Brooklyn Boro

Party like a bivalve to help build the world’s first Floating Reef in Red Hook

Here’s your invite to the Infinite Mussel Party

March 18, 2022 Mary Frost
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Is there anything better than a warm spring evening on the water? The nonprofit RETI Center is throwing an Infinite Mussel Party on May 4 on its floating eco-barge in the Gowanus Bay Terminal. All are invited for nonstop mollusks, live music, cool beverages and scintillating conversation.

Besides the chance to mingle at one of Brooklyn’s most interesting venues, your attendance will support the world’s first Floating Reef — a living system made of biophilic concrete with renewable energy systems that allow mussels, kelp, oysters, and the long-lost salt marsh to thrive. 

The reef is part of the effort to restore Brooklyn’s urban coastline with RETI Center’s partner and sponsor, GBX~ Gowanus Bay Terminal. 

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P.S. 676, Red Hook’s new Harbor Middle School, will use the Floating Reef as their Water Lab. 

RETI’s floating eco-barge in the Gowanus Bay Terminal is the Infinite Mussel Party’s unique venue. Photo courtesy of RETI Center

Why Infinite Mussels?

You may have heard of the Billion Oyster Project, but, according to RETI Center, mussels are an equally powerful natural resource for fighting human impacts on the environment. New York Harbor needs more of them to clean up its waters, and the Floating Reef will be their home. 

RETI stands for resilience, education, training and innovation. Conceived after Superstorm Sandy, the nonprofit is “essentially about taking climate change as an opportunity to create a new way of dealing with the economy and the ecology so it is more sustainable and more equitable,” Tim Gilman, executive director of the RETI Center, recently told the Brooklyn Eagle.

RETI’s floating eco-barge in the Gowanus Bay Terminal is the Infinite Mussel Party’s unique venue. Photo courtesy of RETI Center

The RETI barge is also the port of call for the Hudson River’s growing sail freight industry. 

The schooner Apollonia’s landings — carrying Hudson Valley products including honey, rye and wine — are festive events, with last mile deliveries made by human and horse-powered bikes and wagons

The party takes place on the RETI Barge at 701 Columbia St in Red Hook on May the 4 from 6-10. Book your tickets here.


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