City Council Votes Yes on Brooklyn Heights Library Development (Updated)
The hotly debated proposal to sell the current site of the Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Heights branch to a private developer moved forward on Wednesday afternoon when the City Council voted 45 to 1 (with three abstentions) to OK the plan.
Where to Kill Time (or Work) in Manhattan With Wi-Fi — Besides Starbucks
You live in Brooklyn, but are in Manhattan between appointments. Where’s a clean, well-lighted place to kill time or work that’s not a Starbucks? An obvious answer is libraries, home to (mostly) free Wi-Fi, with bathrooms and power outlets if you’re lucky.
Win $20,000 for Your Local Library in This Year’s NYC Neighborhood Library Awards
Think your local library deserves a reward for all the hungry minds it feeds?
Midwood Library Celebrates New Plaza, Funded Through Participatory Budgeting
A local library got a makeover thanks to participatory budgeting.
Brooklyn Public Library Adds Weekend Hours at All Branches
Thanks to a $12,000,000 budget increase from Mayor de Blasio and the City Council, all 60 Brooklyn Public Library branches will begin staying open at least six days a week.
Borough President Eric Adams “Disapproves” Controversial Plan to Develop Heights Library
In a surprising move, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams submitted his official recommendation to “disapprove with conditions” the plan to sell and redevelop the Brooklyn Public Library branch at 280 Cadman Plaza West in Brooklyn Heights. Adams’ announcement is an official part of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) and means that nine affirmative votes are required from the City Planning Commission on September 22 in order for the development plan to move forward for a City Council vote.
Adams took issue with the fact that the plan contained no explicit guarantee that cash from the library sale would go back to the Brooklyn Public Library rather than into the city’s general fund. He proposed additional changes to the proposal, including adding a public school annex for the overcrowded PS 8 and permanent affordable housing to the site.
Adams also outlined an entirely new model for funding Brooklyn’s library system.
Closing Bell: New Look for Brooklyn Heights Library Development, Hearing Planned
Hudson Companies today released new renderings showing a different, less glassy look for the wedge-shaped mixed-use tower it plans to build on the site of the Brooklyn Heights public library at 320 Cadman Plaza West.
The release of the renderings comes just before Community Board 2’s Land Use Committee plans to hold a public hearing on the redevelopment of the site Wednesday as part of the formal land-use review process the proposal must go through.
As readers will recall, Marvel Architects is designing a new 36-story building with 139 apartments at 280 Cadman Plaza West, the current location of the library’s Cadman Plaza branch. Hudson Companies is in contract to buy the site for $52,000,000 and the library will own a condo on the ground floor. The library will relocate during construction.
Storytelling Garden, Improved Pedestrian Safety Win Funding, Local Votes
Earlier this month residents in seven Brooklyn city council districts had the opportunity to vote on whether or not to fund a large number of projects using money allocated by the city to each district. The process, known as participatory budgeting, is designed to give citizens more of a voice in how city funds are spent. And now council members representing three of those Brooklyn districts have announced the results of the vote.
In District 39, which runs from the Columbia Street Waterfront, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens through to Park Slope, Kensington and Windsor Terrace, eight projects were funded, including $150,000 for greening Union Street and 9th Street, $250,00 for building a story telling garden at the Park Slope Library (pictured above) and $200,000 for draining a chronically muddy path in Prospect Park. A full list of projects approved by voters in district 39 can be accessed here.
Question of the day – do you use your local library?
We told you yesterday about the cool new library going up in Glen Oaks, and we’ve mentioned the Woodhaven and LIC /Hunters Point libraries before, and it got us thinking – how many of you use your local library? And if you do, what do you like to use if for – books, CDs, DVDs, or something else? We’d love to know. Leave us a comment here or via twitter at @queensnycity!
Glen Oaks will get a new, swanky library in spring 2013
Image source: Marble Fairbanks – more artist renderings of the library can be found here
The NY Daily News reports on a “swanky new library” that will open this coming spring in Glen Oaks (255-01 Union Turnpike – GMAP), at its location not far from the Queens County Farm Museum. The library used to be housed in a two-story brick building from the 1950s (photo here) and was demolished in 2010; its needs had outgrown the old building.
The $17.1 million, 18,000 square foot building will have a “three-level edifice with a glassy exterior” containing the circulating library itself, as well as a “cyber center” (public computers), reading lounge, outdoor space, and community meeting spaces.