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February 2008 Archives
29 Feb 2008
- ◉ About That Oil Spill
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From Plenty magazine, including a lovely panorama view of North Brooklyn.
28 Feb 2008
- ◉ Toll Brothers Reports Big Loss
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Where they think there's no demand, they've basically stopped building.
- ◉ What glut?
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Newsflash! There are a shitload of condos in Brooklyn, and we might not be able to sell them all.
There has been massive overbuilding in the entire borough of Brooklyn. It is like the Wild West, and if you don't control growth, then at some point it's going to get out of hand.
At some point.
- ◉ Mike's Out
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I'm glad he's not running, but I think Mike would have made a fine president. I'm sure I wouldn't have agreed with everything he did (as I haven't agreed with everything he's done). Particularly as we try to untangle the fiasco of the last eight years, we will need competent, level-headed leadership.
Maybe he's available for veep?
26 Feb 2008
- ◉ Jackie Gleason
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From Bushwick (who knew?).
22 Feb 2008
- ◉ Cats Save Lives (Dogs Don't)
- Apparently, Miss Heather will live forever.
- ◉ Avenue E
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Way back when (i.e., the late 90s), that's what real estate people were calling Bedford Avenue. It was a rather annoying contrivance by people who didn't know anything about Williamsburg or how to "sell" it. Which is to say its been almost a decade since I've heard a Williamsburg-is-the-new-East-Village remark like this.
- ◉ Julius Spiegel
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NYT profile of Brooklyn Parks Commissioner Julius Spiegel:
“I think I’m about to crack Robert Moses’ longevity record of 26 years and 100-something days with the department,” he says. So he is much relieved that the bane of his tenure, the decrepit pool at McCarren Park, the grandest of the city’s necklace of pools, created by Mr. Moses in 1936 but shut down since 1983, will finally undergo a $50 million renovation and reopen to the public in 2011... “Giddy is how I feel about this pool being brought back to life,”
21 Feb 2008
- ◉ Rockaway Ferry
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The water taxi also has routes connecting lower Manhattan to Williamsburg and DUMBO in Brooklyn.
Yes, too bad they don't have any boats connecting lower Manhattan to Williamsburg and DUMBO.
- ◉ Franklin Street
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One of the great changes to occur over the past few years is the reopening of many long-shuttered storefronts. The changes on Franklin Street have been particularly dramatic (likewise Grand Street). Jane Jacobs would be proud.
- ◉ DOB Scaffolding Crackdown
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As usual, reactive, not proactive.
- ◉ Larry Davis
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Hard to believe that it was 22 years ago.
14 Feb 2008
- ◉ New Housing Marketplace Progress
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The Women's Club of New York held a panel discussion on the state of the Mayor's New Housing Marketplace plan to construct or preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing. The panel discussion follows up on a recent study by the City's Independent Budget Office, which found that the City was largely on target in meeting its goals for preserving housing, but not on creating it.
This matches what we have seen here in North Brooklyn: a lot of preservation of existing affordable housing stock (a good thing, certainly), but not so much in the way of new housing. This is particularly disappointing here, because the inclusionary housing program was supposed to generate new housing - and its not (at least not at the pace that was expected).
- ◉ DOB Cracks Down
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One would like to give DOB the benefit of the doubt and assume that the crack down on self-certification is good news. But this is an issue that has been front and center in North Brooklyn for years, with no discernible action from DOB.
Likewise on the issue of after hours and weekend work.
The department also is hiring 18 more inspectors and engineers to look for safety problems on low-rise construction sites and interior demolition jobs, as well as to hunt for construction work being done illegally before 7 a.m. or after 6 p.m.
Maybe now they'll have inspectors show up when the infraction is occurring. Its hard to cite someone for after hours work when your inspectors show up the next day. During regular business hours.
- ◉ Greenpoint is Obama Country
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But Williamsburg is Clinton country.
- ◉ Harvey (and Houck) House
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Photo: Fred Conrad, NYT
One of my favorite Williamsburg rehabs get the Home & Garden treatment in today's Times.
- ◉ Pie 'n' Thighs Coming Back
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Via Eater, word that Pies 'n' Thighs is set to open new digs at South 4th and Driggs. CB1 approved the transfer of the liquor license last night, so all that remains is build the place.
Please build fast.
- ◉ Isaac Abraham Enters Council Race
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The race for David Yassky's 33rd District Council seat gets more crowded (and the demographics more confusing) with the entry of Hasidic businessman and activist Isaac Abraham into the race.
- ◉ 340 Days
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Heckuva a job, Bushie:
After downplaying the risks for months, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday it will rush to move Gulf Coast hurricane victims out of roughly 35,000 government-issued trailers because tests found dangerous levels of formaldehyde fumes... Louisiana has 25,162 occupied FEMA trailers and mobile homes, while Mississippi has 10,362, according to FEMA... At one point, FEMA had placed victims of the 2005 hurricanes in more than 144,000 trailers and mobile homes... Formaldehyde has been classified as a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer...
- ◉ 341 Days
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Upholding the rule of law:
[Attorney General] Michael Mukasey said today that if Congress passed contempt citations against current and former White House officials based on their refusal to respond to subpoenas, the Justice Department would not enforce them, as federal law instructs.
[Emphasis added]
12 Feb 2008
- ◉ 342 Days
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Fiscal conservatism:
The federal budget deficit is running at a pace that is more than double last year’s imbalance through the first four months of the budget year... The Bush administration sent its final budget request to Congress last week, projecting that the deficit for all of 2008 will total $410 billion, very close to the all-time high in dollar terms of $413 billion in 2004... So far this year, federal spending is 8.3 percent ahead of last year’s pace... that is far ahead of the 3.2 percent increase in revenues.
- ◉ I Guess Its How You Define Contextual
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The Oliver (Photo via GL)KSQ Architects' new design for 360 Smith Street (now called "The Oliver") is certainly very nice. Unlike the previous architect, the Westchester/Tulsa (Tulsa?!)-based firm uses more traditional materials (though in non-traditional ways - it sounds as though they are talking about terra-cotta rain screens, not brick walls).
While the design is a great improvement over the original Scarano designs, the only thing that has really changed is the skin (much for the better) and the massing (also much for the better). If that is all people are concerned about, change the glass tower to brick (or terra cotta, whatever), and call it a day.
If the issue is height and density, this is still a very big building (in relation to its Carroll Gardens context). Pardon Me says that the side pavilions (on Smith Street and Second Place) are only five stories, but that clearly refers to the red-colored terra-cotta portion only. The street walls are six stories including the light-beige attic story. And those six stories are set on a very high base - judging by the doorway on the Smith elevation, that base is at least 7' tall, probably 8'. So unless the developer has found a way to fit six and a half stories in 50' of building height, the street wall is really closer to 70' at the sides and probably just under 80' at the corner (the glass pavilion). On top of which, there is a set back seventh story at the side pavilions. (A local architect has already noted that mechanical equipment and bulkheads will likely add at least another 15' to the roofscape).
Finally, is anyone in the community bothered by the fact that the developer is showing no retail on Smith Street? I don't know the project well enough, but Smith is a commercial thoroughfare, and that 7' or 8' high black plinth at the base of the building strikes me as pretty non-contextual.
Given that this is an as-of-right building, at this point all the community can really fight for is aesthetics. At least its not metal.
[Via GL]
11 Feb 2008
- ◉ 343 Days
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The Army is suppressing an unclassified report critical of the execution of the Iraq war.
A review of the lengthy report [...] shows that it identified problems with nearly every organization that had a role in planning the war.
They could have saved a lot of paper by just printing a list of Bush administration officials that executed war planning well.
- ◉ Greenway on Kent Avenue
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This sounds like a very good idea - not only would it provide greenways and protected bicycle lanes, it would help slow down traffic on the Kent Avenue freeway.
I'm sure the parking freepers will object, but this is something CB1 should support.
- ◉ Horseshoes and Hand Grenades
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John McCain almost lost three primaries on Saturday. Luckily for him, the Republican brass in Washington state decided that it wasn't necessary to count all of the votes.
- ◉ Moore Street Market
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A year later, life is still tenuous for the proprietors at Moore Street.
- ◉ Finally, A Solution to Overcrowding on the L
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Your fare hike at work:
A new B2 bus route connecting Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and Long Island City, Queens, to midtown Manhattan.
- ◉ 475 Kent - People Live(d) There
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Nice piece in today's Times about the working artists at 475 Kent and the community they created.
- ◉ The Other Side of Eminent Domain
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“Ah, irony,” Scott Bullock, a senior attorney with the group that fought eminent domain in the [Kelo] case.
The linked article is a little disingenuous, in that Pfizer was not a party to the Kelo (the Supreme Court case that gave birth to the phrase "Eminent Domain Abuse"). But it was Pfizer's relocation to New London, Conn. that was the direct impetus for the City's acquisition of property in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood that resulted in Kelo. So without Pfizer, there would be no Kelo.
Pfizer has announced that it is closing up shop in Williamsburg (where the company was founded, in 1849), putting over 1,000 people out of work. Assemblyman Vito Lopez is looking to having Pfizer's extensive holdings on either side of Flushing Avenue acquired by eminent domain, in order to create affordable housing and job incubators. Pfizer, of course, would like to sell their property on the open market. As the first step in that process, the company has supposedly issued an RFP to solicit bids. Pfizer says that affordable housing is a "key priority" in its RFP.
We'll have more on the merits of Lopez's bid at a later date, but for now, we'll enjoy the irony.
2 Feb 2008
- ◉ It Didn't Really Happen There
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Time Out NY has an excellent piece titled It Happened Here, an informative romp through NYC history & geography. Greenpoint's contribution includes this entry:
The ironclad Union warship the USS Monitor, which battled the Confederacy’s Merrimac to a draw in Chesapeake Bay, was built at the Continental Iron Works shipyard in Greenpoint and launched on January 30, 1862. The shipyard was located on Newtown Creek at Cayler and West Sts, Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
But it didn't happen there (or rather there is no there there) - Continental was located on Bushwick Creek, not Newtown Creek.