedoms Park?
By David Stone
RIOC’s strange and reckless assault on Southpoint Park includes habitat destruction that will vibrate through the years ahead.
The reinvention of Southpoint in open defiance of resident wishes wiped out the last wild spaces on Roosevelt Island. Shoreline borders were home to countless plants and animals.
But in a Zoom conference, Langan, overseeing the demolition, argued that all the species would return following project completion. That was nonsense because Langan’s converting the shoreline habitats to Brooklyn Bridge Park-style tourist lures, unsuitable for the species evicted.
A more likely representative scenario is this failed attempt to nest on an unprotected, rocky shoreline, the best this Canadian Goose was able to scrape together after RIOC destroyed the Southpoint habitat.
Her eggs were abandoned, unhatched between sharp-edged rocks.
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Rivercross and the Quiet Green Light
Rivercross privatization was enabled in 2010. This matters now because the same governance structures that allowed Rivercross to privatize without formal conflict controls are still in place. The same public authority oversees land leases, settlements, and redevelopment decisions that affect every resident on Roosevelt Island today.
