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The Kentile sign is coming down, the owner of the building confirmed via statement to The New York Times, because the roof under it and the sign need costly repairs. Councilman Brad Lander met with the owner and helped broker a deal to save it. There have been protests against its removal and the building’s owner is sorry to see it go, said the story.

“We love the sign, and we heard the voices of so many community members. We will work hard to preserve the letters during removal,” said the owner in a statement to the Times. But it needs costly repairs, said the Times:

On Tuesday, Mr. Lander said, he met with Mr. Cohen, who explained that the sign’s steel structure was rusting and crumbling and needed to be scraped and repainted. The building beneath the sign was itself damaged by Hurricane Sandy, and needed work, Mr. Lander said Mr. Cohen told him. Mr. Lander said Mr. Cohen told him that doing all the work needed to preserve the sign would be too costly to be worthwhile.

The Gowanus Alliance is working to save the sign and find a new home for it. However, there is danger the letters could be damaged as they are moved. Lander said he hopes to arrange for their descent via pulley rather than cramming them down a small chute, as the demo permit specifies.

Kentile Sign Will Be Dismantled, With New Home in Mind [NY Times]
Photo by Joseph


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. are you kidding me?

    hospitals ARE infrastructure for growing communities. park slope/brownstone brooklyn aren’t some living museum – they’re neighborhoods in a growing city. get real.

    ps – i don’t care when those houses were built – they’re shitty looking – no great loss.

  2. Before Methodist is allowed to raze 16 buildings and put up a tower in the middle of Park Slope, shouldn’t there be a study on how this really will impact all Brooklyn hospitals. There’s a good likelihood that Methodist’s success has been at the cost of other neighborhoods’ hospitals, and its expansion will leave those other hospitals in worse financial condition than they’re already in. Interfaith Hospital is a good example. The lion’s share of Methodist’s patient growth over the last decade comes from people who live closer to Interfaith than Methodist. Meanwhile, only 2% of Interfaith’s patients have private insurance, which is a big reason it went bankrupt. At Methodist, on the other hand, nearly 1/3 of patients are privately insured — one of the highest rates in the City. Is Methodist taking paying patients from other hospitals? Will its expansion only exacerbate that situation to the detriment of many of the already-financially shaky hospitals in Brooklyn? Do we want Methodist and Maimonides to be the only hospitals left in Brooklyn in 10 years? When DeBlasio was Public Advocate, he proposed creating a Brooklyn Hospital Authority to oversee all this and bring some equity and rationality to Brooklyn’s hospitals. I’d like to see that happen before Methodist tears down irreplaceable 19th Century buildings.

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