To the developers too weak and cowardly to ever respond to or acknowledge my postings:

It's 10 after 7, and I get to listen to the sound of drilling metal as you construct your last segment of buildings.

My view the train bridge from Smith-9 and the old converted factory have been totally obstructed. My sky view is cut in half. I have less sun than I used to.

I hope you're happy making your fucking millions on these condos. You've turned a unique, secluded corner into yet another cookie cutter for yuppies to pollute with their nasty children.

Thanks for nothing!

Posted by: hadj at June 29, 2009 7:12 AM in response to Inside Third & Bond: Week 89

Developers,

I know you're reading these posts, and yet somehow you don't have the guts to respond or defend yourselves. Why is that? Today I have a big assignment due and all I can hear is the grinding of trucks, hammers smashing against metal, and more drills.

You wrote "sometimes we feel like we're being pushed out," well how the hell do you think I feel?!

This is my neighborhood and I resent your pressing need to fill it up with more people for your own profit.

Posted by: hadj at June 2, 2009 8:59 AM in response to Inside Third & Bond: Week 86

David and Alison,

I just LOVE that you can go outside of your little office and ask the workers to move temporarily. Too bad I couldn't ask them to stop drilling until my alarm was supposed to go off at 7:30 this morning. That would have been great. It also would have been great over the last 2 years not to have constant, loud noises disrupting me on my once quiet block.

My only regret is that I didn't start posting sooner. I will do so ever day until my view of the sky is obscured entirely by your "four stories plus mezzanine."

Don't you mean FIVE STORIES. If I can count 5 levels of windows from ground to sky, then you have five stories. Way to exploit another loophole in a Scarano-esque move. And now his building on Carroll is a permanently unfinished eyesore.

Posted by: hadj at June 1, 2009 11:26 AM in response to Inside Third & Bond: Week 86

Over a month later, I must respond to Benson:

Benson,

As I'm sure you've heard many a time, Robert Moses was a tyrant of power and greed who hated the poor and had more hubris than a 14th century Crusader. He destroyed neighborhoods and displaced thousands of people. He used blackmail and fear to keep legislatures at his side; Even Fiorello LaGuardia couldn't touch Moses because of the dirt he had on the beloved mayor.

Had Jane Jacobs not began a grassroots campaign against Moses' eminent domain assholery, there would be a 10-lane highway running across Manhattan where Broome St is. Yes, this high-rent, extremely successful section of SoHo with all of its amazing architecture and streets of character (and expensive boutiques) would have been destroyed.

So, um, root for Robert Moses if you want. It shows how ignorant you are about the nature of cities.

Incidentally, Alison and David, today my alarm was set for 7:30. But your power drills woke me up at 7:15. Thanks a whole lot. How much are you paying Brownstoner to spread your charlatan message of goodwill?

Posted by: hadj at June 1, 2009 11:20 AM in response to Inside Third & Bond: Week 82

To the developers,

I'm one of your "neighbors" who looks down directly into the construction site from Bond St. I've followed this blog, and found your attempts to connect with the community to be a great idea, but it is only that. Before I go any further, I will say this: I understand that New York is constantly being developed, that change us the only constant. Really, I do.

And you may be less evil than some of the more unscrupulous developers, but I think this blog and your "outreach to the community" is hubristic and doesn't mask the truth of what you're doing: modifying the neighborhood so you can make millions of dollars off of more condo sales.

For the past year and a half I've been woken up literally hundreds of times to the sound of metal drills, the throbbing slam of pile drivers, and all the horrible construction noises which screech right into my window. I work from home sometimes, and the disturbance and frustration is migraine-inducing. When I called to complain of noise which was well beyond acceptable—like a bulldozer knocking over a 15 foot brick wall, you had the gall to tell me to "go watch sesame street" in your oh-so selfless blog. (brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/01/inside_third_bo_14.php). Last week, i had borrowed a car and parked it in the same spot I always use across from my house, and your workers wrapped it in caution tape and put signs all over it, warning me that there would be "no parking" for the next day. Hostile.

When I moved here, I was so charmed by the quiet and peacefulness of this neighborhood, and the red brick buildings. You guys knocked over a fantastic red-brick garage, a commercial space that added to the unique charm of this area: the fact that it is mixed use, combining residential, commercial, and industrial. This section of Carroll Gardens/Gowanus is a perfect example of an ideal Jane Jacobs neighborhood. Or it was.

There were big, wide sidewalks by that garage, which have long disappeared. Perhaps worst of all, when your last building goes up, I will lose my big, wide view of the sky. Not only will i lose lots of sun and clouds, but it also includes my vista of the Smith-9 station where I can watch the train arriving, a converted factory with a massive Brooklyn watertower, and the red brick former printing press, whose future is unclear at this time. Instead, my apartment will stare into the facade of your new homes.

I appreciate that the buildings are only four stories. I don't appreciate that by building multiple buildings you guys are avoiding the requirement to provide parking for all of this housing. Do we really need more housing? Couldn't that commercial space have been a location for a thriving business? Why are you avoiding providing parking. Do people do construction outside of your houses all day, and ruin your mood?

So, to sum up my dear developers: Screw you for telling me to watch Sesame Street, screw you for ruining my view, screw you for all of the excruciating noise, for the headaches and migraines, the lost work. Screw you for the romantic Saturday mornings spoiled by pile drivers and the sound of metal being cut. Screw you for messing up the parking and not caring about it, for destroying that great building and the sidewalk, and screw you for being just yet another developer capitalizing on the high desirability of this neighborhood—known for its peace and quiet.

If these buildings are ugly on the outside, you will have accomplished nothing despite the "reasonable height" of your buildings. I hope that you, along with every other developer that destroys the context of a carefully balanced neighborhood, are left with vacancies and headaches equal to my own—say, bankruptcy? Only time will tell.

Posted by: hadj at May 26, 2009 10:21 AM in response to Inside Third & Bond: Week 85