Interview

Welcome to the Hot Seat, in which we interview folks involved in Brooklyn real estate, development, architecture and the like. Introducing Linnaea Tillett, an environmental psychologist and lighting designer. She is the principal of Tillett Lighting, lighting consultants for waterfront landscapes, infrastructure, parks, public art and private interiors. In Brooklyn, she designed lighting for the Brooklyn Navy Yard Visitor and Exhibit Center and the Brooklyn Public Library Leon Levy Information Commons, among other spaces.

Brownstoner: What neighborhood do you live in, and how’d you end up there?
Linnaea Tillett: I live in Brooklyn Heights. I moved temporarily to Dumbo (from Manhattan) to work on an art/wayfinding project under the Brooklyn Bridge called “This Way.” Most days and nights I would roam around Brooklyn Heights while I was waiting for this or that piece of work to be done on the site. One night I wandered up Columbia Heights and thought to myself, “I could live here!” So when “This Way” had opened and I had a choice to go back to Manhattan or live nearer my office in Williamsburg, I completely denied how awkward the commute to work would be, and found an apartment to fall in love with.

BS: How did you get into lighting design, and what does your firm currently do now?
Coming from a family of designers (textiles, clothing, tableware — actually every single thing in the house I grew up with), I was used to looking at the world and wondering what I was supposed to design. One summer, my sister-in-law, a costume designer, asked me to help her out on a theatre production. Nobody was available to work on the lighting, so they gave me a script, a mass of tangled dusty cables, a pile of rusted light fixtures and some bits of cracked colored gel. I read the script, made some choices, and hung the lights with bits of color in front of them. When I turned on the lights, I was stunned that a bunch of wires and rusted tin cans organized along the emotional lines of a script could have such an expressive force. And I was hooked. Not on theatre, but on light as a creative tool.

Now I own Tillett Lighting Design. We light infrastructure, landscape, public art and interiors. Each is a one-of-a-kind project that requires attention and sensitivity to the emotional dynamics of the space.

After the jump, details and photographs of Linnaea’s projects in Brooklyn, her advice in lighting a small apartment, and her favorite interior and exterior spaces in New York City. (more…)

Welcome to the Hot Seat, where we interview folks involved in Brooklyn architecture, real estate, and the like. Introducing Gregory T. O’Connell, of The O’Connell Organization. The real estate development group owns over 70 properties in Brooklyn and Mount Morris, NY and is specifically known for its investment and development of the Red Hook waterfront.
BS: What neighborhood do you live in, and how’d you end up there?
GOC: I live in the Columbia Street Waterfront District. I grew up there (technically not Red Hook) and once I got out of college I moved back in with my parents. As you can imagine, both working and living with your parents can become trying on the human psyche so I moved into an apartment a few blocks away a couple of years ago. It’s a great location because it is close to where I work and my family (possibly too close) but it is not the ideal spot for a young single guy…lots of baby carriages and families. The location does however allow me to abide by my sworn duty to only go to Manhattan at most once per month (trips to Wo-Hop not counting).

BS: Can you talk a little bit about your family’s history in Red Hook, what it was like growing up in that environment and ultimately deciding to be a part of it professionally?
GOC: In Red Hook in particular my father began in the early 1980’s. He had been developing brownstones and other primarily residential multi-family properties in the Columbia Street Waterfront, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens sections of Brooklyn mainly because of the affordable prices. I believe his first building was at 432 Henry Street, which he purchased for $22,000 in 1967. At that time, he had lived in the garden apartment while fixing up the remaining floors. My father’s outlook has always been long-term and based on a 20-year or more investment horizon. This mentality has been adopted in every investment he has made, real estate, or otherwise. From 432 Henry St. he tried to replicate his methods with similar purchases in that area. He and my Mom eventually purchased a fixer upper on Warren between Hicks and Columbia St. for $4,000 in 1976 …this is where my brother Michael and I were raised. After 10-15 years of acquiring and renovating residential properties, my father became interested in and saw potential in the large warehouses, which for the most part were dilapidated and abandoned on the Red Hook Waterfront.

After the jump, Greg talks about developing in a public-transportation-challenged neighborhood, commercial vs. manufacturing growth in Red Hook, and a start-up brewery coming to Pier 41… (more…)

Welcome to the Hot Seat, where we interview folks involved with Brooklyn real estate, development, architecture and the like. Introducing Eric Brelsford, part of the team at 596 Acres. 596 Acres seeks to inform Brooklyn residents about the vacant lots around them, many of which are publicly owned. In turn they help residents turn those lots into usable community space. 596 acres is how much vacant public land existed in Brooklyn alone as of April 2010.

BS: What neighborhood do you live in, and how’d you end up there?
EB: I live in Prospect Heights. I got here accidentally, but it didn’t take long to appreciate my neighbors and the neighborhood’s proximity to places like Prospect Park.

BS: Can you talk about how 596 Acres came to be?
EB: My colleague Paula founded 596 Acres after getting the original dataset from the Center for the Study of Brooklyn at Brooklyn College while working with the Brooklyn Food Coalition. The CSB is a great resource–it helps community groups access and analyze data that is otherwise quite inaccessible to those outside of city government or universities.

Paula asked for all public, vacant land, and when she got the spreadsheet from the CSB she added up the area column to get the number that gave the project its name. She was pretty astounded, of course, and thought this was important knowledge to share.

Using money raised on ioby, she printed newspaper-sized posters, and we wheatpasted them to foam and other media and put them on the fences that seal a handful of these lots. We included the contact information for the agencies that controlled the lots and the project’s email address. We weren’t sure what would happen, but the people who live around those lots got in touch with us really quickly, we got those people in touch with each other, and the project started to take form.

I wrote our site, which includes a map where people can search for lots near them and get in touch with each other. Our focus is still on our print posters because we know that they’re the best way to get in touch with people who live near the lots.

After the jump, Eric talks about “gutterspace,” what happens when people come together to transform these lots, current projects in Brooklyn, and a lot in Bushwick with tons of potential… (more…)

Welcome to the Hot Seat, where we interview folks involved in Brooklyn real estate, development, architecture and the like. Introducing Stephanie Corrado, one of the founders of Get Dirty NYC. Get Dirty NYC is a volunteer-run nonprofit that serves as a one-stop meeting place for interested volunteers to connect with city farm and garden organizations in New York.

Brownstoner: What neighborhood do you live in, and how did you end up there?
Stephanie Corrado: I live in Carroll Gardens and my co-founder Gigi Chew lives in Park Slope. I moved to Carroll Gardens a year ago after living in Manhattan for 4 years – my husband and I were looking to live in a quieter neighborhood that had a greater sense of community. We have loved ever second here.

Brownstoner: Can you talk about the beginnings of Get Dirty NYC?
SC: Get Dirty NYC! was founded about two years ago and was the product of discussions Gigi and I had been having about how to help connect New Yorkers who were interested in volunteering in urban farms and gardens with projects in need of help. While there were plenty of volunteer opportunities available in New York City, information about these projects was dispersed, making it difficult for volunteers to find one that matched their interests. As a result, we decided to create an online platform that would serve as a centralized meeting point for farms to list their volunteer needs and for volunteers to find a project that interested them.

After the jump, Stephanie talks about GDNYC’s latest initiatives, Brooklyn’s urban farming scene, and her favorite garden in BK…. (more…)