BROOKLYN SKATING RINK PUT ON ICE
DOT PLAN MEANS MAJOR DELAYS FOR PROJECT
By RICH CALDER

August 14, 2008

A much-anticipated ice-skating rink planned for under the Brooklyn Bridge is on hold indefinitely because the city Department of Transportation plans to use the prime real estate for storage, officials confirmed yesterday.

The 85-acre Brooklyn Bridge Park project now under construction calls for using this one acre of land under the bridge seasonally for an ice-skating rink in the winter and a public market or plaza during warmer weather.

But a DOT spokesman said the property can’t be turned over as parkland until at least five years of bridge rehabilitation work is done first. Besides needing the site for storage during the bridge job, he said there will be sandblasting and painting done under the span and that the public should be nowhere near the area during this time.

The former Purchase Building tract is DOT-owned, and was last used as a temporary home to the Office of Emergency Management, but DOT is supposed to give it up for the new waterfront park in DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights.

The old building, a 1930s-era Art Deco structure that local preservationists tried to save, was demolished last month to make way for the long-awaited park.

Sources said DOT and the city-state Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp. fought internally over the land, with DOT ultimately winning out.

This was described to us by a senior Parks Official as being the “money shot” of the Park.  We don’t think this was what was meant.  A more serious question is: why was there no coordination between the different city agencies about the disposition of this land? A fast search discovers this article from 2005 which talks about the need for maintenance of NYC’s bridges and even roughs out their proposed maintence schedules. It looks like a good and sensible plan - and one that should not have been a surprise to anyone paying attention (like, say,  people planning a park underneath the bridge).  As the saying goes, you reap what you sow….and the products of destruction shall be ashes (or sand-blasting, as the case may be).

July 15, 2008

HDC would like to thank the Commission for continuing the Public Hearing and allowing for further public testimony on this very important, precedent setting matter.

In its presentation on June 3rd, St. Vincent’s clearly stated their charitable purpose, their dedication to their mission, their importance in this community and the need to upgrade. None of these matters have been in doubt. Still, HDC does not feel that the grounds for hardship exemption have been met to allow the demolition of the O’Toole building.

On the grounds of physical hardship, it was argued that St. Vincent’s could not have a new acute care and trauma facility at the O’Toole site without this building’s demolition, and so would not be able to fulfill the institution’s charitable mission. The O’Toole building has never before served as an acute care and trauma facility, has never before been asked to take on the core activity of the hospital’s mission. There should be no expectation that it could act in this capacity. O’Toole, purchased by St. Vincent’s after its designation as part of the Greenwich Village Historic District, has served the hospital well as an adjunct space. In addition, this Landmarks Commission reinforced that finding when the current Commissioners all deemed O’Toole a significant piece of the Greenwich Village Historic District, some even describing it as worthy of individual landmark designation. In addition, the State Historic Preservation Office has recently ruled that this building is eligible for individual listing on the State and National Registers of Historic Places - which does not, of course, have any authority over the LPC’s decisions but furthers the point that this is a meritorious building and not a burden to be disposed of. While it may not be a hospital, the building, with some cleaning up after years of neglect, does have much potential for adaptive reuse. Alternatives to the demolition of a landmark should and must be studied carefully by the Commission.

Indeed, HDC feels strongly there has not been enough investigation of alternatives, or at least not enough made public, including the 40 or so other proposals received during St. Vincent’s bankruptcy proceedings. At the present time, St. Vincent’s still owns the buildings on the east side of 7th Avenue, and this space should be looked at as seriously as the O’Toole site to fulfill the charitable mission of the institution. Other hospitals renovate and continue to operate. Even St. Vincent’s somehow continued to operate when Seton was demolished and the Link and Coleman Pavilions were constructed some twenty-five years ago. So why not now? The recent closing of the nearby Cabrini Medical Center could be a serendipitous chance to decampdecant there while something is built to replace Link and Coleman two buildings everyone agrees should never have been built. Instead, the current proposal seeks to compound the error and demolishwhich another historic building in order to build yet another new facility. Where will it end? What will happen in twenty-five years when this new facility is possibly obsolete or insufficient? Working within historic districts, we must take the long view and think about the effects of alteration and regulation over the space of decades. Wouldn’t it make more sense – for the Greenwich Village Historic District – to explore reusing the current hospital space rather than extinguishing a known historic building?

While this suggestion and other plans might be more complicated and expensive than the proposed, it is not impossible. St. Vincent’s hardship application is on the grounds of physical, not financial, hardship. The mission can still be fulfilled, and both lives and buildings will be saved.

HDC also does not believe “Going Green”, as St. Vincent’s terms it in their plan, should be part of this hardship application. While it is certainly a respectable goal, it does not have anything to do with the hospital’s charitable purpose (it is nowhere listed in the institution’s mission statement) or with the mission of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. If “Going Green” is to be discussed, let us remember the environmental factors of massive demolition and construction. Ripping down historic buildings is not Green, and it will never be Green, no matter how many times someone says it is.

HDC has previously expressed concerns over whether St. Vincent’s is asking the Landmarks Commission to apply the appropriate standard for granting a hardship exemption on a property that was bought with full understanding of its status as a City landmark or part of a City historic district and the restrictions and responsibilities thereof. We have yet to hear this issue addressed.HDC has previously expressed concerns over the constitutional grounds and appropriateness of granting a hardship exemption on a property that was bought with full understanding of its landmark and the restrictions and responsibilities thereof. We have yet to hear these issues address.

HDC believes that St. Vincent’s can still fulfill its charitable and extremely important mission while LPC fulfills its equally important mission.

presented with only a slight bias for emphasis, but unedited.

Admiral’s Row: The Smackdown

From the Brooklyn Papers

Houses along the historic Admiral’s Row at the Brooklyn Navy Yard have been decaying for years. Navy Yard officials want to tear them down, but preservationists are rallying to save them.

The debate over whether to tear down a row of historic, but severely dilapidated, homes inside the Brooklyn Navy Yard along Flushing Avenue has pit residents of the nearby public housing projects, who want a long-promised supermarket on the site, against historic preservationists, who say the homes can be saved and reused.

Both camps rallied at Borough Hall last week at a public hearing over the fate of the so-called “Admirals Row” houses. To further that debate, The Brooklyn Paper presents this smackdown between a supporter of the Navy Yard’s supermarket plan and an opponent.

Pro

Downtown Brooklyn is undergoing one of the most significant development projects in the country if not the world. However, the Public Housing Developments of Ingersoll, Walt Whitman and Faragutt are being isolated and cut off from the opportunities now available in the community.

Our government has the duty to protect its people. We have not been protected or respected by anyone to date. This is an opportunity for the government step in and to rectify this wrong being inflicted on our residents by allowing the removal of the Admirals Row homes now and use its influence to speed up process of building the supermarket.

Ed Brown, president, Ingersoll Tenants Association

Con

The Admirals Row Houses allow us to imagine what Brooklyn was, and what it can become. When Congress voted to offer to sell the property to New York City in 1988, the houses, although already vacant for years, were an extraordinarily intact row of mid- to late-19th century residential architecture, including superb examples of Second Empire, Italianate and Queen Anne styles.

Constructed between 1850 and 1900 the buildings were a dignified ensemble of homes for the officers of the Navy and their families, a role they continued to serve from before the Civil War until after the Vietnam conflict. These were solid, handsome buildings that housed people with the important job of protecting our country.

Just like bank buildings of the era were advertisements of importance and solidity of their finances, these buildings symbolized the strength of our nation and the importance of Brooklyn to our country. The symbolism and promise of these buildings remains intact.

It is a profound failure of imagination to insist that this row must be demolished for a parking lot instead reusing them for needed community amenities. There is plenty of room on the six-acre property for a supermarket and industrial uses behind the buildings, especially if the necessary parking is incorporated into the new buildings.

With regard to financing the buildings’ reuse, this site has the potential to be enormously profitable for any supermarket developer; Home Depot, Lowe’s and Target all have their highest earning stores in New York. In return for what is sure to be a wildly successful venture, the developer should be required to give back to the local community and the city by making good on the promise of Admirals Row and returning these buildings back to Brooklyn.

Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper

‘Green Church’ sent back to drawing board

The city shot down preliminary plans for a residential building at the site of Fourth Avenue’s soon-to-be-demolished “Green Church” — but the rejection didn’t deter church officials and builders from their controversial plan to level the 109-year-old house of worship to construct condos and a smaller church.

Last week, the Department of Buildings disapproved plans that included a seven-story, 72-unit residential building, an 8,196-square-foot church, and a 42-car parking lot that would replace the Bay Ridge United Methodist Church at the corner of Ovington Avenue.

But developer Abe Betesh said the disapproval is more about revision than rejection.

“They are reviewing it,” Betesh said. “When you submit a set of plans and they disapprove it, they give you certain comments or ask you further questions — it means they are working on it.”

It is not immediately clear why the city shot down the controversial plans for the “Green Church” site, but a Buildings Department official told The Brooklyn Paper that plans are typically disapproved if they don’t comply with building or zoning regulations, or if they are incomplete.

Despite the disapproval, the planned demolition and development will continue, Pastor Robert Emerick said.

(c) The Brooklyn Papers

From the Brooklyn Papers

Bridge “Park” Can Find No Purchase by Mike McLaughlin

Demolition teams have made short work of the iconic Purchase Building beneath the Brooklyn Bridge to clear space for a piazza that will be part of the controversial Brooklyn Bridge Park project.

The $300-plus-million parkland and condo project along the DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights waterfront has long included destruction of the two-story Modernist relic built as part of FDR’s New Deal in the 1930s - and that’s a good thing, say project boosters, who are excited by the current plan for a piazza-like open space under the Brooklyn Bridge where the Purchase Building stood.

The brick-and-concrete building could not even be torn down had it not, in 2006, lost the protection it enjoyed as part of the Fulton Ferry Historic District. At that time, city officials lobbied the Landmarks Preservation Commission to cut the building out of the district because the historic building would obstruct views from the new park.

The building had many lives during its years in city service, earning its name after being christened as a warehouse for the city’s “Department of Purchase.” It remained a warehouse for other city agencies for decades, and, for a time after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, became the home of the Office of Emergency Management.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper

This comes to us from one of our neighborhood constituents.  It seems that presumptive Republican presidential candidate Arizona Senator John McCain has a personal connection with Brooklyn; his parents lived there.

Margaret Skinner, 85, lives in the individually-landmarked Joseph Steele House on the southeast corner of Vanderbilt and Lafayette Avenues. Steele by the way was the founder of Brooklyn Union Gas and the house has its original boiler, the second boiler, etc. and all the interior and exterior detail.  Margaret was visiting recently with Senator John McCain’s 96 year old mother, Roberta at the Republican Club at the corner of Fifth Avenue and W. 44th Street. After Margaret expressed her concern for the fate of Admiral’s Row, Mrs. McCain exclaimed, “Oh, I know all about Admiral’s Row.  My husband and I lived there!.”

Hmm, while Sentor McCain has not, to our knowledge, been particularly active in preservation issues, over 9,000 people in Brooklyn did vote for him. If this isn’t a tall tale, perhaps he’ll feel the need to say something about this issue.

More to the point, this story - true or not (although we have no reason to doubt the person who told us this) - illustrates the rich history that these houses possess. Generations of military men and their families lived there from before the Civil War until after the Viet Nam conflict. They should not be demolished for a parking lot.

Well, HDC went to the Public Meeting and the Press Conference this evening about the Admiral’s Row Section 106 process - and we were shocked at the misinformation that’s being propagated by the “Tear These Buildings Down!” crowd.  Here are a few real facts about the process and the site to counter the misinformation:

 - of the 11 historic buildings, 9 are structurally stable. The Beardsley Report (December 2007) states quite clearly that of all the buildings, buildings C and H have severe structural problems. The rest are in OK shape, the photos from the Beardsley Report support this, as evidence of historic floating staircases and the like are still standing and visibly stable.

 - restoration was estimated at $19 million for all 11 buildings. $19 million is a lot of money, but it is not hundreds of millions or billions as alleged at the press conference. That figure also assumes FULL restoration and of all 11 buildings, including the 2 with structural failure.

 - the supermarket is not going to be built “green”. The complex will include a 356 car surface parking lot. How is that “green”?  Let’s not talk about the century-old tree cover that will be lost because of this.

- it is against Federal Law to require that employees come from a certain Zip Code, to say nothing of assuring that all the jobs created will come from the nearby public housing projects.

- Asking the Federal Government to ignore national environmental laws is a foolish thing to do, so let’s  ascribe that to mere rhetoric and playing to the crowd. Still, it is inappropriate for lawyers and elected officials to do.

-  the Federal Government passed a law in 1988 to sell the propery to New York City, and then dropped the ball with regard to maintenance. The City sat on its hands for the last 20 years to take control of the property. There is plenty of blame to go around for the current condition of the buildings. Frankly, no one should be pointing fingers or throwing stones.

WHY CAN’T WE HAVE BOTH A SUPERMARKET AND THE ADMIRAL’S ROW BUILDINGS?

The Historic Districts Council, Municipal Art Society, New York Landmarks Conservancy, Fort Greene Association, Historic Wallabout Association, and the Society for Clinton Hill are united in our desire to see both a Supermarket and the Admiral’s Row Houses in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

WE AGREE that a new supermarket that sells fresh fruits and vegetables and more employment opportunities are critical for the neighborhood.  

WE DISAGREE that the Admiral’s Row buildings must be demolished to create an economically viable project on this site.

Facts:

-          The Admiral’s Row Buildings are too important - to the community and to the history of our country and Brooklyn - to allow their wholesale demolition. All our children deserve to know their history and to take pride in those who served our country.

-          The buildings are currently owned by the Federal Government and are located at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC) is responsible for leasing space in the Yard, for developing the underutilized areas of the Yard, and for overseeing the ongoing modernization of the Yard’s infrastructure. Through their efforts, hundreds of quality industrial jobs have been created.

-          The National Guard is currently carrying out a highly responsible and thoughtful effort to seek comments on the site’s redevelopment.  Part of the National Guard’s process, mandated by Federal law, involves finding alternatives that would prevent the demolition of the historic buildings.

-          Alternatives exist that could combine the reuse of existing buildings with new construction to achieve a plan which offers everything from fresh foods, to job training, cultural offerings as well as new recreational and healthy living opportunities.

-          The current supermarket proposal includes 356 parking spaces, which will bring increased traffic and pollution to the neighborhood. This proposed supermarket is 65,000 sf, the size of a “big box” store and 36% larger than the median supermarket in America.

-          Reducing the parking lot or building a parking structure could allow for enough room for a large supermarket, new industrial space, and the restored Admiral’s Row buildings on the site.

-          The preservation and rehabilitation of the Admiral’s Row buildings could be an opportunity for young adults in the neighborhood to be trained in preservation and construction trades with far more earning and career potential than working in a supermarket.

-          Professional engineers and architects have shown that it is possible to renovate/restore Admiral’s Row at costs comparable to the renovations which have occurred throughout downtown Brooklyn and have driven the area’s economic resurgence.

Brooklyn deserves better. We have the best talent in the world right here, let’s put it to work to show what we can achieve.

To learn more about what you can do to save these houses, email hdc@hdc.org.

From Landmark West!

 Finally, after more than a year and a half of intense community pressure on the New-York Historical Society to come clean about development plans for its “Triple Crown” Landmark site, the words “we don’t have plans for a tower” actually ring true.   

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the Society has dropped its plans to construct a $100 million, 23-story, 280-foot luxury condominium tower that would have loomed over its historic building–an Individual Landmark, also protected as part of 2 overlapping historic districts, listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places, right across the street from Central Park (a Scenic Landmark) and a crucial part of Central Park West’s syncopated skyline.

 Congratulations and THANKS to everyone in the community, Community Board 7, and colleague organizations who recognized the importance of this fight, turned out by the hundreds for public meetings and hearings, wrote letters and emails, and otherwise helped to create the kind of tumult usually needed to make others come to their senses. 

And there’s more good news.  The Society’s president, Louise Mirrer, states, “We think we can meet our needs over the next few years by focusing on our building” and on increasing the institution’s endowment through fundraising.  Hallelujah! 

 For now, the Society’s ill-advised confidence in tower development to solve its financial issues seems to have faded.  But even in our delight and relief, we cannot overlook the significance of Mirrer’s modifier “over the next few years.”  The door to possible future tower development on this site remains open. 

In the meantime, the Society will doubtless hold its place among the ranks of nonprofit institutions throughout the city, each eyeing its own real-estate “development opportunity” and all watching and waiting to see what happens at West 70^th Street and Central Park West, where the NYC Board of Standards and Appeals appears poised to grant 7 zoning variances to allow Congregation Shearith Israel to build luxury condos on top of a new community house.  Approval of these variances will shatter the contextual zoning that protects this block and, more importantly, the quality and character of neighborhoods in all five boroughs.

 Christopher Hitchens clearly has his eye on the ball.  Writing in this month’s Vanity Fair about St. Vincent’s Hospital’s plans to redevelop a swathe of the Greenwich Village Historic District, he notes, “Those who don’t live in such threatened districts nonetheless have a stake in this quarrel and some skin in this game, because on the day when everywhere looks like everywhere else we shall all be very much impoverished, and not only that but-more impoverishingly still-we will be unable to express or even understand or depict what we have lost.”

And so the fight goes on…  But let us celebrate important victories along the way!

FromThe New York Times

HISTORICAL SOCIETY DROPS PLANS FOR EXPANSION AND TOWER 

After a year and a half of controversy and intense opposition by preservationists and neighborhood groups, the New-York Historical Society at 77th Street and Central Park West has abandoned its pursuit of a $100 million, 23-story luxury condominium tower, along with a five-story annex that would have risen above an adjacent empty lot the society owns at 7-13 West 76th Street.