The Finger Building's Date in Supreme Court

Because it's almost entirely Orthodox developers who are in the process of destroying and uglifying Williamsburg and the surrounding areas with huge, characterless, and increasingly dangerous buildings. Not only in their own neighborhood (which should be cause enough for concern -- see the synagogue story above), but also with tasteless "luxury" buildings in neaby areas. These same construction projects are also killing and injuring workers, who are mostly grossly underpaid undocumented aliens now, at an alarming rate and openly defying the building codes and laws (see the Daily News story above). This is not to taint all Orthodox or Hasidic or Satmars with the same brush, and I do very much understand the historical problems of even bringing the subject up, but the pattern has become so glaringly obvious that I think that not mentioning it makes one less than honest about what's really going on.

Posted by: Anonymous at November 7, 2006 10:40 AM

Well, I knew that was coming. Rather than deal with the difficult questions of what is going on in Williamsburg and surrounding areas of Brooklyn we get the invoking of Nazism, which serves to cut off or marginalize the debate. I seriously doubt there are many nazis on this site, or even people who are truly anti-Jewish, there are, however, people with valid concerns about what developers are doing to the neighborhood. And in this particular area the worst offenders tearing down sound older buildings and replacing them with the ugliest cheapest-looking buildings happen to be primarily Orthodox. A quick drive or walk around Williamsburg south of the bridge should be enough to raise anyone's architectural and building safety concerns. I, for one, certainly don't want the rest of the neighborhood to look like that or to be subjected to that sort of flouting of zoning laws, building codes, and safety standards.

Posted by: Anonymous at November 7, 2006 1:14 PM

When was the last time you were there? Those older brownstones and the surrounding low rise industry are very quickly being replaced these days by much higher density apartment buildings, and these buildings and building practices are spreading quite quickly southwards to Flushing Ave. and beyond. If it was just old brownstones and public housing I wouldn't have brought it up.

Posted by: Anonymous at November 7, 2006 2:53 PM

When was the last time you were there? Those older brownstones and the low rise industry that once made up that neighborhood are very quickly being replaced these days by much higher density apartment buildings. And these buildings and the highly questionable building practices involved in their constructionbuilding are spreading quite quickly southwards to Flushing Ave. and beyond. If it was just old brownstones and public housing I wouldn't have brought it up.

Posted by: Anonymous at November 7, 2006 2:56 PM

Sorry for the inadvertent double post. Damn the lack of a delete/edit function!

Posted by: Anonymous at November 7, 2006 2:58 PM

I'm sorry if I offend anyone but IMHO Williamsburg is by far the ugliest nabe in all of Brooklyn. It absolutely disgusts me. It has no redeeming qualities to speak of. I find it dreary and depressing. The streets are dark and cold. Half of the neighborhood is an industrial heap and the other half looks like a Warsaw ghetto. The best thing about Williamsburg is the waterfront and the Nimby fools are trying to keep it underdeveloped for God knows what reason! I'm not being anti-Semitic. I'm just pointing out an obvious fact - Orthodox developers are turning Williamsburg into an eastern European ghetto and should their recklessness and tastelessness go unchecked then the nabe will permanently remain the armpit of Brooklyn. Ever wonder why Landmarks is about to make "Crown Heights North" New York's largest historic district? Look no further than CH's large Hasidic population and what's become of Williamsburg.

Posted by: Anonymous at November 7, 2006 9:35 PM

What in the world are you talking about? Again, I ask you, when was the last time you were in Hasidic Williamsburg south of the bridge? That neighborhood has seen an enormous building boom over the last several years, as increasingly has the rest of Williamsburg and surrounding areas. What percentage of this new building do you think has been undertaken by Hasidic Orthodox developers? I'm certain that the number is a whole lot higher than 5%. In south Williamsburg I would bet that it's close to 100%.

What's happening in Willaimsburg and surrounding areas begs some serious questions. Like why are most of these buldings so ugly and being built with such cheap materials and non-union illegal immigrant labor? Why are so few safeguards being taken for worker safety and the structural integrity of the surrounding occupied buildings? How and why are so many of these buildings still going up in Williamsburg and Greenpoint north of the bridge despite significant local opposition? Why were several of these projects granted easy exemptions and waivers from zoning laws, and why is construction continuing on some of them without apparent penalty despite stop work orders from the Buildings Dept.?

The major objection is not to the ethnicity or religion of the builders, but to the awful buildings that they build and their horrible, dangerous, and unlawful practices in doing so. I don't like talking or thinking about it in these terms, and neither do most people in the neighborhood, but as someone stated above it's an unavoidable fact that most of these projects are being developed by folks who have something in common. Part of the answers to the questions I asked above could possibly be found in that fact. However, the argument in the end is with the developers themselves, and not the Hasidic community as a whole, and certainly not with Jews or Judaism. But the current trends in development in the area is why it's notable, as in the story under discussion, that the buildings in question were thought have been purchased by Orthodox developers. To say that these developers have "done nothing" to anyone is laughble and I suggest that you ask the familes of injured and dead workers or the people forced out of their homes without compensation because their foundations were undercut and broken just how they feel about it.

Posted by: Anonymous at November 8, 2006 2:15 PM