Q&A
April 29, 2008
Q&A With Isabel Hill, "Brooklyn Matters" Filmmaker
On Thursday Cobble Hill Cinemas will host a free screening of "Brooklyn Matters," the documentary about Atlantic Yards. The film, which examines how Atlantic Yards came about and what the project's possible ramifications are, came out early last year and has been shown in a number of venues, including colleges and universities like Pratt and NYU. Isabel Hill, the director and producer of "Brooklyn Matters," talked to us about the movie's relevance now that Atlantic Yards is likely to be stalled and how audiences have reacted to her work. The main thrust of Hill's documentary is that Atlantic Yards has ignored decades-old urban planning wisdom and techniques. Hill worked as a planner for many years before making the film.
Now that you’ve been showing the documentary for a while, have you noticed a difference in audience reaction over time?
Hill:Yes, frankly, there does seem to be more outrage over the specific elements of this project. When I first started showing the film, I think many people were just surprised when they discovered the overwhelming scale of the many proposed skyscrapers. Most people initially understood the project to consist of a sports arena and a vague outline of other development. When they saw the monumental scale of the proposed buildings, most first-time viewers were incredulous. Also, when I first began showing the film, viewers were shocked at the ways this project circumvented public process and how project advocates manipulated public perception. Now, I think as people know more about Atlantic Yards, they are incensed when they see the film and more fully understand the drastic and long-lasting impacts of this proposal—a proposal we taxpayers are subsidizing. What I’ve seen is that the film consistently is a revelation to viewers whether they know nothing, little, or a lot about the project.
Is the documentary still as relevant now that Atlantic Yards faces delays?
Hill:"Brooklyn Matters" is even more relevant and important now than it was the day it was released. Markets have slowed the rate of progress on Atlantic Yards and allowed more and more people to study the project more closely. It is especially important that the new Paterson administration see the film during this time. In the past, many interested community leaders and residents felt side-lined by the fact that the real estate market was traveling so fast and furious. Atlantic Yards was marketed as a “done deal” and many believed it. Now that more and more people realize that the project is not a done deal, it is even more important to act. We can’t just sit back and see what happens here. This is an opportunity for our elected officials and citizens to rethink what should happen on this important public site—the Vanderbilt rail yards. There must be an outcry against Atlantic Yards, and the film is critical to reaching more and more people with this truth.
Did the finished movie differ much from the movie you set out to make?
Hill: Documentary filmmaking is a process. When you set out to make a documentary, you don’t know exactly where this great adventure will take you so there were things that evolved and changed over the course of making the film. But my frame of reference was always the same. I have worked as an urban planner in Brooklyn for over twenty years and it is through the lens of a planner that I viewed the Atlantic Yards project.
Images from Brooklyn Matters
December 13, 2007
Q&A: Brad Lander On His Run for City Council
About a month ago news hit that housing advocate Brad Lander was going to run for Bill De Blasio's spot on the City Council. Since 2003, Lander has been the director of the Pratt Center for Community Development; prior to joining the Pratt Center, he served as the executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee for a decade. We asked him to give us the lowdown on his Council run, as well as some housing issues, and here's what he had to say:
Why've you decided to run for Council? How long has your run been in the works?
I'm running for City Council because I love our Brooklyn neighborhoods, but fear that much of what I value about being a Brooklynite is under threat. We've got a tremendously diverse mix of people, public treasures like Prospect Park, some great public schools, neighborhood shopping strips with small businesses who care enough to give us umbrellas when it rains, and passionate civic activism. But much of this is threatened by skyrocketing real estate prices, out-of-control development, and growing inequality.
In fifteen years as a not-for-profit director, a builder of affordable housing, a city planner, and a community organizer, I've worked with hundreds of residents, activists, and advocates with tremendous commitment, street smarts, and savvy to confront these challenges. But I've only seen a handful of public officials that come anywhere close to matching that grassroots passion.
I really believe that so much more is possible if we can pair community action with strategic work at a citywide level by elected officials. We can preserve the affordability and livability or our neighborhoods. We can create opportunity for a much wider range of people through good schools and a fairer economy. I'm running for City Council to bring people together around these common values and shared interests, and to help channel that community energy to force concrete change both in our neighborhoods and at City Hall.
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May 24, 2005
Q&A: Lockwood's Favorite Townhouse Style?
Question: Do you have a favorite townhouse architectural style?
Answer: People often ask me that question, and it’s a tougher one that you might realize. To me, it’s similar to asking a parent which one of their children they love the most.
I like all the townhouse architectural styles, but often for different reasons. Take the Federal style of the 1820s and early 1830s, which you find in Brooklyn Heights and in Greenwich Village and a few scattered downtown locations south of Houston Street. I admire the elegant simplicity of these red brick houses with their doorways set off by leaded glass sidelights and toplights, and their pitched roofs with dormer windows. Nos. 155, 157, and 159 Willow Street (shown at left) are exquisite examples in red brick, while No. 24 Middagh Street is a frame Federal style townhouse ca. 1824. I think that one reason I love these houses so much is that they have survived nearly two centuries in fast-growing, often-tumultuous New York. Only a relative handful survive today.
I really like the Italianate style of the 1850s, 1860s, and early 1870s. These classically-inspired red brick or brownstone-front houses, which survive in most of Brooklyn’s brownstone neighborhoods: all over Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, to name some of the obvious locations.
These Italianate townhouses reflect New York’s rise as America’s richest, showiest, most powerful city. Just look at the richly embellished facades with their grandly scaled doorways and bold roofline cornices, or the parlor floors with their richly carved white marble fireplace mantels and flamboyant plaster ceiling moldings and rosettes.
Continued on the jump...
Profile [Charles Lockwood]
Buy Bricks & Brownstones [Amazon]
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January 26, 2005
Charles Lockwood Q&A
We are thrilled to announce that Charles Lockwood, the foremost expert on historic brownstones, will be starting a Q&A column on Brownstoner. Called the "Consumate Authority" on brownstones by The New Yorker, the consultant, lecturer and author (of Bricks and Brownstones) will answer one or two reader questions a month. We encourage you to a submit specific question (along with relevant photos) about the history and architecture of your townhouse. Please email us with the subject LOCKWOOD Q&A. Please understand that we will only be able to answer a very limited number of submissions and that Mr. Lockwood cannot recommend specific service professionals.
Q: What is brownstone, and why did nineteenth-century builders select brownstone for townhouse facades in Manhattan and Brooklyn? Isn’t the stone impractical due to scaling and crumbling?
A: Brownstone is a soft, close-grained triassic sandstone or freestone. When first cut, the stone is pink, but it soon weathers to an even, rich, chocolate brown because of the presence of hematite iron ore. Most of the brownstone used in nineteenth-century New York came from the Portland, CT area on Connecticut River or near Little Falls, NJ near the Passaic River. The stone was cut there, put on barges, carried to New York, and unloaded near one of the building stone storage yards along the Hudson or East Rivers.
During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when New York row houses were built in the Federal and Greek Revival styles with red brick facades, brownstone was often used for stoops, doorway trim, and window lintels and sills on smaller houses, because it was cheaper than the customary—and preferred—white marble or limestone. (Continued Below).