Admiral’s Row, the 19th-century, Second Empire-style officers’ quarters at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, has been receiving attention from preservationists for some time now. The Fort Greene Association, for example, has been campaigning for at least four years to save these historic buildings. And The New York Times this weekend profiled another preservationist, Scott Witter, an architect who runs Brooklyn’s Other Museum of Brooklyn—an eclectic homage to Admiral’s Row, Brooklyn, and forgotten times, which is run out of a private home near the BQE. The article recounts the recent plans for the 11 buildings of the row: the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation will raze nine of them and develop the land for a supermarket, parking, and retail. The city says the buildings would cost too much to rebuild, and the federal government condemned most of the row last spring—a verdict that Witter and groups like the New York Landmarks Conservancy and the Historic Districts Council oppose, especially since, according to the Times, “a 2008 report commissioned by the Army Corps of Engineers found the superstructures of the Admiral’s Row houses to be generally ‘sound, level and plumb.’” B.O.M.B., Witter’s museum, is open at 102 Steuben Street on Tuesdays from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
A Tiny Museum’s Mission: to Still the Wrecking Ball [NY Times]