No More Window Air Conditioners

Every citizen of New York City has a dog in every zoning decision made here. Decisions should be made city wide or block by block this will turn into Houston. You have made a good case for retaining the R6B and I support you, but we all have a dog in the fight, no single block should decide for themselves.

Posted by: Marie Brown at October 15, 2009 8:19 PM in response to Meeting About Special Lefferts Rezoning Request Tonight

More is the key word not rentals. If there is enough more prices will come down. No one has repealed the market.

Posted by: Marie Brown at October 15, 2009 8:10 PM in response to Development Watch: 397 Greene Avenue Five Months Later

Raccoons ate four of my neighbors prized koi from a pond on 3rd street a couple of weeks ago. They will easily open sealed garbage cans and create a mess from which rats can then feast on left overs. Raccoons are not cute!

Posted by: Marie Brown at August 27, 2009 8:16 PM in response to Raccoons Evidently Digging 4th Avenue

The streets are definitely dirtier in our neighborhood since the change in regs but really, it is much, much harder to find a parking place since the cars don't have to churn as much. Some people must be roosting here with their vehicles. Bring on residential parking permits, I'll pay my vig.

Posted by: Marie Brown at May 27, 2009 8:50 PM in response to Sunset Parkers Protest Street-Sweeping Regs

Could it be that all the anti-development sentiment pumped up by Pardon Me For Asking and others, is driving away the buyers? Or at least driving up rents for residential and commercial alike by opposing every new development in sight?

Posted by: Marie Brown at May 8, 2009 10:22 PM in response to Hasker on Smith Bites the Dust

I live in Carroll Gardens too and love it but don't want it land-marked or down-zoned. Yeah, one reason is that I want the development value retained in my property. When I bought my home it included a certain, relatively modest actually, development rights, about another 1200 square feet. I paid for that whether the seller knew it or not. Someday, I'd like to add that 1200 square feet and plan to do so in a more tasteful manner respecting the "context" of the neighborhood, I'd like to do better than what has been done over the last 100 years since this neighborhood was built. How many brownstones have been downed by developers. A couple have had additions I don't really like but that has been going on since the neighborhood was built. The fear of the developers borders on paranoia. This neighborhood made it through the greatest residential building boom in history in the last ten years without any damage. Now that prices have fallen there is much less of a need to down-zone or land-mark than ever. More available housing means lower prices for renters, more available buildable square feet means more value for homeowners. Down-zoning and land-marking both increase rents for renters and decrease values for homeowners.

Posted by: Marie Brown at January 26, 2009 9:14 PM in response to Carroll Gardens: Old School Amid the Changes

The total cost of owning and operating a vehicle is around $9000/year. Thats an average over the last 5 years. Of course if you live in Brooklyn and work in Staten Island its $2000 in tolls alone. If you live in SI and work in Brooklyn on the other hand its $1000. Go figure.

Posted by: Marie Brown at January 2, 2009 8:42 PM in response to Alternate-Side Suspension in Slope of Little Impact

As much as I like the Salt Marsh Nature Center off of Ave. U it really should be noted that it is really a garbage dump fifty years later. Most of it was swamp filled when Robert Moses build the Belt Parkway from the former military road. At the same time, true to form, he ripped out the 17th Century Tidal Mill off of what was to become Ave. W. Much of the neighborhood is really post WWII as Moses determined that the neighborhood would be over run with cars when he failed to extent the subway system beyond the junction (Flatbush and Nostrand). I lived there for 15 years, made money on our building but really we were over-run with traffic. Most of the neighbors fences had at some time been destroyed by some driver who couldn't hold his car on the road at only 50 MPH, not unusual on those streets. The North-South roads, especially Flatbush, Gerritsen and Nostrand are really on-ramps for the Belt Parkway and the traffic is relentless even into the wee hours of the morning. We sold our house at a profit and moved back to South Brooklyn where we had to leave 30 years before because we couldn't afford the rent. With the profit we made on our traffic over-run house in Marine Park, as much as we liked it, we bought a nice two family in CG. It is much more quiet here at night. Lots of parking in Marine Park, lots of cars too, coincidence, I think not.

Posted by: Marie Brown at November 18, 2008 12:04 AM in response to Park Slope Can't Measure Up to Marine Park

I guess confusion of coincidence and cause is in the eye of the beholder. Taking industrial space to build big boxes takes away neighborhood workers (customers) from the smaller local business, hardware and home provision stores. And the traffic generated by the big boxes and their parking lots decrease the productivity of the industrial enterprises that remain.

Posted by: Marie Brown at October 14, 2008 7:27 PM in response to Quote of the Day

Missing a drainage layer? And this is supposed to grow healthy plants in the rain/drought cycle?

Posted by: Marie Brown at October 8, 2008 7:20 PM in response to The Modules

Good questions 7/4/8. No, I haven't had the soil tested. However, when I started the garden I excavated lots of debris from my back yard. There was old marble from discarded fire places, nice material I reused. Lots and lots of concrete from former construction, and I dug a long dry well as well that I filled with stone dug out of the rest of the yard. The vegetables are grown on raised beds, maybe 8 inches at present, but the subsoil has been replaced by compost from Floyd Bennet Field composting area down about 18 inches. Same with the peach espalier area though lots of peat was added to that soil as well. I amend the soil yearly with compost and manure but have not had it tested for lead or other heavy metals assuming that they are present in all south Brooklyn soil to some extent. By steadily amending the soil I am certain whatever heavy metal content is there is diminishing. The peach roots do travel, ideally. These are pretty much captured however in a subsoil concrete wall, the soil inside that wall has been replaced. Still, you never know. I'm not particularly concerned, maybe I should be, but I grew up on a farm and am familiar with the many chemicals that drive our agricultural system. I stay away from insecticides but live with the heavy metals.

Posted by: Marie Brown at July 22, 2008 8:45 PM in response to Garden of the Day: Ornamental Edibles

Yeah, looks like reefer to me too.

Seriously though, I liked the use of the plants to cover up the AC units and, hopefully, suppress the noise. Great garden.

Posted by: Marie Brown at July 22, 2008 8:37 PM in response to Garden of the Day: Rocking in Rockaway