A Rough 24 Hours in Brooklyn
It’s been a rough 24 hours. First, at around 9:30 last night, a wooden cornice fell off the front of 316 5th Avenue in Park Slope, luckily injuring no one. Then, the rainstorm hit the borough this morning in the pre-dawn hours, knocking over several trees in Prospect Park South. (Check out lots of pics…
It’s been a rough 24 hours. First, at around 9:30 last night, a wooden cornice fell off the front of 316 5th Avenue in Park Slope, luckily injuring no one. Then, the rainstorm hit the borough this morning in the pre-dawn hours, knocking over several trees in Prospect Park South. (Check out lots of pics on the Crazy Stable link.) And this just in: 18-20 Jackson Place has collapsed, leaving only a partial facade intact. No one was injured and the adjacent properties appear to be okay, according to an eyewitness account. The property was allowed to become derelict by the current owner. Can anyone send a pic of the collapse?
316 5th Avenue Catastophe [Bklyn King] GMAP
316 5th Avenue Aftermath [Bklyn King]
Large Piece of Building Falls [OTBKB]
Our Brooklyn Tornado [Crazy Stable]
Wednesday PM Storm Linkage [Curbed]]
oh, please Cortelyou – you live in NYC already
22 homes “vacated” in Sunset Park alone (ie. so bad folks ended up at the OEM station at PS. 314). Wha?
PPSer, you should write an Op-Ed piece and send it to the New York Daily News about that. Call em out!
The damage, not to houses but to trees and property in Prospect Park South, was huge, and the 70th Precinct as well as the city played favorites with those who are politically connected, clearing debris and trees from connected yards (as a “courtesy”) at the expense of the general population, which fended for themselves with blocked sidewalks and broken tree limbs hanging 50 feet above. While I worried all day that loose limbs on a city tree in my yard might fall and injure some unsuspecting pedestrian or driver and couldn’t get the police interested in even providing yellow caution tape to keep the area clear, my neighbor Ron Kleinhandler was the lucky beneficiary of at least 8 police officers blocking off our street and cutting a tree for him that posed no danger to anyone but filled his private yard. It makes me sick, and sad, to continue to support this neighborhood. Mr. Kleinhandler’s other neighbor, without any police courtesy, shelled out more than a thousand dollars today to have one of his trees cut apart as a result of the tornado. I am angry. And I can’t even imagine the frustration of others who can afford even fewer “courtesies.”
So sad about the trees. It was a tornado as it turns out, right? That’s the news.
As for the buildings that are allowed to fall apart – seize them from the owners!! The city will take away a building when the owners don’t pay their taxes, and do it so fast their head spins. But if you let it become dangerous to the public, it’s like who cares. I’m always so disgusted at this. Make a section on brownstoner called “Hall of Shame” where we can list all the neglected buildings in Brooklyn.
Since the Q train was not running from Cortelyou and people were reporting that there was not F train either, I took the Express bus into NYC.
I didn’t see any trees down on my walking on Cortelyou. Once on the bus as we got to Church Ave we passed a several block long swath of downed trees.
Most trees seem to have hit the sidewalk or street and missed the houses or parked cars. There was a huge tree that had brushed an apartment building on it’s way down and took a few window air conditioners along with it as it fell.
Will have to do a walk around the area (one I actually manage to get home, subway may still not be running) and see if their is damage in Ditmas Park West.
18-20 Jackson is a MESS! 3/4 of the building is gone. DOB has issued a vacate order on the adjacent property.
This WAS NOT due to last night’s rain…long standing problem!
Yep, look up walking the sidewalks of Brooklyn. You never know when a cornice will fall on your head. In this case, though, the building was being gutted and they were adding a fourth floor. The cornice probably came loose during the construction. But on closer inspection of the sidewalk detritus, the wood looked pretty rotten.
Send photos to brownstoner@brownstoner.com