May 6th, 2007 · Comments Off on The Edge Digs Up the Past
In Williamsburg–land of the big holes–big construction sites are almost a dime a dozen. Yet the big dig underway on Kent Avenue where the towers known as The Edge will rise, is more interesting than most. The stuff being dug up, and it looks like it’s going to be a heck of a job to get it out of there, are remnants of the old Eastern District Terminal Buildings that used to occupy this part of the Brooklyn waterfront. The site is said to have some, um, groundwater issues, but we’re assuming that Lake Kent is from rain rather than groundwater. Unless it stays or gets bigger as the hole gets deeper.
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May 6th, 2007 · Comments Off on On the Sofa: GL Reader Comments
Once a week, we highlight GL’s reader comments. Here’s a selection of some of them from the last seven days:
Sad Anniversary: A Year After the Greenpoint Terminal Market Fire. “Yes, it was the biggest NYC fire in ten years (excepting 9/11), and yes, the hobo they framed got off without punishment, but anybody who cares about those dumpy old historic buildings must have money invested in rival Brooklyn developments.” [Robin]
Wallabout is Ready to Happen. “…the biggest enemy is the stiff breeze off the river that is usually in your face in the colder months on your way home. Not bad at all. What Wallabout will need, eventually, is a more full service grocery store someplace along Flushing Ave., once the Brig site residents and others start coming to the nabe in serious numbers. The Associated on Myrtle just does not cut it for any serious population, and the Pathmark at Atlantic Ave. is too far away.” [SunnyReiser]
More Roebling Street Oil Wells Drilled. “Are thousands of people in Williamsburg dying from the toxic vapors and the poisoned drinking water, or are those lies just reserved for Greenpoint. Hey, where are all those blogs about the toxic Willimsburg nightmare. I guess the Williamsburg bloggers are too busy lying about Greenpoint to work them into their schedules. The truth hurts.” [Anonymous]
Park Slope 9th St. Bike Lanes Provoke Anger Again. “I have so much trouble understanding why someone would be against a bike lane on a street where drivers are constantly endangering pedestrians and cyclists. I have ridden my bike down 9th Street by necessity in the past, and I always regret it. Getting pushed off the road by a dump truck is no fun.” [Dalton]
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The proposal to retool Ninth Street in Park Slope and include bike lanes is still causing tempers to flare. We watched a long discussion of the issue at a meeting of the Park Slope Civic Council on Thursday night, which was marked by some surprising outbursts of anger. (Surprising in the sense that we would never have predicted that bike lanes could provoke so much upset.) One members of the Civic Council, in fact, privately remarked that the bike lane issue–which has now been debated twice by the group–has led to the most contentious meetings they have experienced, including discussions of Atlantic Yards. An earlier meeting on the issue was also marked by strong disagreements as was a Community Board 6 meeting.
The Department of Transportation turned down an invitation to make a presentation to the group about the plan. It is scheduled to speak to Community Board 6’s Transportation Committee about it on May 17.
“There is a lot of concern and anxiety in the community over this plan,” noted PSCC Trustee Aaron Naparstek, who edits and writes Streets Blog and advocates for progressive transportation policies citywide. Mr. Naparstek made a detailed presentation about the plan, explaining current safety problems and how the proposed changes–adding bike lanes in each direction, eliminating a lane of traffic each way and installing left turn lanes–would reduce accidents and improve pedestrian safety. He was interrupted several times by shouted comments from opponents of the plan. In transportation planning terms, the changes would put Ninth Street on a “Road Diet” and lead to a safer street.
“I don’t see this as a thought-out plan,” said Robert Levine, who is PSCC Trustee and heads the Ninth Street Block Association. Mr. Levine has led opposition to the bike lane proposal in Park Slope. “We’re adding bikers to the mess of traffic on Ninth Street.” He suggested that that bike lanes will make it hard to double park on Ninth Street and will lead bicyclists to use a park entrance at Ninth Street intended for pedestrians. He also said that it would increase congestion on the street.
Supporters say that the plan will lead to a dramatic reduction in accidents and make Ninth Street safer for pedestrians while adding an amenity for bicyclists in the neighborhood.
In the end, the group approved a motion by a vote of 16-6 to ask the Department of Transportation to do a “curbside management study” of double parking and to work with the Prospect Park Alliance to discourage users of the bike lanes from using the park’s pedestrian entrance. The motion also asked DOT to produce a report in a year on the plan’s impact on safety and quality of life and to study the issue of reducing truck traffic on Ninth Street. (Language saying that the PSCC supports the plan was removed, however.)
The Department of Transportation has already indicated its intention to go ahead with the plan by summer.
May 5th, 2007 · Comments Off on Meet Inky, the Roebling Oil Field Kitten
This impossibly cute kitten was rescued from the corner of N. 11th Street and Roebling yesterday, in front of the Roebling Oil Field by the blogger who brings us Bad Advice. She found him a home, then the person who was going to take him apparently didn’t, so as of last night, it looks like he still needed a permanent home. Click over to Bad Advice if you’re interested. We were going to suggest naming him Roebling, but it look like he was named Inky. There is certainly some irony in the fact that the Roebling Oil Field kitten is black. In any case, go over to Bad Advice and do a good dead by giving a home to a Roebling Oil Field Survivor Kitten who’s as cute as they come.
May 5th, 2007 · Comments Off on Ratner & Gehry Go to Coney Island (for a Hot Dog)
Page Six reports via No Land Grab one of the more curious sightings of the week: Frank Gehry and Bruce Ratner having a hot dog at Nathan’s in Coney Island. The interesting question is, why? Was the Dynamic Duo of Atlantic Yards seized by an urge to consume a Nathan’s dog by the sea? Were they engaging in some Brooklyn sightseeing and Coney Island nostalgia? Or were they looking around for more business-related reasons? Miss Brooklyn by the Sea? Should Thor Equities and Joe Sitt be concerned? Interesting questions all.
May 5th, 2007 · Comments Off on 2007 Coney Island Siren Festival Artwork
That’s the artwork for this year’s Siren Festival in Coney Island, which the Village Voice is sponsoring on July 21. The artist writes at Invisible Man:
The artwork for this summer’s Siren Music Festival put on by the Voice. I tried to capture the insanity and culturally brackish waters that is Coney Island while keeping the color palette limited to the reds and blues I’ve liked working with lately. Last summer I took a photo on the boardwalk of a man feeding seagulls frenchfries. He’d just hold them up in the air and the seagull would float down and gulp ’em right out of his fingers. That was partial inspiration for this illo and the moment is recreated right above the siren.
The Siren site is here, but the 2006 schedule and info are still posted.
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May 5th, 2007 · Comments Off on Unique Brooklyn Pleasure: Car Service Waiting Rooms
One of the pleasures of living in Brooklyn is the car service. You call them and they come (maybe) in lieu of being able to walk outside and hail a cab. Or, if you’re near one you go to car service itself, which is when you encounter the Car Service Waiting Room. (Or you flag down a cab on Smith Street, for instance, like we did a couple of weeks ago and give the driver a Brooklyn destination. He turns around and says, “No. There is a car service on Court Street. Go there.”) If you’ve never been, Big Sky Brooklyn, a promising blog that had gone quiet for a while but is now promising daily posts, has gone for you. Check it out.
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In case you were wondering what the heck is going to appear on the southeast corner of Fourth Avenue and Carroll Street in the far reaches of Park Slope, here’s your answer. The building in question, comes from the offices of…drum roll…Scarano Architects. (It’s not that we have a need to mention the firm every day. It’s just that they’re every you look in Brooklyn.)
The building, which is not to be confused with other Scaranos in this part of Park Slope and in neighboring Gowanus (like the beauty we call The Bunker), is a couple of doors down from Cattyshack.
The firm describes the structure thus:
The twelve story tower at 255 4th Avenue in Brooklyn is a pioneer in a major redevelopment that is taking place along this portion of 4th. Once known as “no man’s land”, the valley created by the slope down from Prospect Park and the Carroll Gardens hill, this area has been rezoned for high density residential uses, and buildings such as this 50,000 square foot residential development are transforming the area, turning it from a morbid industrial zone into a cohesive neighborhood.
When the makeover of Fourth Avenue from land of the Tire Shops to Brooklyn’s Park Avenue has made more progress a few years down the road, there will be vast amounts of residential real estate available. And, there could also be some bargain prices. Eventually.
Our Greenpoint correspondent sent along the photo of 996 Manhattan Avenue, because she was taken by the steel bracing that extends from said building to the sidewalk in front. She writes:
I found this modern-day example of a buttress next door to Pio Pio Riko. As you can tell, it takes up almost the entire sidewalk. I can tell you from personal experience that I have almost tripped over this thing. I am certain one of the local winos already has; this is a very poor design for a ‘nabe that has staggering drunks at any given hour. Anyhoo, if you look hard enough you will notice that the façade of the building is buckling. Nice, eh?
Buckling? Indeed it is. So badly, in fact, that it has drawn its share of attention from the Department of Buildings over the years. For instance:
BLDG HAS SHIFTED TOWARDS SOUTH APPROX 4″ PAST VERTICAL PLACEMENT W/ SEPARATION AT NORTH FACADE & EXPOSED FRAMING. REMEDY:MAINTAIN BLDG& PROVIDE ENGINEERS STABILITY REPORT.
This is not to be confused with the 2004 violation that says:
(1)BLDG IS PULLING AWAY FROM ADJACENT STRUCURE (1000 MANH AVE) AT TOP OF PARAPIT 6″(2) BLDG WALL AT 1ST FLOOR IS PULLING TOWARDS STREET,REMEDY:MAINTAIN BLDG AS PER CODE.
This is not to be confused with the 2005 violation for “A VERTICAL SEPERATION FROM APPROX. 2″ WIDE AT GRADE TO APPROX. 5″ WIDE AT PARAPET…”
One is tempted to crack a joke about how the more things change, the more they stay the same, but we’ll settle for noting that both violations resulted in fines of $10,000 each. (No indication that either was paid.) We’re assuming that the thing in the street is part of the “remedy” that will keep the building from Going Ward Bakery on passersby (AKA Going Ratner).
In any case, 996 Manhattan is a virtual cornucopia of building code violations. Specifically, 24 violations and 27 complaints, dating back to the time when one could still go to Berlin and tag up the Berlin Wall. Which doesn’t make it particularly unusual in Brooklyn or in New York City, but still fascinating in its own way.
May 4th, 2007 · Comments Off on DOT Drives Final Stake Through Heart of Park Slope One-Way Plan
The Department of Transportation’s proposal to turn Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Park Slope into one-way streets is officially dead. The idea sparked an uproar in the neighborhood and virtually unanimous opposition. Last week, DOT sent a letter to Community Board Six formally declaring that the proposal is dead. “DOT does not intend to pursue the implementation” of the Sixth and Seventh Avenue plans, the DOT letter said. It left open the possibility that the Department will pursue improvements to Fourth Avenue, including eliminating a lane of traffic in each direction so that left-turn lanes can be installed. Previously, the Department had voiced the opinion that all of the Park Slope transportation changes were part of “a package.”
The new Ikea in Red Hook, which will open sometime next year, may not be the only big box on the waterfront for long. The new Brooklyn Paper reports that Bed, Bath & Beyond may be considering part of the Ikea site and a separate story suggests that the looming grain silos may also become the site of a mixed use development that would include retail. The Bed, Bath & Beyond would come first, as up to 70,000 additional feet of retail space has been approved for the Ikea site.
The owner of the old grain terminal site, however, also says his long-term plans include retail, although the short-term plan is to use the silos for his firm’s concrete business. “Ikea has created a shopping destination here,” says John Quadrozzi, who owns the Grain Terminal property. “I could swim upstream [and continue to do only industry], or I could swim with the other fishes.”
The Ikea will add up to 50,000 additional cars a week on local streets or 2.5 million a year.
May 4th, 2007 · Comments Off on Beginning to See the Light in McCarren Park
Those fences you might have noticed sprouting around the soccer field in McCarren Park? They have nothing to do with the Roebling Oil Field, as one GL reader asked. They’re part of the installation of night lighting for the fields. Now, there’s nothing unique about lighting athletic fields for night play. What makes this endeavor especially interesting, though, is that the lights are going directly across the street from the pricey buildings along Bayard Street, aka Karl Fischer Row. Which will, at the very least, make for some very interesting night views out the windows.
We were fascinated by this My9 News investigative report the other night about Brooklyn developer Mendel Brach and his condo project on Spencer Street in Bed-Stuy. (We located it via IMBY’s post.) So, we were interested to find that someone had posted it on YouTube. If you haven’t seen it, it’s absolutely worth a viewing. Four stars.
Blogger The Battering Room attended the “Beach Impeach” at Coney Island, the event at which a lot of people formed the word “impeach” on the beach so that an aerial photo could be taken. He writes of the event:
We checked in at the sign up booth on the boardwalk where we received our destiny to be part of the letter H. Just to give a little background to what we were doing, the plan was for everyone to form the word IMPEACH lying in formation on the beach while a plane and chopper flew overhead to take some pic’s. This was happening simultaneously in a bunch of other cities, all with the same message that it’s time (well ok it’s been time for quite awhile now) for someone and their entourage to pack their bags, uh hum…Georgie, that’s you.
More details and photos at The Battering Room. The photo above is actually from a28.org, the group that sponsored the event.
May 3rd, 2007 · Comments Off on Gowanus Rising: $3.75M at Fourth Ave. & Third St.
While we don’t note every piece of property that’s up for sale in Brooklyn, we’d been meaning to do a post about Parkside Auto Repair at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Third Street. We remember, back in 2002, when the owner of the auto shop asked us if we thought his corner would be a good spot for a Red Lobster because he sensed the neighborhood’s time was arriving.
In the year since then, some people started referring to Gowanus as G-Slope, and it looks like our erstwhile mechanic abandoned his Red Lobster dream. A reader went looking and found that the asking price for the property is a cool $3.75 million. The lowdown from the Massey Knakel website:
Mixed-Use Investment Buildings,Outer Boroughs. A 20,000 buildable square footage. All commercial uses permitted with the exception of use group 15 (amusement park facility). Ideal retail location. A prime corner vacant lot on booming Fourth Avenue. Property adjacent to Staples, Pep Boys and just one block from the future Whole Foods Market. Asking Price: $3,750,000.
You never know, it could still end up being a Red Lobster, serving up seafood to residents of the Novo Park Slope, guests at Hotel Le Bleu and all the other buildings sprouting on Fourth Avenue. Sorry, though, as our reader pointed out, no Tilt-a-Whirl on Fourth Avenue.
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The Department of Environmental Conservation’s Spill Team was spotted in front of the Roebling Oil Field yesterday, but it’s unclear whether they were checking out test wells, cruising the hood, stopping to siphon some fuel from underground or just socializing (or whatever) with the two gentlemen in the photo. The pic was passed on to us by Bad Advice. Meanwhile, she isn’t concerned that potential development of the cabbage processing plant across the street from the Roebling Oil Field will expose yet another underground oil flow. She’s worried that construction would destabilize her building and cause it to collapse around her.
(If you see something, for the love of God, say something. To us. Gowanus Lounge is all ears and eyes and we welcome your tips and photos. Send them along to thegowanuslounge (at) gmail (dot) com.) Related Post:
