News
August 4, 2008
Fire Leaves 75 PLG Households Looking for Shelter
A six-alarm fire destroyed a portion of the top floor of an 84-unit apartment building in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens on Friday, leaving 23 firefighters and two civilians injured, and the residents essentially homeless. The fire took two hours and 250 firefighters to extinguish. Between 25 and 35 of the 75 households in the building were temporarily sheltered at a school this weekend, then in hotel rooms provided by the Red Cross, while others stayed with family and friends. City officials were reluctant to estimate when they could return &mdash a portion of the roof was removed to extinguish the blaze, and the electrical system that likely caused the fire is "a complete mess" and may need to be entirely replace. "They're doing some work to shore up the roof, but there's some trouble with the electrical system in the building ... that's what's keeping the building vacated," said the official, who asked not to be named. But a resident and friend told us she was advised to look for new housing. She said in retrospect she should have known there were problems with the electrical system because the lights would dim or flicker when she turned on her air conditioner, and electrical bills over the past few months have been erratic. But she never suspected it could be this serious. Although an investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing, it originated in the space between the ceiling of the top floor and the roof and is believed to be wiring-related.
In addition to worrying about finding new housing, residents, many without renters insurance, are worried about their belongings and the expense of building new lives. Firefighters had to bash in apartment doors to check for victims and flames, and another resident said she saw someone on the fire escape next to her window the following day. Police are guarding the building, which is very large and has multiple entry points. Residents were only given 15 minutes to be escorted into their apartments so they could gather their most valuable possessions. Some were lucky enough to get in the evening of the fire by saying they had pets or medication inside. Those who had to sleep at the school or in hotel rooms had to leave their pets with friends. As the Red Cross's contract generally only lasts a few days, the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development will be responsible for providing shelter to anyone who is unable to find it independently.
Officials: Electric Wiring Sparked Brooklyn Blaze [WCBS]
December 6, 2007
New Fire Code Proposed to Coincide with New DOB Rules
If you think changes to the city's building code are long overdue, how about the fire code? The fire department has just submitted a proposal for the first comprehensive revamp of its rules since 1913! The new code draws heavily from the International Fire Code, according to a press release put out by the FDNY yesterday. The changes, which call for, among other things, greater rooftop access and more focus on safety and evacuation plans, would be timed to go into effect alongside the new DOB regulations on July 1. The 470-page document is available on the FDNY website. The public all of three weeks to comment.
Updated Fire Code Is Offered to Mesh With Revised Building Rules [NY Times]
FDNY Wants to Update City's Fire Code [NY Daily News]
Fire Department Drafts New City Fire Code [NY1]
Photo by unrestful
August 23, 2007
Fund Buys Watchtower Building on Clark St.
We’re hearing that real estate investment fund Glory Capital purchased a 43-unit apartment building at 6-10 Clark Street in Brooklyn Heights from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. No word on what the property went for. According to a Brooklyn Eagle article in June, the apartments have already been upgraded recently and studios will start renting for $2,050. It also remains to be seen whether Glory Capital—which also bought 67 Livingston from Watchtower in May—is looking to acquire any of the other Heights properties the religious group recently put on the market. Any rumor mill buzz about the other Jehovah's buildings that are up for sale?
Update: The Property Shark entry on 6-10 Clark shows that the Glory Capital deal closed in late April, and that the building went for $12.5 million.
Good Lord! Watchtower Divesting Six Heights Props [Brownstoner] GMAP P*Shark
August 14, 2007
Abolition Panel a Salve for Duffield Street Concerns?
The Bloomberg administration announced yesterday that it was creating a six-person panel charged with formulating a plan to honor Brooklyn’s role in the abolitionist movement. The formation of the $2 million panel is largely a response to the controversy surrounding the EDC’s plan to seize and demolish six Duffield Street row houses that are believed to have ties to the Underground Railroad, but it leaves the future of those houses unclear. In fact, the city’s press release yesterday affirms that an EDC-funded study “did not directly connect Underground Railroad activity to the houses, but it did confirm a great deal of abolitionist activity in the area.” While the city’s announcement is unlikely to stanch community outcry about the EDC’s plans, blogger Duffield Street Underground notes that “If the new panel has some real power, then there is hope to develop Downtown Brooklyn through the promoting of the Abolitionist history at 227 Duffield.” Sounds to us like the city's just throwing a bone, albeit a $2 million bone, to the pesky preservationists to push them out of the way. Do you think this has a chance of silencing the protesters?
Mayor Appeases on Underground Railroad Rancor [NY Observer]
Panel to Honor Brooklyn’s Role in Abolition [City Room]
Honoring Brooklyn's Role in Ending Slavery [Duffield St. Underground]
Busy Day for Brooklyn's Underground Railroad History [Gowanus Lounge]
Underground Movement on Duffield [NY Post]
Duffield Preservationists Fight Back with Lawsuit [Brownstoner]
LPC Turns Its Back on Underground Railroad Houses [Brownstoner]
Undergound RR: Consultants Caught In Another Lie [Brownstoner]
LPC Head Tries To Save Underground RR Site [Brownstoner]
January 10, 2007
Announcement
Hey, everyone, Typekey is working again. We bet Crown Heights Proud will be happy!
October 10, 2006
BREAKING: Broken Angel On Fire!
Heads up, everyone, the Broken Angel is was on fire! More photos at Brooklyn Record
July 11, 2006
Site Registration for Commenting
We've resisted requiring registration to the site until now because we've wanted to keep things as open as possible. Given some of the rudeness and vitriol that happens more frequently than we'd like and the recent uptick in troll activity, we have little choice but to require anyone who wants to comment to create a Typekey username. (Hopefully it should reduce the amount of spam comments that we have to waste time deleting too.) We just enabled this requirement a few minutes ago so we're not exactly sure how it's going to go from a technical standpoint. When you open the Comments of a post it should prompt you to sign in or create an identity. If you have trouble, though, please drop us an email. After you've logged at the beginning of a session, you should be recognized and not have to keep logging in every time you comment. Sorry for the inconvenience but hopefully this will result in a more respectful dialogue among those who actually have the site's, and the community's, best interests at heart.
Thanks,
Brownstoner
June 8, 2006
Homeless Men Responsible for Greenpoint Fire
You've probably already heard by now, but the police arrested a one homeless guy and charged him with arson, burglary, reckless endangerment and petit larceny in last month's massive fire at the Greenpoint Terminal Market; an accomplice was being sought. Supposedly, the fire started when the men tried to burn the insulation off some copper wire so they could resell it. Meanwhile, Joshua Guttman, still no angel in our book, was charged with 434 counts of "failure to maintain privately owned waterfront property" along with his son and four of their related companies. Guttman "feels vindicated in the fact that it's now known he's not the person who had anything to do with the fire," said his attorney, Israel Goldberg.
Homeless Men Blamed for GTM Fire [NY Times]
Homeless Man Arrested in Massive Fire [WNBC]
Photo by Fabian 17
The Warehouse 'Firebug' [NY Post]
May 5, 2006
Another Perspective on the Greenpoint Fire
We've seen a lot of up close shots of the Greenpoint fire this week but thought this reader-submitted shot taken from the Home Depot parking lot in Bed Stuy was worth a post.
May 4, 2006
An Update On Brokerate
You can beta test something to death, but sometimes there's no substitute for the real world. When we began planning Brokerate we struggled with how to handle comments and the potential for abusive behavior. At the time, we thought that we'd provide the platform, appeal to everyone's sense of decency and let the market take care of itself. After watching things play out over the first few days, we've grown increasingly uncomfortable with the number of mean, trite and foundationless comments. While our goal in creating the site was clearly to provide the consumer with a useful tool, we've decided that on balance the comments are too destructive; while we are unapologetic about the need for more transparency and accountability in the profession, we have to listen to our own conscience--which has served us well navigating the sometimes dicey waters of Brownstoner--and balance that need with the fact that peoples' livelihoods are at stake here. So here's the plan: We're keeping the rating system (which has a control in place to limit each user to voting only once for each broker), replacing the comments with a references (if you feel strongly about a broker, you can leave your email for potential clients to contact you), and are going to work over the next few weeks to build more functionality and searchability into the broker profiles (hopefully to include things like neighborhood specialization and lists of closed transactions). We hope to have the changes to the comments section done by the end of the day today. We'd also appreciate everyone's ideas about additional functionality they would like to see in the future.
Thanks,
Brownstoner