Bedford Building Boom

Looks like the firm responsible for the stalled project at 357 15th Street in the South Slope has also been hard at work on some big ole buildings on Bedford Avenue, in the northern hemisphere of Bed-Stuy. Sandor Weiss has also designed this six-story, 12-unit building (there are two matching buildings next door, to the north). The big news about the building, in a heavily Jewish area, is that a swastika was spray painted on it in September. GMAP

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Comments

hi lisa! i was worried no one would be here today. is anyone here today? am i the only fool stuck at work?

*rob*

Posted by: PitbullNYC at December 24, 2008 11:22 AM

Is that really a new building? It looks like the late pre-war/early post-war ones in Forest Hills, where I grew up. Considering the crap that's often being built today, that's [possibly]not too bad.

The swastika painting sucks. To quote the title of a song my son liked in his punk rock/red skin head days: "F**c Nazi Sympathy"!

Posted by: Bob Marvin at December 24, 2008 11:38 AM

whoa. newports are on sale at that gas station for 7.40! they are like 9 bux in manhattan and most parts of brooklyn!

*rob*

Posted by: PitbullNYC at December 29, 2008 11:35 AM

Didn't you post this item last week? Of have Brownstoner deja vu?

Posted by: WBer at December 29, 2008 11:45 AM

Sorry - meant to ask if I'd developed Brownstoner deja vu...

Posted by: WBer at December 29, 2008 11:46 AM

Wow Bob we are surprised you think this is "not too bad". We know you have excellent taste not with all that great stuff in PLG Leffert Manor. Maybe its the picture but this thing looks cheap and plain ugly. Its really a cheaper version of a government project. That facade is really depressing and soul numbing...look @ those balconies. Mies and Gropius are rolling over in their graves....modern craphitecture? Haha have a nice day:)

Posted by: pierre de taille at December 29, 2008 12:58 PM

i believe that this building may be marketed toward the williamsburg hassids as this borders williamsburg. they need balconies for that one holiday which i can't remember the name of. also, as a general rule, they eschew aesthetics, so the practicality of the place trumps the looks.

there are a few of these in the hassidic area which is in sharp contrast to the otherwise pre-war town house lined streets that they inhabit in south williamsburg.

Posted by: wine lover at December 29, 2008 2:10 PM

Pierre,

By "not too bad" I merely meant a bit better than some of the worst crap I've seen in the South Slope or ( my favorite bad building) the absolute pile of s**t at Rogers and Albermarle. In contrast, this building can almost, but not quite, rise to the level of mediocrity. IMO it's a better than average piece of "craphitecture."

Posted by: Bob Marvin at December 29, 2008 2:37 PM

Brownstoner:

Bob Marvin's right!

As soon as I saw the photo I thought of a ridge of similar apartment buildings in Forest Hills where friends lived during the 1950's - 1960's.

These were in combinations of Georgian Revival and Art Deco style with curvilinear balconies and set backs similar to some apartments along St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights, where I grew up during the period.

I think the Forest Hill numbers were built during the 1930's and for (white) families leaving central Brooklyn were pretty much the last stop before the suburbs.

I recall them as pretty comfortable apartments with archways between rooms, pastel-colored bathrooms (sometimes two in an apartment -- a real "luxury" in those days) and casement windows that were fun for us kids to open and close. (The "bay" windows in the pic recall the Moderne corner glazing of Forest Hills buildings, very stylish at the time.) The Queens apartments also had elevators which, during a period of simple pleasures, were a lot of fun to ride up and down.

I haven't been to Forest Hills since then but I imagine that, like the ones along Eastern Parkway, the old buildings are still pretty good places to live and have been turned into co-ops. (So influential on me were the nice, middle-class apartments of my childhood that I've never pined for a brownstone or a loft but am quite happy in a pre-war apartment with all its creaking floors and rasping mechanicals.)

The new buildings in Brooklyn probably have bigger apartments (if built for Hasidic families) although not to the same construction standards as the ones in Forest Hills (where there were heavy plaster walls, wood-lined elevator cabs, and marble and terrazzo in the lobbies).

But yes, Marvin, I had exactly the same flash. And the pleasant association of visiting pals along the "F" train many years ago. (Remember the old I-N-D with operable windows and wicker seats? My family would subway it to Forest Hills but then be driven home by our hosts in their huge cars -- big enough for two families with kids! Even then Queens was the most car-oriented of the boroughs.)

Nostalgic on Park Avenue.

Posted by: NOP at December 29, 2008 4:13 PM

Bob your point is well taken; we agree in a sea of F grade buildings these probably will be the D students. Thanks for the story NOP and good evening to you all.

Posted by: pierre de taille at December 29, 2008 6:14 PM

NOP,

Just the sort of building I lived in from birth, until I moved to Brooklyn in 1970. My family's building was built in 1938 and most were that age, although a few were built right after WW II. Our bathroom had black, rather than pastel fixtures, but you described the style well. The Bedford Ave. building resembles these superficially, but I doubt it's as solidly built

Of course I also remember the old IND cars you describe, but it was INDependent--not I.N.D--an abreviation, rather that a set of initials like the B.M.T. (Brooklyn Manhattan Transit) or I.R.T. (Interboro Rapid Transit). I'm not quite old enough to remember a 5 cent fare, but I do remember my mother using dimes before the first (15¢) tokens were introduced.

Posted by: Bob Marvin at December 29, 2008 7:36 PM

it might be solid, just not too fancy. not marketed toward the typical condo buyer.

Posted by: wine lover at December 29, 2008 7:59 PM

Bob Marvin:

You fancy boys in Forest Hills may have called it the "Independent." But us street kids in Brooklyn called it the I-N-D.

NOP

Posted by: NOP at December 29, 2008 10:19 PM