The New (And Not So Improved) Bedford Avenue
Bedford Avenue from Classon Avenue in Bed Stuy to Grand Street in Williamsburg has experienced a building boom in recent years that has forever altered the landscape. You can probably take a wild guess about how we feel about most of these new buildings from a design standpoint, but we’re still on vacation so we’ll…
Bedford Avenue from Classon Avenue in Bed Stuy to Grand Street in Williamsburg has experienced a building boom in recent years that has forever altered the landscape. You can probably take a wild guess about how we feel about most of these new buildings from a design standpoint, but we’re still on vacation so we’ll let the pictures speak for themselves and let you debate their aesthetic merit.
This one’s probably the worst of the lot.
I live in this building. Have been here for two years now. I am an artist and while I agree the outside of this building is architecture at its worst, it was the only thing I can afford. I love Bed Stuy, I love the gorgeous brownstones, but I am not rich. Most of us living in this building are in the same boat. Don’t judge a book by its cover. I agree the facade is insulting, but my place is large and bright. My neighbors are friendly and quiet. I wish the people who could afford to build condos would contribute more creative vision to less expensive living, but I guess they’re all preoccupied with filling Williamsburg with people paying ridiculous prices for Manhattan-sized apts. Until developers put aside their greed (fat chance) or the city develops development restrictions with vision (fat chance), people like me have to swallow our pride and take what we can get…
looks like bird poop.
“The developers themselves would never live in a place like this”
That’s assuming they have taste. they just MIGHT think this dreck is beautiful 🙂
I think they are trying to make the design look intentional so that no one will accuse them of using leftover materials. Doesn’t work very well. Besides- how much would you trust the construction of a building where the developer is too cheap to buy materials for the building and just ” makes do.” If you cut corners here, you will most likely cut corners everywhere. The building on Fulton & Classon is embarrassing to look at and frightening to think about living in.
the white bricks in the above building seem to be placed almost purposefully, like there’s some kind of pathetic attempt at artistry.
Both this building and the monstrosity on Fulton/Classon seemed to have been constructed by whatever the builders had left over from other projects. There is no rhyme or reason to the buildings, or the ornamentation, which seems to just be stuck on.
While “affordable” housing is certainly a pressing need here, it really is a shame that developers can be allowed to put up this crap. It will rent, or sell, depending on how it is offered, because desperate people need a place to live. I just hate how the obvious contempt, or at least indifference, for their customers’ aesthetic needs is translated into a hodgepodge of leftover bricks. The developers themselves would never live in a place like this.
I assume you are talking about Bedford from Fulton to Williamsburg (Classon in parallel to Bedford, and has its own issues). I had heard that the developer of the pictured building is the same as that of the monstrosity at Fulton and Classon. Someone obviously thought about the design – choices have been made (stone, balconies, etc). But they are neither rooted is historicism, nor do they appear to express any coherent design sensibility. If the stone base had been continued up to the top of the second story it would have been so much better (or less worse?)