Developer Joe Sitt flip his Albee Square property because he wanted to make a killing or because he failed to find a way to develop it? “Sitt paid $25 million for the mall in 2001, floating plans to build a roughly 1 million-square-foot tower, but instead sold it last year to Acadia Realty Trust for […]

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This is a new condo tower designed by SOM called Toren that is currently going up on Flatbush Avenue at Myrtle (150 Myrtle) that will clock in at 38 stories. A very heavy-duty marketing campaign for it has just kicked off. It’s fair to say that it’s the most distinctive tower proposed for Brooklyn so […]

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The city has gone back to the drawing board with its plans for the Brooklyn House of Detention. Last week, it released a new RFP for the facility that, among other things, calls for “additional housing for 720 inmates in twelve dormitories of sixty beds each,” which is basically a doubling in size. We know […]

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Another week, another tale of a photographer and/or blogger being told by someone on a public street not to take photos. (It happened to us on Friday on Beard Street in Red Hook via a private security guard who stopped his car and said, “You can’t take any pictures here. Don’t take any pictures.”) We […]

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The Brooklyn House of Detention expansion proposal now has an organization called the Brooklyn House of Detention Stakeholders Group working to “keep the community informed of the ongoing struggle against expansion of the Brooklyn House of Detention.” Their website is brooklynjail.org. Quite a few groups near the facility, which the city wants to reopen and […]

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It’s rare to find a mannequin with such cleavage, or even to pay attention to one, but this one at Dr. Jay’s in Downtown Brooklyn is “falling out of her dress stacked.”–McBrooklyn

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The 100-story tall Renzo Piano tower at Tillary and Jay Street that would have been developed by Bruce Ratner is dead. Both the Daily News and the Brooklyn Paper report the tower has fallen victim to rising costs and the credit crunch. Forest City Ratner would have built a dorm and lab for City Tech […]

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There’s a rendering of the much-hyped new Morton’s that will open in the Brooklyn Marriott . “We were delighted to receive this here rendering of the 14,000 square foot restaurant-to-be. Conclusion: Peter Luger, all is forgiven.”–Eater

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The Citypoint website for the project that is going up on the site of the Albee Square Mall doesn’t go out of its way to highlight the height of the tower that will rise with the huge development planned for the site. (Brownstoner first drew attention to the site on Monday.) In fact, most renderings […]

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In the days before Christmas, the Fulton Mall is one very busy and un-bland place. It’s “a chaotic throwback to the era before the sanitization and, yes, mallification of New York City’s retail districts. For every Nextel or Children’s Place or Foot Locker on the mall there is an immigrant-run mom-and-pop store offering off-brand electronics […]

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Borough Hall, Brooklyn[Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Hilary/flickr]

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The downtown IHOP at Livingston and Bond Streets is now open and there is talk of customers forsaking Junior’s. Turns out the IHOP owner has his hand in the hip hop business.–NYDN

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“A high-end steakhouse chain and luxury retailers are expected to set up shop along a drab street near the Brooklyn Bridge, the Daily News has learned. The steakhouse and as many as six luxury clothiers and other retailers will move into the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge and two floors of an adjacent […]

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Anyone that still doubts Brooklyn will be a very different looking (and feeling) place in a few years, might want to take a look at these renderings of the City Tech Tower that Bruce Ratner wants to build at Jay and Tillary Streets. The rendering made the rounds yesterday after it was first posted on […]

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It almost hurts to type “Holiday Craft Fair” as we’re still getting over the end of summer, yet there it is. The Brooklyn Friends School is having its Annual Holiday Craft Fair on Saturday, December 1st from 10AM to 5PM at 375 Pearl Street in Downtown Brooklyn near the Marriott. It will feature ceramics, sweaters, […]

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Someone finally posted a clean copy of that “Downtown Brooklyn 2012” video narrated by Sir Ian McKellen on YouTube without commercials or the New York Post logo, so we’re embedding it below. Regardless of how one feels about the vision that’s presented–strongly pro, strongly con or somewhere in between–it’s definitely worth five minutes of any […]

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Yesterday was the last day for public comment in the (redone) eminent domain proceedings for a variety of properties in downtown Brooklyn. We got a copy of the comment submitted by Phil De Paolo of the New York Commmunity Council and thought we’d share a couple of short excerpts: We see a gross injustice taking […]

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Here’s an interesting concept: An audio walking tour of downtown Brooklyn called Anyplace Brooklyn that will be offered every Saturday in November (starting today) from Noon-2PM. The one hour tours start every five minutes. What’s cool about them? For starters, you can download the audio portion in advance to your MP3 player. (It’s also availableon […]

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Looks like the Underground Railroad Houses on Duffield Street Abolitionist Place in Downtown Brooklyn are going to get another hearing. Duffield Street Underground reports that: In response to the Eminent Domain Procedure Law Petition filed by advocates for the residents and businesses of Downtown Brooklyn, the City is withdrawing its eminent domain findings and holding […]

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Our friends at Racked dropped an exclusive report late yesterday afternoon that Target is planning to open another Brooklyn store at the Albee Square development (with a 45-60 story tall tower) that will rise on the site of the current mall. The Mall, meanwhile, is now closed and cleared of tenants. Could Target really be […]

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Last week we noted that the city is moving toward seizing the buildings on Duffield Street that supporters say were part of the Underground Railroad in Brooklyn. The land would be used to build an underground parking garage and street level open space. Before moving ahead, the Bloomberg Administration set aside $2 million for some […]

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The new Brooklyn Paper has the rendering above of the New Look Gallery at Fulton Mall that is curiously minus the 45-60 tower that would go with it. The $750 million project, which would get a very, very big public subsidy, would have less affordable housing and several hundred fewer jobs than originally promised. That’s […]

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There are more developments to report in the ongoing saga of the very threatened Underground Railroad buildings on Duffield Street. As reported on Brownstoner and in amNY yesterday, a lawsuit has been against Mayor Bloomberg and the city–which want to take the buidings via eminent domain in order to building an underground parking garage–alleging they […]

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We’re a day late and a dollar short in getting to this, but it’s worth noting that in this week’s Village Voice, Neil deMause deals with the mega-development in the making called Downtown Brooklyn and the collateral damage in the form of people being evicted to make way for the new development. It is not […]

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Here’s a story that makes one go, hmmmm. It appears the city is planning to sell the land under the former Albee Square Mall at what might be considered the Mother of All Discounts: $100 million less than they are said to have paid when they bought the lease from developer Joe Sitt. Mr. Sitt, […]

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