Sunset Park
April 23, 2008
Unprotected Sunset Park Being Destroyed Bit by Bit
The website Cititour has an advocacy post about the destruction of brownstones in Sunset Park. The item focuses on the house above, on 54th Street and 6th Avenue, part of "a row of turn-of-the-century brownstones with stained glass windows and fireplaces [that] are being destroyed bit by bit." The blog writer argues:
Witnessing this destruction should make the case for giving the area landmark status before it's too late. The neighborhood has been seeing an all-out assault on row houses in recent months as real estate prices remain fairly high. Some are being torn down to make room for condos, others are having additional floors added, and still other two-family homes are being converted into 4-families, again with the city's blessing, and a total disregard to the neighborhood. It's a crying shame.
While we don't doubt that new construction in Sunset Park is felling older buildings, we're unaware of whether there is an organized movement afoot to landmark the area. Can Sunset Park readers fill us in?
A Brownstone Dies In Brooklyn [Cititour]
Photos from Cititour.
April 8, 2008
Behold 'Sunset Marketplace,' Time Equities' S. Park Plan
What you see above are renderings for the massive development project Time Equities has on tap for Sunset Park. The Greenberg Farrow-designed shopping center, which is being dubbed "Sunset Marketplace," will be part of Time Equities' redevelopment of two square blocks (30th to 32nd streets) between 3rd Avenue and the water. New construction on the site will total 790,000 square feet, according to Greenberg Farrow's website, including a large parking garage. The retail building will rise next to Federal #2, an huge industrial structure that Time Equities will redevelop for light industry and commercial tenants (there will probably also be some retail on Federal #2's ground floors). The EDC selected Time Equities and the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation for the project last May. According to Philip Gesue, Time Equities' project director for acquisitions and development, the proposal is now in pre-application review with City Planning and should enter ULURP soon.
Sunset Park's Federal #2 a Potential Lifeboat for Creatives [Brownstoner] GMAP
March 28, 2008
Development Watch: Sunset Park H.S. Rising Fast
The new public high school on tap for Sunset Park is going up quickly. The building, as rendered to the right, will be 191,000 gross square feet, according to IMBY, and it's supposed to be ready for action by 2009. The 5-story school is on 4th Avenue between 34th and 35th streets, and it's going to have neat stuff like a 550-seat auditorium and a 4,000-square-foot fully wireless library.
Sunset Park High School November 2009? [IMBY] GMAP
Rendering from IMBY.
March 19, 2008
Part of Sunset Park Complex Transforming Into Film Space
Light Industry, a new film series in a huge old manufacturing complex next to the BQE, makes its premiere next week. Thomas Beard and Ed Halter, both of whom are veteran film programmers—Beard worked for Ocularis and Halter used to oversee the New York Underground Film Festival—are running the series. Light Industry will have weekly Tuesday night screenings over the next few months in an empty studio space at Industry City, a 6-million-square-foot complex on 33rd Street between 3rd Avenue and the river that rents studios to artists. A different artist, critic or curator is going to organize each event. "The idea is that there are all these different groups in New York, and we want to explore that range," says Halter. The first screening next Tuesday is called "The Blazing World," and it'll feature a series of 16mm films "that ponder the vicissitudes of utopian scheming and the search for new ground," according to the organization’s website.
Light Industry Website GMAP
March 14, 2008
Sunset Park Rezone Plans Meet the Community
Last night an overflow crowd attended a Community Board 7 meeting to hear a presentation from the Department of City Planning about its draft proposal for rezoning Sunset Park. The area in question runs from 29th Street to 64th Street and 4th Avenue to the edge of 8th Avenue, and Planning's draft proposal involves downzoning 75 percent of that to preserve the neighborhood's low-rise character so it's mostly R6B, which allows a max height of 40 feet or 50 feet after a setback. Some sections of the avenues covered in the draft rezoning plan will be upzoned to allow for areas of between six and eight stories with an inclusionary bonus for the construction of permanent affordable housing. According to Aaron Brashear of the Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights, the presentation was generally well-received, though not without comment and criticism. Many people still had questions about how the plan would affect the creation/preservation of affordable housing. The next phase of the rezoning will involve generating an Environmental Impact Statement and then starting ULURP, and the actual rezoning may go through by the end of this year.
Sunset Park One Step Closer to Rezoning [Brownstoner]
February 22, 2008
Open House of the Day, 8/31/07: Six Months Later
This Sunset Park property, listed at $799,000, was the sole open house pick last Labor Day weekend, and it didn't languish on the market all that long.
Open House of the Day: 451 37th Street [Brownstoner] GMAP P*Shark
January 18, 2008
Rentals of the Day: Sunset Park Picks From Craigs
The listings we found this week for Sunset Park present an interesting contrast to the Kensington rentals highlighted last week: In a nutshell, it looks like Sunset Park is a much better value than Kensington right now. Here are the Craigslist pickings, clockwise from upper left:
1. 1-bed, 700-sf, near park, $1350; 40th St. at 6th Ave.
2. Gut-reno 1-bed, 1 block to train, $1100; 58th St. at 4th Ave.
3. Jr. 1-bed, EIK, parquet flrs, $1100; 54th St. betw. 3rd/4th aves.
4. 2-bed railroad, sep. kitchen, $1300; 45th St. at 3rd ave.
5. Studio, elevator bldg, terrace, $1075; 57th St. at 3rd ave.
January 15, 2008
Sunset Park's Federal #2 a Potential Lifeboat for Creatives
Work on one of Brooklyn’s biggest redevelopment projects probably won’t begin for about another year. Back in May, the the city's EDC announced that a joint venture between Time Equities and the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation had been selected to redevelop a 1.1-million-square-foot Sunset Park warehouse called Federal Building #2 into a mixed-use light manufacturing and retail complex. The 8-story building, next to the Gowanus Expressway on 3rd Avenue between 30th and 32nd streets, will be gut renovated. Two major hurdles need to be cleared before the rehab begins, however: The property still needs to be transferred from the federal government to the city (which will in turn transfer it to the developers), and the proposal has to go through ULURP. According to Margaret Nelson, director of real estate programs for the BEDC, the federal government will likely transfer the property to the city within the next few months. The proposal is also expected to enter ULURP very soon, said Nelson, and the review process is expected to take between six months and a year. The project will cost more than $200 million and eventually create more than 1,285 full-time jobs, according to the EDC. From what we hear, at least one of the end-uses for the space will be to provide artists and creative professionals with affordable, loft-like space for under $20 a foot. Given the rate at which these folks are being priced out of Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Dumbo, this sounds like welcome news to us.
Press Release on Federal Building #2 [NYCEDC] GMAP P*Shark
January 11, 2008
Sunset Park’s Art Deco Condo Wave
The Sunset Park Blog is digging the samey-same look of the neighborhood’s new condos, like the new one going up on 48th Street and 8th Avenue. The rendering for the building shows it’s going to look an awful lot like other recent-vintage condos that have dotted 7th Avenue (see, for example, the one on 50th Street, on jump). SPB writes:
It seems that the Chinese architects building new condos on 7th avenue prefer the art deco/bauhaus style of design…at least these buildings are not the drab soviet style buildings that one would find in old Beijing or North Korea or even the square drab buildings that they built in the 40's and 50's which are typical of many of the co ops one finds in Sunset Park and Bay Ridge.
Agree that this look is an improvement over some of the area’s older housing stock?
Art Deco Condos of Sunset Park [Sunset Park Blog]
Sunset Park Snapshot, New Condo Edition [Brownstoner]
January 2, 2008
Wednesday Food & Drink Round-Up
In New York magazine's Where to Eat 2008 restaurant guide, Adam Platt adds a few new eateries to Brooklyn's "honor roll of perpetually booked, yuppie-approved neighborhood dining destinations like Franny’s, Applewood, Dressler, and The Good Fork." His picks include Park Slope's Korean restaurant, Moim, where Platt recommends the "darkly caramelized oxtails soaked in sugar and soy sauce, stacks of soft, garlic-flavored pork ribs, and strips of the deliciously sizzling short ribs." He also raves about the "hot, matzo-thin pies" at Lucali in Carroll Gardens and "the thick grilled pork chop, which is bathed, like some elaborate Vietnamese version of steak au poivre, in peppercorns and a salty-sweet fish," at Silent H in Williamsburg. He also gives shout-outs to the Front Street taco joint, Hecho en Dumbo, and Sunset Park's Lucky Eight, where "the bizarrely fresh 'Hong Kong Bay style' lobster... costs roughly $10 less than it would in the Chinatown of Manhattan or even Queens."
After the jump: Park Slope's newest pizzeria opens tomorrow...