Historical
May 13, 2008
Irony Alert: City Honors Longshoreman at Cruise Terminal
Remember when the city Economic Development Corporation was trying to evict American Stevedoring and its hundreds of longshoremen employees from the Red Hook Piers? Neither do we. Well, now that everything is cool at the piers and the longshoremen won a 10-year lease, it makes total sense that the city hold a ceremony there this Tuesday "to pay tribute to the workers who made the waterfront great and to those who are working today to revitalize the great Port of New York," said a city press release. They city, elected officials and "supporters of the working waterfront" are celebrating the rededication of The Working Brooklyn Waterfront, a mural made in 1963 by noted artist Bernard Seaman. The mural was first installed in the Brooklyn Longshoremen's Medical Center in Cobble Hill. It was reinstalled at the cruise terminal when that building was scheduled for demolition "due largely to the efforts of the members of the ILA Local 1814 and funded by NY Container Terminal." Although never addressed by name, we're going to guess "NY Container Terminal" is American Stevedoring, the EDC's old nemesis. Glad to see everyone's put that whole mess behind them.
Lease Ends Uncertainty for Red Hook Cargo Docks [NY Times]
City Releases Vision for Container Port [NY Post]
EDC Plan for Container Port [Brownstoner]
Photo by Seth Holladay.
May 5, 2008
Broker Dreams Of Outlet Shopping At Revere Site
Good brokers don't just sell property, they sell a vision, especially when dealing with raw land or an area on the cusp of change. Red Hook might have missed this past gentrification wave but the sleepy neighborhood of 11,000 will no doubt be flooded with shoppers once IKEA opens June 18. Change is inevitable, considering IKEA openings in far less dense cities have caused deadly stampedes, rendered stoplights useless and clogged expressways so badly desperate shoppers simply parked and hopped the fence (things calmed down after awhile). Some people try to push back the tides of change, others surf on them. Massey Knakal director of sales Landon McGaw told us he thinks the neighborhood is ripe for an outlet mall and said Thor Equities' Revere Sugar Refinery site would be the perfect location. The refinery has been demolished, leaving a huge waterfront lot between Fairway Market and IKEA that allows 1.3 million square feet of development, according to Property Shark. "There's no outlet shopping in all of New York City," said McGaw, adding that he has a direct line to one of the nation's most prolific outlet shopping mall owners and knows developers here who have been mulling the idea. "Vorando, Related [Companies], they all have their eye on Red Hook." Just think, one day you could outfit your entire life for rock-bottom prices by visiting Red Hook's waterfront: Nab your pre-fab dining room set and bold curtins at IKEA; last season's J Crew khakis at Revere Outlet Mall; and gourmet fare at Fairway. See how Thor Equities responded after the jump...
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May 2, 2008
PLG 8-Story Apartment Could Get A Sibling
Construction is moving along on the planned eight-story, 20 unit apartment building at 185 Ocean Avenue in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens that last year sparked an ill-fated landmarking movement. And the $2.1 million listing for neighboring 189 Ocean Avenue as a "development site" has been removed from the Sotheby's Realty website. We called the broker, who declined to disclose information about the sale. We imagine those involved want to avoid the controversy that arose over the early 1900s brick row house demolished next door, however tame it was compared to our friends across the park. The new apartment would be the first new construction on Ocean Avenue alongside Prospect Park since the 1930s besides a church built in 1951. We asked neighbors how they felt about it, and the general response was indifferent disapproval, "as long as it raises the value of my property."
Lefferts Gardens Gets a Few New Arrivals [Brooklyn Eagle]
PLG House Razed, 8-Story Building Planned [Brownstoner]
April 22, 2008
110 Amity: Mews Out, Bigger Townhouses (Probably) In
We did a double take when we saw 110 Amity Street, under its Henry Street address, listed at an undisclosed price on Massey Knakal's website. The Landmarks Preservation Commission earlier this year rebuffed Lucky Boy Development and Time Equities' proposal for the property, which most controversially created a gated walkway fronting a row of townhouses behind the Lamm Institute, formerly a nurses' quarters. Locals, politicians and preservation groups lined up at the hearing to oppose the plan, saying it was too different from the surrounding Cobble Hill historic district. “The local community is vehemently opposed to this development that changes the block structure around to create a gated community, shoe-horned into the block only to maximize profit," said an email from a resident opposed to the project.
Lucky Boy principal Jonathan Wachtel said the Massey Knakal listing is old, from when the property was first purchased last year for $6.125 million. "Technically it may still be for sale. We're not in negotiations with anybody, and at this point our intention is to build the project ourselves...But of course, at the right price anything is for sale." He said they'll return to Landmarks within the next few months with some major adjustments. The eight condos inside the early 1900s building will likely remain in the plan, as well as the expanded rooftop bulkhead to accomodate penthouses. But the mews will mostly likely be replaced by much larger, street-facing townhouses with backyards and gardens. "I still think it was a very interesting, very good design, but the community spoke and landmarks listened, so we've moved on. Most likely, it would be a more traditional townhouse configuration." Because the townhouses would be bigger than the mews houses, they would cost more. A new firm, BKSK Architects, would design the townhouses, said Wachtel. RKT&B would still do the Lamm conversion from medical offices to residential.
110 Amity Proposal Takes a Drubbing at LPC Hearing [Brownstoner]
Opposition to 110 Amity Plans Grows [Brownstoner]
Yowza! The Lamm Institute's For Sale [Brownstoner]
April 21, 2008
W'Burg Warehouse On Market Again, for Lofts or Hotel?
That giant, early 1900s warehouse at 65 Hope Street, on the corner of Havemeyer, is on the market again—this time listed with Massey Knakal for $33 million with approved plans "to be converted into 92 residential condominiums and eleven parking spaces." In 2006, it sold for $26 million, and in 2005 it sold for $14 million. According to the listing, "The approved plans include amenities such as a gym, children's play room, theatre room, and personal storage spaces. The commercial zoning designation also allows and opportunity for a hotel conversion." At this rate, someone could buy it and put it back on the market again next year for $45 million!
Hope Street Bohemoth Sells for $26 Million [Brownstoner]
53-65 Hope Street Sells for $14 Million [Real Estate Weekly]
April 16, 2008
Guard Starts Talks 'To Come Up With Alternatives' For Row
The Army National Guard held its first consulting meeting yesterday on the transfer of the Admiral's Row houses to the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation. National Guard spokesman Rick Breitenfeldt said more than 30 groups were represented. "We have groups that want to save the buildings and we have groups that want to demolish the buildings and build a supermarket," he said. Four or five meetings are expected to follow "to really come up with a list of alternatives ... like things that can be done with the property." He declined to elaborate on each group's stance, but said, unsurprisingly, "I did hear in the meeting from a lot of city [officials] that, 'If we're required to restore and fix up these buildings, the city isn't prepared to put any money behind doing that, nor is the State of New York ... so please look at funding it through private sources." The city expected to obtain the properties under a previous agreement that allowed them to tear the homes down. A parking lot and light industrial space is also planned.
But alas, it looks like the National Guard's sentiments have a decent chance of changing since that 1996 agreement. They released a report last year estimating the 10 quarters, some more dilapidated than others, could be restored for (an amended) $19.6 million or rebuilt for $24.9 million, acknowledging those estimates still assumed the buildings would be reused as homes, and excluded the cost of abatement and conversion to commercial use. The long report—now available on the National Guard's new Admiral's Row website—determined the quarters retained enough structural integrity to make them eligible for the state and national registers of historic places. The state's preservation specialist issued a letter of concurrence; that the old agreement fails to address the new findings, basically rendering it moot. "We hope that appropriate alternatives will be considered including adaptive reuse and rehabilitation of the historic building and the site (including walls, fences and landscape features). We are not opposed to the redevelopment of the site," it read, "but it is critical that the alternatives analysis seriously consider how these nationally significant buildings can be creatively incorporated into the overall plan." Conveniently, nearby Pratt architecture students came up with just that. Some have suggested Fairway Market in Red Hook, which occupies the ground floor of a large old industrial building, is proof that these homes could also be refashioned into a market. Navy Yard Development Corporation president Andrew Kimball has said he'd like to bring something like Fairway to this supermarket-starved end of town—in the ground floor of a new industrial building—but he's not willing to budget stringing together a bunch of loose, dilapidated houses. As a side note, the quaint six-acre property also has tennis courts and a tennis house with rules still posted, a park, and a timber shed.
As the cliche goes, beauty (and worth) is in the eye of the beholder. So, here's one particularly amazing photo set to judge for yourself.
Admiral's Row website [National Guard]
Pratt Professors Seek To Reconcile Competing Plans for Admiral's Row [Brooklyn Eagle]
Officers’ Row Supermarket Not Happening Anytime Soon [Brownstoner]
Admiral's Row fixup to cost $20M [Daily News]
Photo by incandenza.
January 15, 2008
Before 4th Ave. Was ‘The Next Park Avenue’
We visited the Brooklyn Museum last weekend and were struck by a number of photographs on display by George Bradford Brainerd (1847-1887). The image above, which is part of the museum’s permanent collection, shows what a section of 4th Avenue looked like in the mid-to-late 19th century (exact date unknown). Several generations before anyone dreamed of calling the thoroughfare "the next Park Avenue", it apparently had roadside shanties and a lot of trees. It’s also worth noting that Brainerd photos (like the one on the jump) appear in an exhibit called "Goodbye Coney Island" that documents Coney’s changes over the last 125 years. The exhibit, which is in the incredibly cool visible storage section of the museum, runs through April 6th.
All images courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.
Continue reading "Before 4th Ave. Was ‘The Next Park Avenue’"
September 19, 2007
Who Were the Havemeyers?
With all the attention the Domino Sugar factory has been getting in recent months, we thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the Havemeyer family that built the waterfront facility in Williamsburg and has a street named after them in the neighborhood. Here's what the book Brooklyn By Name (NYU Press, 2006) has to say about them:
Brothers Frederick C. Havemeyer (1774-1841) and William Havemeyer(1770-1851) were major industrialists who made their money in sugar processing. Arriving from Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century, they soon built a sugar refinery on Vandam Street in Manhattan. William's son, William F. (1804-1874), took over the family business in the 1830s but ventured into politics and became a three-term New York mayor. Cousin Frederick C. Havemeyer Jr. (1807-1891) stayed in the sugar trade and in 1857 established the longstanding South 3rd Street factory on the Williamsburg waterfront. His son, Henry Havemeyer (1847-1907), named the company Domino's Sugar in the early 1900s and worked to corner the market. His Sugar Refineries Company, or "Sugar Trust," functioned like Standard Oil--monopolistically (and like Standard Oil did battle with the government over makret control). An era ended in 2004 when Domino's Sugar terminated its refining operations and the East River plant (and classic signage) bearing its name. The company is now a part of the British concern Tate & Lyle.
It would be interesting to know where the Havemeyer clan lived during all this. Manhattan or Brooklyn?
Photo by Susan Stars
O State Street, Where Art Thou?
Seems Brooklyn Heights wasn’t picture perfect enough for the Coen Brothers. The duo is shooting "Burn After Reading" on State Street between Clinton and Court over the next few weeks, and a production crew has painted the facades of a couple buildings red, blue and yellow, and is adding ornamental details to a couple others. A worker said the buildings are being transformed in order to approximate the look of a Georgetown street for the flick, which stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt and John Malkovich. The worker also told us the buildings are going to be washed off after filming wraps since "this is a historic district and all."
"Burn After Reading" [IMDB] GMAP
August 20, 2007
The Lockwood Files: Not New York’s First Housing Bubble
This is the first in a series of posts by Charles Lockwood, author of the brownstone bible Bricks and Brownstone and the "consummate authority" on New York City brownstone, according to The New Yorker. Tune in on Brownstoner every few weeks for a new installment. In the meantime, you can pick up a copy of his must-have book here.
Talk of a real estate bubble is so pervasive among New Yorkers—including Brooklyn brownstone owners—that you’d think this generation had invented soaring housing values...and was the first to face the risk of price reversals because of Wall Street gyrations or a national recession. Not true. Look back to nineteenth-century where high housing prices and whiplash-like boom-bust cycles were a regular occurrence in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and other cities. The litany of today’s housing woes—including the risks of real estate bubbles—sound remarkably like the problems of nineteenth-century New York.
Housing Shortage. As the city boomed after the 1825 completion of the Erie Canal, housing was so scarce—and construction workers were often so far behind schedule—that families sometimes moved into unfinished buildings. “Well-dressed families are observed to be occupying houses of which the builders do not appear to have accomplished the work so far as to have fully closed them in by doors and windows,” declared the Niles Weekly Register in 1825.
At least, those families had a roof over their heads. Some early nineteenth-century New Yorkers, who could not find temporary housing when their leases expired, sought short-term refuge in the city jails.
The transformation of Brooklyn from farms, forest, and a few villages into a rapidly growing city started in the 1820s when this shortage of housing in Manhattan—and the existence of regularly scheduled East River ferry service from the foot of Fulton Street in Manhattan to the foot of Fulton Street in Brooklyn—encouraged New Yorkers to buy lots and build homes on Clover Hill, a bluff overlooking the East River which became known as Brooklyn Heights.
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