Admirals Row House Collapses from Water Damage

OK I think all of you posters who've been claiming that Navy Yard folks don't know what they're talking about when they say that these buildings are too far gone to be worth restoring should step up to the plate and admit you were wrong. Come on Bxgirl, Montrose Morris, SHahn Anderson, even you John Butler. Let's hear from you. For your convenience, I've posted some text that you can just copy and paste into your comment:

"I was wrong. I had never been inside these buildings and have no technical expertise about structural integrity. Still, I was conceited enough to think that I knew better than people who had first hand knowledge of the actual conditions and what it would take to restore them. I called them lazy, unimaginative and greedy, when in fact, they were just being cautious and looking out for the public good. We are all lucky that this collapse did not spill out to the street and harm innocent bystanders."

Your welcome.

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 10:20 AM

Still up on my high horse Jon. You've been up on yours on this issue for a couple of years now, So I don't think it's fair for you to ask me to come down after only a couple of minutes. I'll make you a deal, though. When you get down, I'll get down.

I think you're having some trouble with your cut and paste function because I didn't see an apology anywhere in your post.

Your comment about it being about cost is true for this house too. Andrew Kimball is 100% right. If they had wanted to, the Navy Yard could have spent millions of dollars rebuild Quarters C before it collapsed on itself. Hell, if they wanted to spend even more money, they could even still rebuild it now that it's collapsed. But even you would admit that that would be a waste of money now. The problem is that you think that the others are in such better condition. Yes this one had a fire a few years back. But i'll tell you, I've been in all the buildings since after the fire, and they were all in such bad shape that you couldn't tell which one had the fire.

The reason the fire contributed to the collapse of this building was not because of the fire itself, but from the water damage from soaking the building to put out the fire. The thing is, none of these buildings is watertight. They all have significant holes in their roofs and get soaked evertime it rains and snows. The additional soaking from putting out the fire may have made it the first to go, but the others are not too far behind.

What will it take for you to admit that these buildings are so far gone that it's just not worth it?

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 10:46 AM

All of you people who are saying that the facade was falling off after the fire are not being very accurate. The buildings are brick buildings whith a thin layer of plaster over the front. The fire (or the water, really) caused the plaster to come off. WHile this certainly looks striking, the plaster has no actual structural value. The reason this building fell (and the reason the others will soon) is becuase of the giant gaping holes in the roof that let in rain and snow. The cycle of freezing and defrosting has systematically rotted away the wood joists and other structural elements over the years. This building is not the only one with holes in the roof. The timber shed has a hole so big that a tree is actuallty growing through it.

I don't want to sound like a cheerleader for historic buildings falling down. I actually love historic buildings and understand the romantic impulses that these buildings have stirred up in alot of people.

But what has always bothered me about this issue is that people who have no idea about what's actually going inside these buildings have made comments about how sure they are that the buildings can be saved and that the Navy Yard was overstating their state of decay. It always had a ring of "truthines" to it. I want it to be true, therefore it's true.

So what I am cheerleading for today is the emergence of the actual truth. These buildings are in a very serious state of decay. Rebuilding them will be very expensive and, in the end, you will just be building replicas that look like these buildngs but are 95% new structures. No one has proposed a viable use for the rebuilt buildings anyway, and no one has identified a source to subsidize the tremendous cost. We live in a world of limited resources for important things like preservation and therefore we all have to perform a sort of triage. These are not the buildings to spend money on. There are more worthwhile historic buildings in Brooklyn. Hell, there are more worthwhile historic buildings in the Navy Yard.

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 11:06 AM

Streber - this is not the only building to have many of its windows gone. You are juding only by what you cans see of one facade from 100 feet away. If you were able to go inside or see the other facades you'd see that the other buildings are not much better off.

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 11:12 AM

Seriously Streber - that stupid conspiracy theory innuendo just makes you look like an ass. WHat do you mean to imply? Why don't you just say it outright. You are accusing me of having some sort of financial stake in this.

I don't.

My motivation is that I think that, as hearbreaking as it may be, everyone has to grow up and admit that they dropped the ball on this one and it's too late. The feds let this thing get too far gone and then they Navy Yard gets blamed for being the only ones with the balls to actually admit it and call it like they see it. My motivation is that it bothers me to see and hear people who don't know what they're talking about chastise those who do. My motivation is that I don't want to see public money go towards some disneyworld version of preservation when it could actually go towards much more worthy projects. Take that $50 million and spend it on the hospital or the surgeon's house - buildings that are actually savable and could wind up becoming a beautiful back lot for steiner studios and contribute to both the culture and economy of Brooklyn.

Isn't that enough motivation for you?

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 11:29 AM

Also - I have walked by these buildings several times a week for the past 10 years. I have been to Flushing ave. WHatver so it's 45 feet away, I was makeing a point.

Yes this building has deteriorated but so have they all. There are plenty of phots of the exteriors of the other buildings showing how their windows have fallen out over the past several years too. For many years there was a pack of wild dogs that lived on the site - I am sure that that didn't help things and that they didn't exclusively cause damage to Quarters C. Photos of specific elements of the interiors may look nice, but that tells you nothing of the buildings actual condition. Are you seriously comparing your understanding of the building having looked at some photos of Flickr to my understanding - having actually been inside all of these buildings?

Even after today's collapse? Have you not learned the lesson? The people who say these buildings are falling down in front of our eyes are right. They've been inside and seen the actuall buildings. They are not making judgements based on flickr.

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 11:35 AM

I do not work for the navy yard corporation. I've explictly said that beofre and I'll repeat. Also, as I've said before, I do know some of those folks and have talked to them about the site extensively. I've also been lucky enough to go inside the buildings.

Your comment about Fairway is stupid, espcially since this notion of putting a supermarket on this site goes back to the mid 90's, well before fairway developed. The poor people in this neighborhood are actually in favor of this supermarket. Any money the navy yard makes does not go and make anyone rich - they are a non profit entity whose mission is to manage the navy yard. Anymoney they make would get poured into rebuilding the infrastructure in the yard and replacing roofs and windows in other buildings that still have some economic life in them. Please tell me why that is a bad thing.

I actually stood on flushing avenue that cold january day and watched the NYFD put out the fire in that building. DId you? I doubt it. So once again you are relying on your second or third hand knowledge instead of my firsthand knowledge.Calling it a major fire is disingenuous. It was only on the top floor of the building and was out in a couple of hours. No doubt the fire accelerated the detrioration somewhat, but not significantly. I'm telling you that walking around quarters c and any of the others around a year ago, you'd be hard pressed to tell which had the fire (except for the peeling plaster).

You can repeat that canard about how much worse this building was than the others as many times as you want, but again - it's truthiness. Repeating in every post doesn't make it true. This building collapse is an excellent indicator of the general state of almost all of these buildings.

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 12:09 PM

Sam - you're probably right. There's a big hole in the roof with a tree growing through it. Also one of the walls that you can't see from the street is seriously buckling. Many of the bricks have delaminated (fallen off) and are sitting in a big pile between the building and Quarters K. But for some weird reason, this is one of the buildings that the Feds identified to be saved. I understand that this building was originally a timber shed, but was used in the 70's by the kids who lived with their families in these houses as their own personal ice skating rink. Very cool.

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 12:21 PM

Streber - like I said - I don't work for the navy yard. Once again, repeating the lie that i work for the navy yard doesn't make it true. Also as you might recall, thei fire happened at night around 7PM i believe. Not really during working hours, so that whole premise that one would only see the fire if they were working at the navy yard is false. How many times do i have to catch you in basic falsehoods before you realize that you are making yourself look like an idiot.

Also, I don't know what you're talking about regarding me not using my knowledge of the fire when i talk about the collapse. Go back an re-read this thread. I've continually said that although this building had a fire, and the water damage from that fire probably moved things along, it does not mean that the difference in building conditions is signficant, since all of the other buildings have also been subject to being soaked by the elements for the past several decades. You need to work on your reading comprehension kid.

Also the suggestion to leave the building alone is idiotic. What purpose would it serve? So that you can have a romantic moment as you walk by them everyday> What happens when the next one that collpases causes one of those very large trees in the front yards to tip over and fall into flushing and kills someone? Or when the next building catches fire and it's not so easily controlled and spreads to other navy yard buildings and causes millions of dollars of property damage? Only an idiot would value their own aesthetic enjoyment over other people's safety. Also - if these buildings are left to rot then this valuable land is not put into use creating jobs and serving the neighboring community. It's nice that you have a job and have services near where you live - why would you deny that to the people who live near this building?

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 1:06 PM

Fair enough bxgirl. We've gone at it enough times and there's no need to rehash that again. But i take issue with you saying that I don't listen to to the other side. I listen very closely and often give point by point refutations. It's you who repeats the same arguments over and over without incoporating the points that i make.

For example, on the supermarket. As i've said before, this was never a discussion of "where could we put a supermarket", It was always a discussion of "what can we do with this site?" And once you realize that rehabbing the buildings doesn't work and that they need to be demolished then you start looking at what you can do on this site that best serves the community and the navy yard, and in this case a supermarket is a good answer to that question. Are there other places to put a supermarket? yes. But for some reason, that hasn't happened.

Finally, as you've often said the world is full of impossible things. I fully admit that. There are things out there that some have claimed are impossible that were somehow made to be. But that doesn't change the fact that many of the things that people said were impossible NEVER came to be because the naysayers were right. All I'm saying is that just because sometimes people who claim something is impossible are wrong doesn't change the fact that often times those people are exactly right. So in the end, "the world is full of impossible things" adds nothing to the discussion. Because the crux of the issue is "Is this one of the cases where the naysayers are right or where the dreamers are right?". Well let's take a look. The naysayers said these buildings were too far gone - about to fall down. The dreamers said "nonsense these buildings are in much bette shape than you are making them out to be". Now one of the buildings collapsed under it's own weight. To me that starts tipping the scales to make me thing "hmmmm maybe the naysayers are right about this particular instance".

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 2:14 PM

Streber - I agree with your last comment. The fact that the National Guard and Army corps have left them to rot for the past 30 years is idiotic and borderline criminal. I don't think anyone on this blog has ever argued anything to the contrary - so i'm not sure what your point is.

It is unfair to blame the Navy Yard though, because as has been pointed out many different times by several posters (really you got work on that reading comprehension) the Navy Yard doesn't own Admirals Row.

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 2:27 PM

I don't think you characterize my viewpoint correctly on severl fronts. I actually came to this project from the position of "How could we save these buildings and turn them into something cool?" I really did. But after spending some time trying to figure that out, I realized that it wasn't possible for all the reasons I've mentioned before. So then I moved on to "OK, the buildings aren't saveable, what's the best thing to do for the site?". The problem for us (you and me) is that you don't accept that the buildings aren't saveable, whease I have. And since i think that saving the buildings is a moot point I'm more focused on what happens next. I've tried with all my might to help you see why I am so thoroughly convinced that they are not saveable, but none of it is convincing to you. Either because I am not explaining myself clearly, you're not open to hearing what i have to say, or some combination.

Also I never deneigrated you for having ideas. When we first started getting into this I listened to your ideas and patiently tried to point out to you why those ideas were not realistic. Rather then describe how you could turn those ideas into reality you decided to tell me that i had no imagination. I also have worked in non-profit and have several times accomplished things that others told me were impossible. I think it's great to have ideas, but the next step is to figure out how to make those idea a reality, which is what I was challenging you to do, and what you've never actually done.

I'm not sure exactly what point you were trying to make above about the supermarket and what relevence to this discussion the demolition of the supermarket on Myrtle street has. But, like I've said the reason the i believe the buildings need to be demolished is not to build a supermarket, it's because they are too far gone. The supermarket is just what comes next. Kind of like the Brooklyn Flea under the brooklyn bridge. The flea was not why they demolshed the purchase building, it was just what comes next.

And finally (because I need to go home) i don't think it's right to say that the buildings were left to rot intentionally. If you've ever had any interaction with the National Guard or the Army Coprs, you will not find it hard to believe that there was not evil intent or forthought that went into this. It was just complete incompetence on their part.

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 3:10 PM

But bxgirl - in none of your arguments have you ever taken financial feasiblity into account. You just dismiss with an "i'm sure it can be figured out" kind of attitude.

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 3:13 PM

I think the problem you're having with that quote is that you are assuming that I meant that, in general, preservationists don't concern themselves with financial feasibility. That's not what I meant. I know many preservationists personally who deal with those issues all the time. That quote was about this specific debate. If you look back and see all that has been written about this debate, whether in the postings or the comments, the preservationists are talking about the layout, and the knock-it-down folks are talking about financial feasiblity. The two sides are talking past each other. It wasn't a general assumption, it was an observation of the history of this one argument.

Have a nice weekend to all.

Posted by: Make My Heights the P Heights at June 19, 2009 4:53 PM