Meet 113 Monroe Street in Bed-Stuy. We run this to show the ongoing fuglyfication of Bed-Stuy and how architects have gone wild tossing up mediocre structures that don’t fit in with the gorgeous brick and brownstone environment. The only saving grace here is that it’s at the corner of Monroe and Bedford and does less […]

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There was a long time when we wondered if 99 Havemeyer in Williamsburg, which is at the corner of Hope Street, would ever exist because progress on the site was so slow it made one of developer Shaya Boymelgreen’s projects look like it was progressing at the speed of light. Yet, here it is. It […]

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[Photo courtesy of Nathan Kensinger] Those who follow he goings on at the toxic Public Place site will recall last week’s little scandal. First, most of the warehouse was demolished just as the public was informed that demolition was “about to begin.” Then, it turned out that the work was being done in a way […]

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It’s probably not another day full of smiles at the world headquarters of Robert Scarano Architect in Dumbo. Today’s Daily News reports that Brooklyn’s most controversial architect has been fined for a project in Williamsburg that badly damaged an adjacent building. An except: A notorious Brooklyn architect accused of faking plans to skirt zoning laws […]

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This is 218 N. 9 Street in Williamsburg, where demolition started months ago and then stopped abruptly. Since then, the fence has been more open than closed, allowing for all sorts of sordid activity not to mention being a threat to public safety. That shredded thing above is a city violation and we’re running this […]

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This is a new six-story building with 12 units going up at 209 Ainslie Street near Union Avenue, a block made up mostly of two- and three-story wood framed homes. The permits for the building were issued in 2006, so it’s been underway for a while. It’s also apparently been quite popular with some of […]

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That kind of cheap looking thing rising at the corner of N. 11 St. & Roebling in Williamsburg that has now reached the imposing height of two stories? It’s the Giant Fart Cloud Building, so-called because it is a condo (actually, we hear it’s going to be a rental building) replacing an old cabbage processing […]

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Over time, this construction site, which spans a good part of the block between N. 9 and N. 10 Streets and Roebling and Driggs in Wiliamsburg has proven itself to be one of the most vile in all of Brooklyn. The fence is constantly open somewhere. For a long time, there was a deep water […]

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Those who are familiar with Fourth Avenue know the big construction site between Butler and Douglass Streets. A row of apartment buildings was demolished, leaving single buildings standing on either end. One of them houses the Deli in the Slope. The official address of the project next door is 150 Fourth Ave and it’s supposed […]

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WNYC did some superb reports this week about construction and some of the conditions that have lead to the deaths of 27 workers so far this year. There are two stories in print that can be viewed here and here. Among the buildings covered is one on Clinton Avenue (being marketed as the Collection) where […]

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Need a place to take that special someone you just met at Union Pool when the bathroom or the creepy parking lot under the BQE just won’t do? Well, this is 218 N. 9 Street, a demolition site in the part of Williamsburg between Driggs and Union Avenue that we like to call the Triangle […]

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Work is moving ahead at 40 Berry Street, which will be a seven-story, 142-unit rental building from the studios of Perkins Eastman. The site has had its issues both with oil on the site from ruptured tanks and with dangerous conditions at the site itself, which led us to dub it the Mud Pit of […]

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[Photo courtesy of Property Shark] The photo above is 525-27 Court Street before construction work started on a new seven-story building with 18 units. It will come from Henry Radusky and Bricolage Design, a firm that is not on the Top Ten list of some people in South Brooklyn in terms of the aesthetics of […]

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It’s been a while since we had some Construction Sites Du Jour, but we have a number of them to get through this week. We begin with 67-69 N. 6 Street a site across the street from Music Hall of Williamsburg. It’s had a rocky history, including a Stop Work Order that’s been in effect […]

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These two curious neighbors on N. 8 Street in Williamsburg, at 203 and 205, between Driggs and Roebling have either been moving slowly or not at all since last year. Number 205, which is to the right, would be a six-story building with five units and we’ve found the trailer the building has had since […]

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We bring back our Construction Site Du Jour feature today to handout a Lifetime Achievement Award for Endangering Public Safety to 208 N. 10 Street, which is a huge site between Driggs and Robeling & N. 9 and N. 10 Street in Williamsburg that has provided a rainbow of safety issues over the course of […]

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This is 53 Java Street. Followers of architect Robert Scarano might recall the odd bit of drama last September when a truck back into a neighboring house and did a bit of damage to it while apparently working in violation of a Stop Work Order. Back then we had the following report: …As the fine […]

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Looks like the big Gene Kaufman-designed hotel and apartment complex being built between N. 12 and N. 11 Streets and Bedford Ave. and Berry Street in Williamsburg has been hitting some bumps in the road. The development consists of a seven-story hotel and a six-story residential building whose official address is 135 N. 11 Street. […]

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There is progress to report about the “Third World Dump” created by a development mess on long-suffering N. 11 Street and Roebling in Williamsburg. (In fact, there are so many construction sites in the area that some days several pile drivers are going at once at sites a few blocks apart creating a most interesting […]

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“Around 11 a.m. Monday, a bucket of wet cement fell from a scaffolding at 66 Court St. and crushed a Department of Environmental Protection vehicle. The roof was destroyed and the windows were shattered on the Toyota Prius. A pedestrian was taken away in an ambulance with an eye injury sustained from flying debris…In a […]

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This year’s edition of the Giglio Feast in Williamsburg will be more surrounded by construction than usual. In fact, it’s fair to say it will be nearly hemmed in by construction on the north and northwest in what we’ve called the Williamsburg Triangle of Death because of its wide open construction and demolition sites that […]

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Okay, it’s not called the BOG Building, but that’s what we’re calling 35 Havemeyer Street, because part of the site was, until recently, the outdoor dining area of the Brick Oven Gallery, one of our favorite little spots in Williamsburg. The Brick Oven Gallery now has tables outside on Havemeyer and the lot is going […]

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Given the fact that we always enjoy a focus on construction safety, there’s something compelling about this YouTube vid that shows two-by-fours crashing down in South Williamsburg. Heads up.

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A number of civic and neighborhood groups had a press event at City Hall yesterday to push an agenda to reform the embattled Department of Buildings. Among other things, the groups called for an end to “self-certification,” a Giuliani-Era program that allows architects and engineers to certify that their plans comply with zoning and other […]

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The Department of Buildings has filed internal administrative charges against architect Robert Scarano, alleging that he made false or misleading statements on applications for buildings at 158 Freeman Street and at 1037 Manhattan Avenue. Mr. Scarano is alleged to have improperly divided a zoning lot into two smaller lots for the two new buildings. Acting […]

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