Of all the bigger buildings plopped into a block of smaller ones, the one at 308 Eckford in Greenpoint seems to stand out from its neighbors. This pic, sent along by our Greenpoint correspondent, shows an actual human neighbor looking decidedly unhappy in the lower right hand corner. The photo below shows the view from […]

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So, what’s it like to be next door to a construction site, say, on a Sunday when people are trying to go to church? Ask the parishioners of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the church on Havemeyer Street that is known to many people for the Giglio Feast that it sponsors every July. (For those […]

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It’s not a construction site, per se, so much as a destruction site, but the point is that the notorious site of the Greenpoint Terminal Market fire is looking interesting these days. What drew our attention is the heavy metal fence with the big holes punched in it. They do however, provide a nice vantage […]

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We’re not sure whether the problem with the fence at 171-179 Diamond Street is one of aesthetics or if the darned thing might actually fall over and hit someone. In any case, our Greenpoint correspondent describes herself as “a big fan” of this one, based on that clear sense of cruddy cheapness that it conveys. […]

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So, did a car hit this thing? We don’t think so. It’s at 136 Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg, and if we were to wager, we’d bet that it ended up this way so that the scaffolding at the construction site above could fit around it. Which leads to the question we’re always asking ourselves: Is […]

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Of all the mindbogglingly crappy development sites around Brooklyn, the one that our Greenpoint correspondent dubbed Crater Lake in sending along these photos almost makes our brains explode. (The photo was taken before yesterday’s downpour.) You can find this 18-foot-deep bomb crater at 265 Eckford Street in Greenpoint. A ten-story building with 18 apartment is […]

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Last time we started to honor 33 Roebling, AKA 236 N. 10th Street, we came upon the interesting fact that Enrique Norten and TEN Arquitectos will be the project architect. So, it’s only fair that we return to original purpose, which is to point out how wide open the place is and what a crapfest […]

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We won’t for a minute claim that the problems with the building and development industry and the violence it inflicts on the quality of life of Brooklyn residents from Sheepshead Bay and the South Slope to Williamsburg and Greenpoint are anything new. Corruption, malfeasance, the development industry and city government have all fit together like […]

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Just in case you were thinking that the South Slope is the only place in Brooklyn with a crack problem, we can verify that Greenpoint has one too. What you are looking at is a photo of 131 Meserole Avenue, which was submitted by our intrepid and very focused Greenpoint correspondent. The problem would appear […]

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The Daily News is looking into the dark side of the development boom in Brooklyn and elsewhere around the city that has been chronicled by many bloggers, but which has gotten only fleeting attention in the mainstream press. What the paper finds comes as no surprise to residents whose quality of life has been violated […]

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Yesterday, we ran the YouTube vid of the South Slope dust storm from construction at 15th Street and 8th Avenue. This morning we found this email about the 406-408 15th Street project. It gets at the utter ineffectiveness of Department of Buildings’ orders and points out how they are routinely ignored by developers: They have […]

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For those of you that want a fix of construction fun this Memorial Day weekend, we highly suggest the video above, posted by South Slope blogger IMBY, who has carefully chronicled the quality of life horror that has unfolded at 15th Street and Eighth Avenue as a massive pit has damaged adjacent buildings and seriously […]

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Construction permits are supposed to be displayed so that they can be viewed. Technically, we supposed this can be viewed, either by a very, very tall person or by zooming in with your camera lens. This is 246 Bedford Avenue, which is on the block on which Quadriad Development would like to build a number […]

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For today’s Construction Site du Jour, we turn to 53 Java Street in Greenpoint. It may not be dramatic or overstated, but it’s got everything a Construction Site du Jour should have: a wide-open fence, accessible construction equipment and oodles of fun for children, pets and adule residents with severely impaired judgement. We had an […]

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You remember Urban Green, the development on N. 6th Street that we’ve shown a couple of times because we (perhaps, small-mindedly) feel that it could, under certain circumstances, be a threat to public safety. Well we’ve noticed that they’ve now shoved a board in their fence and secured the gate a bit more tightly, which […]

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Q: How bad can things get in Brooklyn when property owners and/or developers create quality of life problems that escape the attention of or are ignored by a nonfeasant Department of Buildings? A: Horrendous. Take the awful case of 18-20 Jackson Place, a small street in the South Slope between 16th Street and Prospect Avenue […]

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This is the building going up at 525 Union Avenue in Williamsburg. It’s another Karl Fischer design (no rendering available), however. What attracted us to it yesterday morning around 10:30 was the wonderful symphony of noise emanating from within. The Williamsburg Symphony for Hammer and Saw was loud enough to be heard nearly two blocks […]

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This construction site at 80 West Street in Greenpoint deserves special recognition if only because the fence around it stands out for being so down and out. There’s nothing downscale about the property, which sold for $4.3 million last year. Perhaps they could have spared an extra few thousand for a fence?

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Looks like the South Slope Mosquito Plague might be averted. The Department of Buildings is working with a building to drain a big lake at 230 16th Street. South Slope community leaders, in fact, say they got an email from a Department official noting a “pro-active DOB.” The Department says it was aware of the […]

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Ah, summer in Brooklyn. Nice walks around the neighborhoods. Outdoor parties. Celebrate Brooklyn. And, monster swarms of mosquitoes from the construction site next door. We’ve spied a couple of these water-filled babies in Williamsburg and thought they would be God’s gift to mosquitoes as soon as the season arrived. Now, from the South Slope comes […]

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Given that we single out construction sites when they’re a threat to public safety (even if the Department of Buildings often chooses to look the other way or can’t seem to find them), we figure it’s only fair to take another look if they clean up their act. So it is with 296 N. 7th […]

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As today’s GL Construction Site du Jour, we nominate 70 Berry Street for the fence trouble it had this weekend, exposing the (not too deep) hole and an excellent mountain of excavated dirt to public use. Dirt boarding, people! This isn’t the first time we’ve found this fence challenged to fulfill its role as a […]

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Looks like The Modern, the Williamsburg building we featured on Monday, may be so advanced that it’s operating in a future in which New York City building codes and regulations have been repealed. Or, maybe, they’re working in the present, when you can just ignore them with impunity. But, we digress, the reason we turn […]

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We return to our “What’s That Thing on Top” feature, looking at interesting building additions around Brooklyn. The “Thing” comes to us from 116 3rd Place in Carroll Gardens and it is currently especially noticeable given that it’s yellow. The addition is a fourth floor and a penthouse and we can happily say that a […]

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Williamsburg and Greenpoint are gifts that keep on giving in terms of routine construction violations. A neighborhood source called us over the weekend to note much commotion on N. 7th Street, so we did make sure to swing by in doing our appointed rounds. The trouble spots included 229 N. 7th where our source indicated […]

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