Bigger But Not Better in The Slope

I have a hard time with the whole movement to landmark whole blocks/neighborhoods. Part of me appreciates the old-style architecture of some blocks and the uniformity therein. Then another part of me says hold on – unless each individual building has some sort of historical significance, we should be hesitant to want to keep something the way it is *just because* it’s old and pretty in someone’s opinion. I personally would not want to live in an historic neighborhood because I just don’t see myself paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps even millions, for a private house and then having a group of people tell me what I can and cannot do with things like my stoop or windows. I think that before everyone goes off and tries to burn the developer at the stake for building something like this (which in my opinion is no real prize), you need to go back and put some of that blame with the previous homeowner who chose to sell it to the developer. Are we going to fault homeowners for selling to developers who will tear down their ‘period appropriate’ and ‘uniform’ dwelling to put up tall blocks of pink brink? If you really care about the preservation of the “historic fabric and unique “sense of place” of a given neighborhood or street, then you need to answer that question in the affirmative. A developer can’t rip down what you consider worthy of preservation if your neighbors cared enough to refuse to sell it to them. Yes, you can say that homeowner, especially desperate ones in today’s declining market, can and will sell to whoever has a fat check for them. But make no mistake, the developer is not the only one in this scenario with horn sprouting from his head.

The new building is kinda ugly in my opinion; the old building was nothing special either…
But as long as we have private property rights (and the building/block) is not landmarked then (thank god) the community has no say (beyond some pretty stringent zoning rules).
The amusing (and scary part – since people can vote) is that everyone thinks the are entitled to a say and expects some ‘community benefit’!

NEWSFLASH: It aint your property so your not supposed to “gain” anything

I would assume that one of the main appeals of being in Park Slope is the abundance of old architecture. So why put up something like this there? (other than the high property values, which were created by the charm of the neighborhood) If P.S. was full of houses that looked like this one, who would want to live there?

The original house was very charming. The new Soviet era Bloc building- not nearly so much. But that’s how old neighborhoods get destroyed, building by building. Unless the block is landmarked.

“Why such ugly and poorly contructed buildings”

CHL;

To each his own regarding aesthetics, but I was wondering how you can know, from looking at a photo on a blog, that this building is poorly constructed?