Reason #1,001 For Landmarks To Exist

This and others like it are all over..
..unfortunately....my guess Carroll Gardens.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 11:18 AM

Building looks fine too me. Eventually, I think you guys will come to realize that it the people and not the buildings that makes a neighborhood. Brooklyn is not exceptional in its natural beauty. Aside from Prospect Park, Fort Greene Park, the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, areas of Red Hook (by the river) and maybe, the future Brooklyn Bridge Park, there's nothing really noteworthy about Brooklyn's geography. But culturally, it's off the hook. It's becoming more and more of an exciting place to live daily.

I would really love to see this blog community get past their obsession with fedders and paint colors, etc. This is a vibrant, on-line community and we have the potential to make far-reaching, significant improvements to our shared, everyday lives in Brooklyn beyond the look and appeal of a building.

For instance, can we talk about all the pot-holes on Atlantic Avenue or street lighting or people who don't clean up after their dogs, etc. Those things would improve my life a lot more than simply discussing the aesthetics of a building.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 11:45 AM

lp,
If you read the mission statement, it's also about the 'neighborhood and lifestyles' that historic brownstone Brooklyn defines. All I'm saying is that the blog seems to be heavily skewed towards things that we can't change (such as the aesthetics of existing buildings). It's okay to be an 'armchair' professional if that's your goal. But if you'd like to make a change/difference, then I'd suggest that we focus on other things. The building looks fine to me. It's not the prettiest, but I've seen a whole lot worse in some of more 'pristine' neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 12:25 PM

Variety is cool. I've seen some entire brownstones painted light green, yellow, white, pink, red. It's all good, if it's done tastefully and it's consistent with the rest of the block/neighborhood. As beautiful as they are, blocks and blocks of brown buildings become monotonous and indistinct over time. I much prefer blocks like these:
http://brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2006/02/architectural_w.html

The variety of shapes and colors make the block interesting, not this huge brown monolith

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 12:37 PM

I have to disagree re: Brooklyn geography--I think the hills and heights are fabulous and offer great views while walking/biking, the flatlands--which I think are western tip of Hempstead Plain--are also great for biking, and the shoreline is fantastic and rich with wildlife. Brooklyn does have natural beauty, and man-made beauty. One think I've always liked about it is its low-rise character--it's great to see the sky.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 1:00 PM

Re: natural beauty.
Sure, but it's still not san francisco or portland oregon or vermont or a suburb with hudson river views. It's pretty urban. People immigrate to Brooklyn, not for its landscape but mostly because of its evolving culture/night life, its proximity to manhattan and its affordability.

Yes, we do have a lot of architecturally significant gems but I really get tired of the overwhelming obsession with fedders ac. It might not be top of the line in terms of aesthetics but it is functional.

I'm not suggesting that we abandon landmark standards. I just think that many 'burbs' lose their creative vitality because the community is more focused on whether the fence is painted the right shade of right rather than services, etc.

I would hate to see Brooklyn evolve into a 'sub'-urban clone. The majority of buildings in Manhattan are butt-ugly but yet it's still one of the most vibrant and exciting cities in the world....emphasis is on people, services and culture rather than the minor details of our domicile

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 1:38 PM

I really don't understand your point Anon 1.38. People who visit this site are very interested in the look of the brownstone neighborhoods, which is why it is about brownstone brooklyn and not other areas of Brooklyn. If you don't like the discussions of problems of bad renos and destruction of old brownstone details, don't read those posts. Simple as that.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 3:38 PM

Where is a sense of civic pride. Of beauty. Of adding to the neighborhood, not robbing it of its humanity. Landmarks is the imposition of civic responsibility in the name of the greater good. Without it our city would be a very different place. Landmarking is not anti-people. Compared to France and England we get away easy. There they understand history and context are assets greater than any single entity's right to make a profit. The absurd comments above, while protected by free speech, reflect a sad state of affairs. Go ahead and buy a tear-down in Greenpoint, and put up your fedder-laden eyesore with utility monitors for easy access, and then try and meet your neighbors.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 4:00 PM

Question:
Would you walk away from an amazing real estate deal simply because the building had an 'ugly' (which is culturally subjective) exterior?

I suspect that the answer is no. I don't think anyone would walk away from a new property acquisition, albiet ugly, if it promised a 100K gain onced you flipped it or if it promised an extra $2000/mth.

So...this discussion is a bit fruitless anyway. It's not as if anyone from this group is going to be inspired to make a call to their local politician or community board to enforce new landmark standards. It's just a group of people bitching about the aesthetic design of what may be a very lucrative, money making property...or just a nice home for a middle class family.

Anonymous at March 10, 2006 03:38 PM,
I'll take your advice and skip those 'aesthetics' post in the future. They seem to be increasing in popularity lately so maybe I'll skip the site altogether.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 4:41 PM

Carla,
Free market idealogues?? Idealogue, maybe. And yes, I do enjoy strolling down a beautiful block of brownstone houses, e.g., those off Ft. Greene Park. But I'm not a slave to aesthetics. That would be totally vacuous.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 4:49 PM

Slave to aesthetics? What are you going on about Anon 4.49? You don't get it do you... Go read another blog where people don't discuss design and architecture....

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 5:00 PM

I'm sorry, I don't get it...am a bit dense. Don't see why anyone would care that much about a fedders building going up. Three years ago there were parts of Brooklyn that was awash with abandoned, vacant, unimproved properties. The fact that someone is improving these infills should be a welcome change. But instead, most of you johnny-come-latelys, bitch and moan about how ugly the new building is. I'm just happy that the new house adds additional lighting to what once was a dark deserted street.
Yes, the new fedders building may be barebones; but eventually it will change hands and the new owners will put up window boxes/planters. The point is that the city will improve block by block over time. And fedders building are an improvement over what used to be there.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 5:11 PM

It would be nice if there were some happy medium between landmarked and not. Maybe a restriction requiring large proportion of the older buildings to be preserved but temporary things like window styles and paint colors would be up to the owner. New buildings would undergo a minimal quality and esthetic review. It's harsh to have to choose between the frozen landmark blocks or a free for all that yields ugliness like the house above.

Has anyone over read the children's book the Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater? Wonderful book but not for the Landmarks Commission.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 5:11 PM

Anonymous at March 10, 2006 05:00 PM,
I can guarantee that I've got more design, taste and creativity than you. Just don't have time to waste ridiculing the domicile of others.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 5:13 PM

Anon 5.13 - lmao!! I'm rubber, you're glue, bounce off me, stick on you. Haaaaaaah, haaaaah, haaaaaah! I think it is hilarious you're offended and are professing you're flare for design, your superior taste and creativity. I feel like we're on a playground... Seriously, I literally laughed out loud at your post. I can't see why you are offended. You stated you are not a slave to aesthetics (if you are the same anon) and then get offended when people tell you to go elsewhere if you don't want to discuss aesthetics and design and profess how creative and design savy you are. Weird, and funny...

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 5:23 PM

Awww yeah, it's da brownstone playa thinking ahead....lol

It's Friday people. Let's lighten up and laugh a bit. C'mon, it'll be fun...

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 5:36 PM

An ugly building uglifies the block. Why justify that? Whether for aesthetics or economic return, we all want nice looking blocks. At the end of the day, a good looking block will give you a better return than a shabby block. And a block where people dig the architecture and care about the feel will survive any downturns better than a block infected with cheesy who-built-it-and-ran crap.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 6:23 PM

Carla,
I appreciate your comments about architectural uniformity/conformity...learned all about that in appraisal classes and I enjoy the experience. I'm just slightly tired of the attention on fedders. Like I said before, they're an improvement over what used to be there.

Anonymous at March 10, 2006 05:23 PM,
I also laughed at your posting. I was no more offended than you would be if I told you to show yourself out the door. You disagree with my thoughts and so it becomes easier for you to tell me to leave the community? I enjoy design and aesthetics also, I'm just not a slave to it. In the age old battle to find a balance between form and function, the fedders building provide a function that far outweighs their form. They provide additional lighting, additional tax revenues, etc.

And the exterior facade can always be updated by future owners.

NYC is hot in the summer...should all property owners be restricted from placing an ac in their front rooms? Would you specify that in the landmark standards of etiquette. Or, do we need to enact new building codes where we force developers to install central ac in all new buildings?

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 6:55 PM

If you live in a Landmarked neighborhood and can't afford to replace your leaky energy sucking single pane windows with new and approved ones costing $600 or more a piece, does the community get together and buy the people new windows? Or do they let them freeze to death or eat cat food because they used up their money budgeted for Romain Noodles on heating oil. Here is what you do. Make the repairs to your property as you see fit or can afford. Let landmarks come after you when one of your snobby neighbors rats you out. Tell Landmarks to F themselves. See if anyone ever comes and forcible takes away your property. The trouble starts once you ask Landmarks into your home. You never have to paint aluminum siding.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 8:38 PM

Windows are expensive for everybody, but there are programs for people in landmarked buildings--not much and not always available, but look around, ask around.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 10, 2006 8:59 PM

Oh George, are you having one of your episodes?

Posted by: Anonymous at March 11, 2006 1:30 AM

Some of these posts are pretty spectacular is their small-minded provincialism. Carla's 5:30 reads like a defense of racial covenants.

The only reason I can see for a person to care so much about their neighbors' houses is because they don't care about anything more important.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 11, 2006 10:12 AM

Just FYI, I've lived on this block of Wyckoff Street for almost a decade after living in Brooklyn Hts for a few years. Yes, that building is ugly but the majority of the homes are lovely and well-cared for. For me, I'd take this block over the Heights anyday. The block, and the people who inhabit those homes are wonderful. "Sesame Street," my brother-in-law calls it.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 11, 2006 6:19 PM

I think the building is ugly, but I don't want to see the government forbidding buildings like this. Just as I hate cigarette smoke but don't want it banned; don't want my children exposed to violent media but don't want the FCC or anyone else to ban violent media; love America but don't believe people should be jailed for flag burning.

Having a preference or a belief does not automatically mean it's OK to legally enforce your preference or belief on others. That's not a complicated concept.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 12, 2006 2:51 PM

"Having a preference or a belief does not automatically mean it's OK to legally enforce your preference or belief on others."

Heh, um, isn't this in conflict with your belief about smoking, then?

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 8:30 AM

The issue here is smokers foisting their personal choices on others, everywhere they go, even despite hazards posed to themselves and others. Kinda selfish and irresponsibly destructive, no?

Social contracts exist for a reason.

It is illegal to burn tires on private property as well. Private property does not grant license to do anything under the sun. Believe it or not, the laws of the land even extend to private property.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 9:04 AM

final addendum to above:

...especially where harm to the health of other citizens with their own rights is involved.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 9:05 AM

Um, iceberg, you live as a citizen in the US, which is a nation of laws.

That fact alone means that you are already a part of the social contract, one that guarantees everything you have around you that perhaps you take for granted.

The Constitution, all federal, state and local laws are part of the social contract. I cannot believe I am having to explain this to anyone older than high-school age.

We accept some limits on individual freedoms in exchange for the greater good. Without social contract, there are no laws or government, only anarchy.

This is the precise reason why private property is enabled to exist: because other individuals accept the larger body of laws that govern that designate your property as yours, and not just theirs at their whim. They can't go around stealing, killing, etc.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 12:00 PM

Iceberg, I recommend some more schooling for you:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22social+contract

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 12:04 PM

"Without calling to question the scientific evidence that demonstrates the link between secondhand-smoke and personal injury, it still would not invalidate one's right to befoul their lungs on their private property."

Classic denial, would be hilarious if the realities of it weren't tragic as they are.

So, two points to easily nip there:

I) calling into question whether cigarette smoke causes illness (and, duh..second hand smoke is both the raw smoke that sputters from the cigarrette and fills the room as well as whatever the smoker exhales):

PUHH-LEEZ. The tobacco companies have already been shown in court to have concealed internal documents that admint as much, and it is suspiciously only those with selfish interests that claim cigarette smoke is perfectly healthy, not a harm to one's health.

II) Freedom to do whatever one wants on his/her personal private property (made his/her property in the first place by the social contract, btw, duh..can't have it both ways):

First, this was not the argument at hand, which was of bars/restaurants that are private establishments, where a key factor is a few persons violating the health interests of many other persons present (not a single individual's right to do so without the presence of others to harm)

2nd on that point, no, a person does not have unlimited freedom to do whatever they want on their private property. Many freedoms, yes. Unlimited, definitely NOT. A person cannot kill other people or build bombs or pour toxic waste or contaminants into the ground on their private property. I could go on...but again, it really sounds like you need to be less selfish and petty and go back to school to study the challenges of managing narrow self-interest versus order, stability and function among the population at large.

Even cavemen had social conventions for the good of their people, but somehow you have failed to reach even that level.

I said I had only two points, but whee,m you need all the help you can get with the stuff any citizen should already have learned long ago so here goes:

III. Your example fails because it is not merely one person in a vacuum, "befouling" their lungs. Even if no one else is present and exposed, do you have any idea how much smokers have driven up the demand on healthcare in this country, crowding the system with people either very ill or just mildly ill with emphysema etc or even just people whose systems are prematurely weak for their age due to the abuses of cigarette smoke, either smoked by them or taken in second-hand?

They should ad a $50 *additional* tax to every pack of cigarretes, just to cover the escalating costs on the healthcare system (which is passed along to us the consumers, again, DUH) on the back end.

That would only put a drop in the bucket against actual costs, but at least it would be a fairly-targeted excise on the very headwaters of the problem.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 12:31 PM

Hi. Do you claim to own anything?

Thankyaverymuch. Yer done.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 12:40 PM

Also, so why is it that you choose to live here and benefit from everything that entails in practice (relative to, say..Rwanda or heck, even Haiti or other less orderly places), but then contradict yourself and reject it all for the sake of self-righteous argument?

Live one way, talk another. Not sure what to believe from you.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 12:49 PM

Btw, I am still seeking expanation for how "rights" can exist without a common understanding for what they are (which is a major function of any social contract or body of laws).

Also, you argue for unbridled freedoms and liberties. Can you envision any circumstances where this may be destructive to more than the individual actor?

It seems a bit naive at this point in history (even as recent as seeing the individuals in the present administration given extra liberties to act in their own self-interest) to suggest that individuals will always act in a manner beneficial to the collective of others around him, or even to himself? Hobbes, Freud etc. have yet to be disproven there, if I am not mistaken. If I am mistaken there, please elaborate.

Also, you are a proponent (as I) of individual rights. So, regarding the subject of "rights" in general, please explain how individual rights are not, in fact, just limitations upon others ability to act freely toward them?

In a nation of one, individual rights = complete freedom. In a nation of two or more, where the intentions and actions of each must be balanced against those of all others, one of the above is sacrificed for the benefit of the other.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but how can one espouse both a basis of individual rights as well as complete liberty and freedom to do whatever one chooses, as the two will inherently collide. Now, even if you figure out a good fit for balancing individual rights against individual freedoms, how will you communicate the exact nature of how that balance works (if not by laws), how will any of it work without someone as arbiter and enforcer (if not government) and who will you select to keep an eye on things and maintain stability while you are out building a life that rests on expectation of those principles and that stability (if not other citizens, who being human, do run the risk of abusing that power and privilege of management toward their own self interest at the expense of others?

Good people come and go, no one remembers them, it is only the bad people that remain in our minds, or so one would think if one cast the entire history of governments and our government to be remembered merely for the abusers, even if they are the ones currently in office and eminent domain is the hot button issue for a few neighborhoods in this country.

So, is it sensible to throw it all away like that instead of realizing that no system proposed in theory behaves as planned when human self-interest is involved, and that perhaps this is the closest we can come, doing well in some cycles, abysmally in others, to make this whole thing work for everyone?

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 1:21 PM

Just read your latest posts.

I would like to believe that individuals could manage this themselves, but I feel that history has borne out otherwise and also that such exchanges on an individual level probably just wouldn't scale to beyond local/rural practice, and certainly not to the current orders of magnitude and complexity beyond that given population sizes, technologies like cars, rails/container-shipping, boats, planes, internet etc that transport the masses of far-flung lands to being next-door impacted neighbors. Contrasts of demand, scarcity, haves, have-nots, dreams of more, competition, defensive tactics, offensive tactics and all the material things flowing between are a lot more complex when you increase the labor factor of production and decrease the land/space factor of production. I just don't see it possible to go back to a more simple model that seems to presume and rely upon more space, smaller scale and even distribution of resources.

I am not a pro-government type per se. I am for some, limited government, just enough to maintain rules set to balance individual citizens' interests, and also enough to be able to put business and industry in its place when it rears up with unfair advantage against the citizens that allow it to exist.

I personally do not think that any social order above a certain size is possible without some government, as size and scale bring other challenges.

On the flip side of that, I am horrified at the size of current government's crony-bloat, which is just affirmation for me that the larger it gets, the more it conversely falls prey to large interests, and actually comes more to resemble industry and big business than anything else. This has current bearing with respect to the energy industry, pharmaceutical industry, credit/finance industry and others that have effectively bought government wholesale at the expense of the people (in so many ways...).

And, to be germane to this blog, that does apply to the eminent domain issue and local dwellings...large business interests have exerted considerable influence and been allowed to cut corners and bend the definition of various laws to get what they could not otherwise.

Even if some proposal for Atlantic Yards was one that everyone actually wanted, the area in question was not all blighted as described (but perhaps some parts of it came close to that several years back when this came up), and to make an end-run around everyone's rights because a few areas may have been left abandoned and with high crime and drugs sets a dangerous precedent.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 1:57 PM

The problem I have with anarchocapitalism is that it does not seem to me to be a stable system but one of constant cataclysm, churn and struggle, entrusting greater power to those that emerge at the helm of the largest of businesses at the expense of the individual. This sounds like Ratner's end-runs writ large, happening everywhere in different local markets, and now with an army to back him up.

Call me nuts, but if one steps back from the books for a moment and pictures a real life, realistic evolution of that that fairly accounts for humanity's historic propensity to do both good and bad for community and self....if you really picture what that would look like...to me it might look more like what was observed under mafia-controlled community+industry.

Regional struggles pitting one regional boss/family (leading company) against another in endless turf wars just as market competition, armed with military force, would dictate.

Citizens in one company's turf pressured to kick in extra to the company, and to maintain total allegiance to them or else their safety and business prospects would be threatened. Takeovers, mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies and/or perhaps just market share erosion would suddenly have far more volatile, physical implications.

Business, originally assuming captialism, now limited to the one local supplier pushed by the main potentate, who charges higher prices and is not held to deliver high quality goods (won't the benefits of competition actually suffer here?)

I have a hard time seeing that as a stable, sustainable system given what we know about the reality of the business world and the fallible, often irrational humans that direct and work in them.

The current business marketplace has glaring examples of why government has a role in oversight (hard to miss in recent years, with new reasons almost weekly to keep Elliot Spitzer very busy), and why individuals and their companies alike prove again and again that reality is a vast departure from theory.

Subjecting all these other levels of the system fully to local market forces seems both cataclysmic and unthinkable.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 2:33 PM

By the way, Rousseau and Locke were precisely what I was pointing to in asserting the reasoning behind the social contract here, as both had a considerable amount to say on the matter.

As for the smoking topic, I think we both cross paths there at JS Mill's harm principle, just (as you mention) have different beliefs about what might be done about it although I, too wish that gov't could just declare it illegal with cause (not without). On the bright side, gov't induced intervention has brought about potent education and media campaigns in recent years since mid-1990s tobacco trials, and new numbers in this week actually suggest that NYC teen smoking adoption fell by 50% year-to-year perhaps aided by those efforts.

For every bad example of a person, we can also point to Spitzer's work, campaigns like this, and funding grants for public broadcasting where Adam Smith's hand is mostly unseen because it's mostly not there, at least not offered without huge editiorial sellouts to degrade the quality of what we'd get as a result.

Back to the topic of this thread, landmarks, given all we have discussed above. In your opinion, should a government be able to regulate, limit and oversee building and development in a neighborhood? (bearing in mind the implication that local residents pushed to attain landmarks priotection in the first place, and then the government just becomes the legal agent of that)

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 3:02 PM

(referring to anarchocapitalism again)

See, that's the problem with theory.

Looks good on paper.

No way to get there from here.

Still does not account for what we know of humans as both rational and irrational beings.

There will always be Caesars with ambition (meant in the sense it was originally offered).

Other countries have tried to implement a ground-up overhaul toward other theoretical ideals.

Migration is not realistic, and the system that is finally implemented is a poor shadow of what it was meant to be, ripe for domination and abuse by charismatics, and full of a lotta pain for everyone else until the next violent overthrow.

Theory does not have a direct map to reality. It must first travel across the peaks and abysses of Man.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 13, 2006 3:15 PM