Organized Opposition to House of D Plan Grows
Dozens of Boerum Hill stores and lampposts have started sporting “Stop the Jail” posters, markers of a new group’s efforts to protest the city’s plan to reopen and expand the House of Detention on Smith and Atlantic. The group, Stop BHOD, has launched a website saying it’s comprised of residents from the Brooklyn Heights, Boerum…
Dozens of Boerum Hill stores and lampposts have started sporting “Stop the Jail” posters, markers of a new group’s efforts to protest the city’s plan to reopen and expand the House of Detention on Smith and Atlantic. The group, Stop BHOD, has launched a website saying it’s comprised of residents from the Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens neighborhoods. Stop BHOD’s mission is twofold, according to the site: “Stop BHOD strongly opposes the reopening and expansion of the BHOD. We have made it our mission to stop the misguided plan to place a large prison in a thriving neighborhood with a large community of young children. We have also made it our mission to expose the inaccuracies of the Department of Corrections, a city agency more concerned with control over the site than with economics and the best interests of the community and city as a whole.” Among other things, the group says Corrections is planning a jail with cells that don’t “meet minimum federal or state standards of habitability. Some cells are 40 square feet, half the 80 sqaure foot size recommended by the American Correctional Association.” In March, an entity called the Brooklyn HOD Community Stakeholders Group launched that also opposes the jail expansion.
Stop BHOD [Official Site]
Brooklyn HOD Community Stakeholders Group [Official Site]
‘Stop the Jail’ Movement Begins on Atlantic Ave. [Brooklyn Eagle]
Locals Put Heat On City For Ignoring House of D Plan [Brownstoner]
City Looks to Supersize the House of D [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn Jail Opponents Speak Out
NY SUN
By HOPE HODGE, Special to the Sun
June 27, 2008
Elected officials and neighbors of the long-closed Brooklyn Detention Center are protesting plans to reopen and expand the facility.
Share Share Email
The jail at 275 Atlantic Ave. closed its doors in 2003, and since plans to reopen the facility and double its inmate capacity were announced in 2007, a tense tug-of-war between the city’s Department of Correction and local officials has ensued. The city is expected to announce a developer and begin a $440 million redevelopment by the end of July.
Yesterday, dozens of Brooklyn residents waving “Stop the Jail” signs stood in protest with the local City Council member, David Yassky, the city comptroller, William Thompson Jr., and a handful of state legislators.
“This is a case where the Department of Correction is saying, ‘If it isn’t broke, break it,'” Mr. Thompson, an expected mayoral candidate in 2009, said yesterday.
He and Mr. Yassky, who is running for comptroller, described how downtown Brooklyn has become increasingly residential and attractive to small businesses since the jail’s closing.
They urged Mayor Bloomberg to sell the property and build more jail space on Rikers Island instead.
A recently formed citizen action group, StopBHOD, is opposing the development, citing a lack of transparency and adequate research on the effects of reopening.
“They’re trying to railroad it through without going through the process,” an organization spokesman, David Wieder, said.
The correction department plan would increase the jail’s capacity to 1,479 from 815.
A deputy commissioner of the department, Stephen Morello, did not immediately return a request for comment yesterday. In the past, the department has defended the Brooklyn expansion as part of a larger plan to decrease citywide jail capacity and allow local inmates to live near their families.
Downtown Mobilizes To Stop Jail Expansion
published online THE BROOKLYN EAGLE 06-23-2008
Upcoming Meeting To Feature Yassky, Other Elected Officials
By Dennis Holt
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BROOKLYN — The challenge to the city proposal’s to double the size of the Brooklyn House of Detention by building a second building comparable to the existing one has intensified and is becoming a comprehensive political issue.
On Thursday, June 26, City Councilman David Yassky will host a press conference at 12:30 p.m. at the House of Detention on Atlantic Avenue to protest the city plan. He is expected to be joined by several other elected officials including Councilman Bill de Blasio and city Comptroller William Thompson. Although elected officials have voiced opposition to the jail proposal before, this press event is the first overt political step. It is anticipated that comments, and perhaps proposals will be made about an existing $500 million capital line in the city budget to build the jail expansion.
The House of Detention was closed in 2003 and is still closed, with prisoners being transferred to Rikers Island. This effort failed because of conditions there and because the city did not invest money to improve them.
The current Brooklyn facility has a capacity of more than 700 beds, and the new proposal would enlarge that capacity to about 1,500 beds. A building about the size of the current facility will need to be built.
Community opposition has been building for more than a year. A group calling itself the Stakeholders Group has existed for some time. It is composed of the Boerum Hill Association, the Cobble Hill Association, the Atlantic Avenue LDC, the Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association and tenants from some of the new apartment complexes in the area.
Last week, a new group was formed, largely, but no means entirely from new homeowners on State Street in Boerum Hill. A meeting was held on Saturday, June 14, and by Sunday afternoon storefronts all over Smith Street, Court Street and Atlantic Avenue were festooned by stark posters featuring the command “Stop the Jail.â€
The more than 30 people attending this meeting were divided into teams that then canvassed the neighborhood, both commercial and residential buildings and did so. Calling themselves Stop the House of Detention, the constituency includes more than just homeowners.
One of them is Jim Walden who is a member of the Manhattan law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher. This firm went to court to stop a similar plan to build a new house of detention in the Bronx at Oak Hill. That effort was a success.
One of the issues this group is focusing on is the city’s decision that it does not have to go through the city land use review process to double the size of the jail. If nothing changes, this clearly will become an actionable issue.
The new group has created a new web site known as http://www.stopbhod.org. “BHOD†means, of course, Brooklyn House of Detention.
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2008
The Department of Corrections claims the BHOD is “too valuable and irreplaceable a building to relinquish.”
Source: 3/5/08 Letter from Horn to Stakeholders
THE TRUTH: The BHOD is an antiquated relic in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is worth more to the city and the community as a commercial development for minority business owners than as an overcrowded prison.
– The city owns land that would be more appropriately allocated to a prison, including property at the Navy Yard and unused land at the site of the Metropolitan Detention Center and Riker’s Island.
– The BHOD sits on one of the most valuable blocks in Downtown Brooklyn.
Source: 5/13/08 Editorial, Brooklyn Daily Eagle
– Selling or leasing the BHOD would bring the city much-needed tax revenue (conservatively estimated at $20 million annually).
Source: 4/24/08 Press Release by Comptroller Thompson
– Comptroller Thompson advocates selling the site because it is “important to return the property to the city’s tax rolls in an effort to promote the further revitalization of the Atlantic Avenue corridor and to bring the city much needed revenue.”
Source: 4/24/08 Press Release
The neighborhood already does deal with with its fair share of city services. Fare more than most – MTA, court system, borough hall, Board of Education, etc.
it is still much cheaper to reopen the jail than to now begin to look for a new site, and begin the whole process of research, and finally build. Which could take years- and what do you do in the meantime? and a lot more taxpayer money.
Beyond bitching about the DOC, and freaking over possibly seeing a shackled- oh the horror! the horror!- prisoner,I have not heard a single argument that supports not using or expanding the jail. It has not been a problem in the neighborhood, other than it ain’t pretty. It has most definitely not stopped gentrification and new construction. Considering how many more people are moving into the area thanks to new construction, you can hardly freak over a few thousand more family members visiting. they certainly aren’t running around in the neighborhood knocking over old ladies and kicking babies.
The jail serves an important function and it is in an appropriate area. So why not just get over yourselves? Maybe you just don’t like the idea of a jail in your elitist midst but until you can show me statistics that the jail has impacted the area in a negative way, it’s just a crock. every neighborhood has to deal with city services, why shouldn’t you?
“The Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, the union representing prison workers that opposes a new jail in the Bronx…”
NY Sun Article June 27, 2007
Yes unfortunately we need jails but the DOC is essentially building a new jail at BHOD not simply reopening the old one. Take a look at the RFP – $240mm by their estimate and the Bloomberg admin budget projects it to be in excess of $450mm. I have never heard Horn justify the BHOD on the basis of the threat from hurricanes. The BHOD is only projected to hold 10-12% of the existing Rikers inmates so how do they meet Fed standards under that scenario. It is not a NIMBY issue but a result of poor DOC planning, community outreach, inept management, wasted tax dollars on building more prison beds below code and lost opportunities to rebuild Rikers when city coffers were swelling. I would rather they spend double the money to build a facility in the appropriate place (non-residential like they are proposing in the Bronx and unconnected to the Courthouse so clearly not the end of the world) rather than the expensive and dubious proposal for BHOD. The other Horn refrain relates to putting inmates closer to families to reduce recidivism. Bogus argument, absolutely zero empirical evidence to support this statement. Does not even factor into top five list of issues effecting recidivism.
“The Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, the union representing prison workers opposed a new jail in the Bronx.”
COBA represents only one segment of the “prison workers.” As a COBA delegate I can assure you that COBA was not against the building of a jail in the Bronx. The Bronx jail will replace VCBC, the Vernon C. Bain Center which is a barge and will have to eventually be put in drydock. True, in the past, more specifically in the late 80’s and early 90’s, many decisions regarding the housing of the city’s inmates were made in haste and were not long term solutions due to the sudden increase in population in a short period of time basically because of crack. Under Guiliani and his know-nothing Commissioner Bernie, construction was started on the Brooklyn House and the jail population decreased shortly thereafter. Then of course there was hurricane Katrina and new Federal mandates regarding housing and evacuation. Horn is trying to take all of these factors into account to come up with long term solutions. Unlike the Bronx, this jail already exists and can reopen without going through what the city and DOC are going through to try and have a new jail built in the Bronx.
I would love for schools, hospitals and affordable hosuing to be built instead of jails. It is truly my wish that the inmates stop coming to jail and put the DOC out of business. I will glad retrain for another job. Unfortunately, that is not the reality. There will always be a need for jails and the oppositon to this jail is simple NIMBY. Only most of the newer homes were built in the jails backyard.
John
You did write this but my guess is you now regret it.
“I don’t remember the situation actually arising, but I’m certain that if my son, when he was 11 years old or so, had been aware of the opportunity to see shackled criminals in the flesh he would have begged me to take him down that block to “see the bad guys” and there’s no way I would have denied him that vicarious thrill.”
Yes I have children and no I would not take them down to see the perp walk or as you say “shackled criminals in the flesh”. Not because I want to shelter them. That process dignifies no one, especaiily the detainess who are presumed innocent. However, I have taken them to court proceedings where at least they can see and hear both sides of the story.
My recollection is you began the personal attacks. I have not engagaed in anything remotely similar.
“I did a whois for the website registrant and discovered that he’s a former DA who now works for a private law firm and who specializes in getting off corporate bigwigs who’ve been fingered by whistleblowers. I’m so glad the phrase “yuppie scum” is in vogue again because I can’t think of a better definition.”
“The only thing that’s really changed is the overblown sense of self entitlement of the more recent arrivals.”
Why are you so angry John?
The DOC in action at BHOD:
Examples:
$18 million kitchen created and never used
$45 million pink marble exterior cladding, installed over 8 years
Bollards installed to prevent abusive parking by HOD and court employees, then uninstalled
$16 million for replacing windows in an empty facility