Weight limits may help avoid big aggressive dogs, but ill-behaved barking dogs come in all sizes. (I have 2 biggish dogs now but own my apt; I have had both large and small canines.) One neighbor who owns their building has a tiny maltese or something similar, and it used to drive the downstairs tenants crazy with its piercing yap, yap all day long. Meanwhile the tenants had a near-silent big dog.

Biting is a more serious concern than barking (and the occasional bark can also keep your building safer.) Nonetheless, try to find out if the proposed dog is a constant noisemaker before you do too much "size discrimination" would be my advice.

Posted by: bklyn20 at January 11, 2008 6:52 PM in response to pet security?

A big store on the bottom floor of 1BBP will turn Joralemon St into a highway, unless the street is closed to all but emergency traffic as it meets Furman. (This has been promised for 20 years, but even the retractable bollards solution seems to be evaporating now.) The park DOES/WILL need amenities, but any trucks, driving customers, etc, should come in via the Atlantic Avenue entrance. So should the cars of 1 BBP residents.

Shoppers/residents on foot can walk up and down Joralemon, or take the B63/B61 bus on Atlantic, two blocks south.

If there were more than 2 real entrances to the park between Atlantic Ave and Old Fulton Street, this would less of an issue. I live not on Joralemon but nearby, and am not looking forward to a having a freeway around the block. More people walking in the area, fine -- it's quiet there.

Contrary to some earlier blogs, lower Joralemon isn't an empty wasteland, it's a great neighborhood full of people, many of them young. None are excessively gaseous, as far as I can tell. People know their neighbors, and plant beautiful gardens for all to see as they walk by. The visitor to 1 BBP who raved about the model might also want to know that 2 additional new apartment buildings are planned directly south of 1 BBP; was that shown on the lovely model, or did the architects just paint in the usual mysterious gray squares?

Posted by: bklyn20 at January 11, 2008 7:10 PM in response to Latest BBP Brouhaha: A Supermarket in the Park

That is, 1 real entrance for people and cars between Atlantic and Old Fulton -- Joralemon Street. The pedestrian bridge at Middagh Street will be built when? 2020?

Posted by: bklyn20 at January 11, 2008 7:17 PM in response to Latest BBP Brouhaha: A Supermarket in the Park

Of course it's a public street. It is also a narrow public street with paving stones over a major subway line. 500+ additional residents, as well as park visitors and grocery store customers, driving down on a daily basis is unfeasible in even a practical sense. Joralemon is the same size as Cranberry Street, Willow Street, etc. I am sure none of them are feasible high-volume thoroughfares either. The fact that blocking off the street was acknowledged at earlier BBPark meetings, even after housing was added, proves the point. Even everyone's "favorite" person, former BBPDC Wendy Leventer, told a public meeting in the Brooklyn Polytech auditorium in Winter 2005 that it would be closed to through traffic, as did the Van Valkenburgh park planners at "open houses" on the park plan in 2005 or 2006. This is not something the neighborhood thought up to create a gated community -- it is an appropriate measure for a narrow street in an historic district.

Posted by: bklyn20 at January 11, 2008 8:07 PM in response to Latest BBP Brouhaha: A Supermarket in the Park

Joralemon would not be closed to fire trucks, police cars or the Mayor's limo. Retractable bollards would be used -- they are on Wall Street where it meets Broadway, in front of the White House, and other areas in cities around the US. If they work on Wall Street, why not here?

This was proposed to me by a Michael Van Valkenurgh employee (the park's landscape architect) 2 or 3 years ago. Sensors on firetrucks, EMT vehicles, etc. signal the bollards to recede into the street. It works on Wall Street -- I have seen it myself, and quizzed people who are down there more than I am.

Why not create a mid-park connection to BBP with easy mass transit access? Or reliable, regularly scheduled shuttle buses that go down Furman and bring people to the buildings, the park and its amenities? Furman may be 2-way in a few years, making this solution all the more workable. we don't need an artery if circulation improves elswhere in the area. (But enough with the medical metaphors.) Joralemon can and should be closed to non-emergency traffic at Furman Street.

Posted by: bklyn20 at January 11, 2008 8:36 PM in response to Latest BBP Brouhaha: A Supermarket in the Park

There won't be guards at Joralemon, as far as I've heard. (Although there are plenty of them in the BBP plan. They used to be armed -- not sure if the guns are out or in now.)

No, Joralemon is not a dogpatch cul-de-sac. It is not even a non-dogpatch cul-de-sac. It is important but also SMALL and NARROW. A proper park plan would have appropriate access points; Central Park has car entrances every 10 or so blocks, as does Prospect Park. Pedestrian access is even better.

If this is a "World-Class Park" it needs a world-class transportation plan. Perhaps Brooklyn Bridge Park is actually a gated community off a cul-de-sac off of an important street in an important part of an important city that won't plan realistic transporation for all of it very important inhabitants?

Posted by: bklyn20 at January 11, 2008 9:18 PM in response to Latest BBP Brouhaha: A Supermarket in the Park

I don't know that anything is being rerouted except for the possibility of a 2-way Furman and the hope of closing off Joralemon at Furman. Joralemon was to be closed just for the park' expected traffic -- the 500+ people in 1 BBP, not to mention the 700 or so people in the other 2 buildings near Atlantic Ave, are just more reason to consider the impact of the park and its residents on the surrounding neighborhoods. A great park, rather than a luxury housing development with a little green around the edges, would be worth it.. 1BBP isn't going anywhere, but the rest of the housing? The costs in many parts of the plan are so inflated that they may not be necessary. And the marina they didn't mention at the latest "public meeting?" It gives no revenue to the park and will be run by a private operator. Why not a permanent floating pool? Whatever we get in the end, Joralemon should be closed at Furman. Other entrances and access points are necessary.. I just pray we actually get a park when all is said and done.

Posted by: bklyn20 at January 12, 2008 10:09 AM in response to Latest BBP Brouhaha: A Supermarket in the Park

Gman et al, I know that the BBP Dev Corp is not the final "determiner" of transportation issues like Joralemon St. Nonetheless, when the BBPDC head says something. it should have some credence. Experience shows that is not the case. We'll see how Regina Meyer does. My pointwas more that Joralemon St residents (neither gaseoues nor penniless, as a general rule) did not come up with the idea in a sudden fit of xenophobia. At a CB2 Transportation mtg this fall, Chris Hrones of the DOT said they would consider closing the street when the park is complete (2012, I believe he said) or at an earlier appropriate time. The DOT can certainly be in the wrong. Area residents have an uphill battle on this downhill street.

Posted by: bklyn20 at January 12, 2008 9:09 PM in response to Latest BBP Brouhaha: A Supermarket in the Park

Gman et al, I know that the BBP Dev Corp is not the final "determiner" of transportation issues like Joralemon St. Nonetheless, when the BBPDC head says something. it should have some credence. Experience shows that is not the case. We'll see how Regina Meyer does. My pointwas more that Joralemon St residents (neither gaseoues nor penniless, as a general rule) did not come up with the idea in a sudden fit of xenophobia. At a CB2 Transportation mtg this fall, Chris Hrones of the DOT said they would consider closing the street when the park is complete (2012, I believe he said) or at an earlier appropriate time. The DOT can certainly be in the wrong. Area residents have an uphill battle on this downhill street.

Posted by: bklyn20 at January 12, 2008 9:10 PM in response to Latest BBP Brouhaha: A Supermarket in the Park

9:04, I agree with your basic premise. Since 360 Furman (OOPS) will not be demolished by eminent domain anytime soon, I simply want to mitigate its effect on the surrounding neighborhoods. The same goes for whatever goes in on the first floor. The other residential bldgs in the plan won't be necessary if the bloated budget were properly revised--how many Priuses are we at these days? Are they still counting the water as part of the 80+ acreage figure to decrease the cost per acre? (My secret theory is that the need the $ to buy 1,000 cans of Aquanet hairspray per month to properly style the East River tides. Wait --maybe thr,illions for wave attenuators will take care of that.) If only the land acres are used in calculations, it's only a 60-odd acre park. Therfore less $$ needed to maintain the park. If the marina area were instead something to make money for the park, and other appropriate amenities were used to generate funds rather than serve the needs of only the residents, enough $$ could be generated to support a park and not another Battery Park City. As a last thought, perhaps the Conservancy should stop paying $ 100,000+++ for consultants whose main area of expertise is museums and galleries and not parks for all the people of Brooklyn and New York.

Posted by: bklyn20 at January 13, 2008 10:21 AM in response to Latest BBP Brouhaha: A Supermarket in the Park