Brooklyn House of Detention Plans Falter
Ideas for adding new uses to the Brooklyn House of Detention seem to be going nowhere. After the Observer reported that the city was giving up on its plan to allow for retail and condos jail because of a lack of developer interest, the Brooklyn Paper followed up last week with an article saying there’s…
Ideas for adding new uses to the Brooklyn House of Detention seem to be going nowhere. After the Observer reported that the city was giving up on its plan to allow for retail and condos jail because of a lack of developer interest, the Brooklyn Paper followed up last week with an article saying there’s been talk of putting a new middle school in the jail at Atlantic and Smith. This week, though, the paper files a story saying city has officially abandoned the school-jail proposal. The condo plan was originally floated because the city wants to make the jail’s 2012 reopening and expansion (it’s supposed to go from 749 to 1,469 inmates) more palatable to the surrounding community. Last week Marty Markowitz told the Daily News that he’s still searching for “creative ideas for the site.”
Sorry Bids Shove Shiv in City’s Plans to Expand Brooklyn Jail [NY Observer] GMAP
Jail Middle School is Sentenced to Death [Brooklyn Paper]
Lock ‘Em Up [Brooklyn Paper]
No go for new Condominium Complex [NY Daily News]
the best thing to do, with this jails is to put every one, that supports the idea,in it. and then lock all you mother fuckers inside, then burn down the motherfucker the real criminals is the city the Gov,n.y.p.d ect stop kidnappers. people don’t put them selfs in your fucking so call jails. motherfuckers like you kidnappers, put the inocents and them and then you try to make them think, they are criminals. i get pay to said, what other are afraid to said. ya be original get off the dick you motherfucking,calling cops.
For this result to be at all acceptable with the community, they would need to tear this eyesore down and start completely over and model it after the Manhattan house of detention. Instead, sounds like the city just wants to build an equally ineffecient eyesore on the back. The RFP the city issued seemed pretty unreasonably to me. No wonder they didn’t get any good responses. Maybe they should change the RFP before they give up and screw the community.
Unfortunate for Guiliani but fortunate for the country. I can not imagine that megalomaniac as President. Ghouliani or Crueliani, as many of us that worked for him so often called him, was and is an ass. His children don’t even like him. Besides his horrible personality he takes credit for things that he actually had no hand in. Crime would have dropped naturally because of NYC’s aging baby boomer population. The funding for additional cops was requested during the Dinkins era. On 9/11, it was his fault that the FDNY did not have the proper radio equipment to give them the signal that the towers were in danger of collapse. He chose to put his command center in a building that had already been the target of a terrorist attack. Over twenty people hand selected by him because of their loyalty not competence to work in his administration are either in prison, under federal investigation or served their time in prison for wrongdoing. He held all of his Commissioners responsible for what went on in their prospective agencies so their is no way that he did not know of the wrongdoing among his inner circle.
Bernie Kerik – NYPD/NYCD Commish. Guilty and now under investigation.
Anthony Serra- Guilty. NYCD Ass. Chief Served his time in the Feds.
Fitzgerald Patrick- Guilty. NYPD/NYCD Deputy Commish. Served his time in the Feds.
The list goes on…..
I worked for the city under guiliani, he was difficult to work for. very paranoid, very odd, just a nightmare. Looked at 100 sites finally chose the world trade center for his emergency command headquarters. I am sure that if there was an urban design mistake to be made he and his administration would make it. The botched jail on Atlantic Avenue is a good example. I am glad he seems to be facing total humiliation in the primary races. He is such a sissy he does not run in states where he thinks he does not have a good chance of winning. Unfotunately for him that is abour 48 states.
This mess was made during the Guiliani/Kerik era when the two thought that the city was their oyster. They did not consider putting residential or commercial space in the building because they didn’t care what the residents thought. The Manhattan House of Detention which is on Centre Street between White and Walker – one block south of Canal, fits into the streetscape with commercial business, mostly restaurants, surrounding the base of the building and the jail on top. Most people pass and don’t realize that it is actually a jail. Of course this building was planned and built under Koch/Dinkins. The Raymond Street jail was actually located on Willougby and Raymond Street. Raymond Street is now known as Ashland Place. Still downtown though. Their was a small jail/half way house where LICH now stands but I don’t think it was in use for very long.
So the Raymond Street Jail was where LICH is now. How interseting. I wonder where Raymond Street was. I do not believe that there is any other locale where the jail could go where locals would not stage a full-court press to block it. But I do think that the Corrections Dept. could have knowcked this building down years ago and built a more efficient and humane new building, with retail along Atlantic Avenue so as not to be such an break in the streetscape. I agree that the plans for this site have been marked by extreme incompetence and wastefulness. Can a government agency ever get it right? The answer in our town is, sadly, no, not very often.
I stand corrected, the Raymond Street jail opened in 1838! So for all of the preservation-minded, all the more reason for a jail to remain downtown Brooklyn.
No. 1- Why demolish a recently refurbished jail?
No. 2- If my neighborhood is not “prime growth,” I should then have a new jail built in my backyard?
No. 3- Isn’t everywhere downtown Brooklyn within proximity to the courts, a prime growth area?
This jail has graced Atlantic Avenue since 1963 when Brooklyn’s Raymond Street jail was closed and demolished. Raymond Street jail BTW was where Long Island College Hospital now stands. Still downtown Brooklyn. This area has always had a jail going back to the 1890’s. The Brooklyn House should be landmarked!
I think 5:00 was trying to be cute/synical. But he/she raises a good point. This land should probably be recycled for housing. A detention center on this property is not an efficient use of land. This property is located in prime growth area. The city might be better off disposing of it to a private developer or transfering it to a city agency to RFP as residential/retail. There are lower cost areas that can house the jail within the court mandated radius.