Among the many things we’re thankful for on this tradition American day of Thanksgiving, is that we don’t live next to any developments under construction or any buildings that are about to come down. One of the projects that we’re especially thankful we don’t live next to is Urban Green in Williamsburg. We would not, […]

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Anyone who wonders why Brooklynites live in fear of waking up to find the building next door to them is coming down and a new one is going up, need look no further than the neighbors of 5 Roebling in Williamsburg to understand why. The demolition of 5 Roebling was halted by the Department of […]

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Williamsburg’s Giant Fart Cloud Building is gone, collapsed into a heap of bricks and splintered wood on Roebling Street, across from the Roebling Oil Building (aka Warehouse 11). The Department of Buildings halted the demolition because it was going forward in an unsafe way. Blogger Bad Advice had emailed us last Thursday, saying that residents […]

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The ugly demolition of 5 Roebling in Williamsburg was halted by the Department of Buildings on Thursday. The Stop Work Order was for an unsafe demolition and for illegal mechanical demolition. On Friday and Saturday, workers were on the job removing scaffolding despite the Stop Work Order. Yesterday, we found the Stop Work Order itself […]

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The huge demolition site at 208 N. 10th in Williamsburg (aka 199-211 N. 9th Street and 489 Driggs) never fails to fill our Sunday with an opportunity to photograph a wide open and hazardous demolition site. This is the view yesterday. Which is not to be confused with this and this. We keep returning to […]

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We received a call from one of our many Williamsburg sources this morning at an hour on a Saturday morning when no one should be getting calls about this kind of thing: The work crew at 5 Roebling (aka The Giant Fart Cloud Building) was at the site around 8:30AM, working. The regular reader might […]

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The Department of Buildings stepped in yesterday to halt the demolition of 5 Roebling Street, also known as the Giant Fart Cloud Building because of its fragrant recent past as a cabbage processing plant. Neighbors had complained that the demolition was so violent that they were in fear that it would damage their building and […]

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Remember the Giant Fart Cloud Building, aka Five Roebling? It’s the one that the blogger Bad Advice lives next to. She has been afraid demolition work would destroy her home and, at least, seriously effect her life. Well, it’s happening and it’s scary. Her story gets the at the heart of the powerlessness that everyone […]

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On a recent swing past the construction site of 80 Metropolitan, the building rising on the site of the historic, demolished Old Dutch Mustard Company building, we found the construction site wide open. The good news is the gate is closed. The bad news is that it’s only tied closed with a cord that anyone […]

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Here’s an interesting tidbit for Brooklynites bothered by after-hours construction noise. It comes courtesy of an email from the Boerum Hill Association, saying that the city’s recently enacted noise ordinance still allows citizens to pursue action “against construction noise violators and share in the fees (which can be substantial).” The emails says in part: After […]

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The last fews times we checked in on Urban Green in Williamsburg, we were motivated to call it Urban Death because of its poorly secured gate allowing unfettered public access to its deep hole and construction equipment. The first big hole was partly filled after a Stop Work Order because Urban Green was destabilizing a […]

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We were taking some photos of the emptiness that is the site of the old Revere Sugar plant and dome in Red Hook when we looked up and saw a Stop Work Order. It is almost two weeks old, but we haven’t noted it before. The problem stems from “hazardous conditions” at “Building 9.” Given […]

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The hazardous demolition site at 199-211 N. 9th Street, 208 N. 10th Street and 489 Driggs was worth noting for a couple of reasons yesterday. First, workers were putting up scaffolding, perhaps in a belated attempt to better shield passersby from construction debris, although whether they had a Sunday work permit to do so is […]

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On Wednesday we noted some issues that had come up as a result of work at 300 20th Street in Greenwood Heights, as did Brownstoner on Tuesday. Last night, we got an email and photos from Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights (which stays on top of issues in its neighborhood like few other groups in […]

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We won’t pretend to know a darn thing about construction safety (insert comment here about how we know nothing about a lot of things), but what we do know is that we can look at some things and have them strike us as unsafe. So it is with what is shown here. These photos were […]

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For a moment when we saw these photos, we thought we were looking at a site we’d missed in Williamsburg or Greenpoint. Actually, it’s at 300 20th Street in Greenwood Heights. Brownstoner noted the mess yesterday morning and there’s now a Stop Work Order on the project for both undermining the property and building next […]

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Rarely has a construction site been so open and so dangerous so many times as 199-211 N. 9th Street, 208 N. 10th Street and 489 Driggs. For this reason we are giving it a Patricia Lancaster Award for Open Door Excellence. (This is not to be confused with the Bedford Avenue Door of Death, which […]

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…And the winner is…525 Union Avenue in Williamsburg. We are rolling out a new feature today called the Patricia Lancaster Award, aka The Patty. It is named after the Commissioner of the Department of Buildings. We won’t be handing out a lot of Patties, but will be saving them for sites that have truly impressed […]

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This is 242 Bedford Avenue, which is reprising as a Construction Site Du Jour. Behind that partly open door on busy Bedford Avenue is a two-story (or so) drop. Records show that it’s owned by an array of LLCs, including one named Sky Lofts LLC. The architect of record is Henry Radusky, aka “Too Tall,” […]

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While it may not have the big money, demolition of a historic building sex appeal of 80 Metropolitan and its wide open public safety hazard construction site with the neatly stenciled fence, 158 India Street in Greenpoint has its own wander-in-and-play-in-the-dirt homespun appeal. The image comes courtesy of our Greenpoint correspondent. It will be a […]

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Williamsburg’s Giant Fart Cloud Building has broken its last wind and is, in fact, being broken up as we speak. The Old Fart, which was a cabbage processing plant in its most recent iteration, is at 15 Roebling, and was so named by blogger Bad Advice because of its unique fragrance. Bad Advice is currently […]

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While the 80 Metropolitan sales team was getting their sales office ready yesterday for its big opening this week, we found the 80 Met construction site was already having an open house. This is the gate on the N. 1st Street side of the site near Wythe Avenue. The good news is that they weren’t […]

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We have dealt with the Greenpoint development that is best described as Crater Lake in the past. We posted about it in June and then posted the contractor’s explanation of why the spot became such a crap hole. Crater Lake is at 265 Eckford Street and a ten-story building with 18 apartment is supposed to […]

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We missed this in our sleepy Saturday morning reader yesterday, but the New York Times featured a development story from Sheepshead Bay that could serve as a Poster Child for everything that is wrong with the (non) regulation of development and construction in Brooklyn. It’s about a six-story condo development called Homecrest that’s going up […]

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We’re not saying that the situation pictured above at 291 Devoe Street in East Williamsburg is not safe. There appear to be safety harnesses and ropes in place. All we can say is it appears to potentially not be the most secure thing we’ve ever seen. The photo and the information are from our Greenpoint […]

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