Friday Links
The Gowanus. Photo by Zach Stern. Home Equity Frenzy Was a Bank Ad Come True [NY Times] Concessions Made in Plan for Homeless in Brooklyn [NY Times] Greenpoint Park Still a Parking Lot [NY Daily News] Groups Seek Alternative to Controversial DUMBO School [Brooklyn Daily Eagle] Bidding War Drives Price Up in Gowanus Lot Sale…
The Gowanus. Photo by Zach Stern.
Home Equity Frenzy Was a Bank Ad Come True [NY Times]
Concessions Made in Plan for Homeless in Brooklyn [NY Times]
Greenpoint Park Still a Parking Lot [NY Daily News]
Groups Seek Alternative to Controversial DUMBO School [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]
Bidding War Drives Price Up in Gowanus Lot Sale [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]
Brooklyn Lawmakers Promote Beach Safety [NY1]
Hard Times Won’t Dampen Brooklyn West Indian Day [Caribbean World News]
Chicago is doing something like that with our money from congestion pricing.
Another route that screams out for “street car” is between the Slope/Heights/FG area and Williamsburg/Greenpoint. Right now these two Brooklyn neighborhoods are like different countries.
Extremely cool. i saw that article yesterday and I still think a light rail system would be great in NYC. We’re spending millions (billions?) building a new subway line on the east side- I think that money would be better spent improving the public transportation system all over the city. (And I’m sure to hear screaming on that statement.)
Hey, you missed this article on urban streetcars in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/us/14streetcar.html?em
I love streetcars. We should buy some of the old double decker ones from Hong Kong and run them from Grand Army Plaza to Red Hook, along Union Street and Columbia Street. How cool would that be, to be able to hop on and off a streetcar that connected Park Slope, Gowanus, Cobble Hill and the Hook?
Indeed they can’t. And isn’t this just another indication of Bloomberg’s slash and burn community policies? And what exactly do they mean “shipping” men here? Are they busing them in? Are they going to give them transportation money?
Not only can’t they be trusted, but they can’t even be expected to have the facts or have realistic plans for contingencies because Bloomberg essentially wants to sweep Manhattan’s problems under the rug so it doesn’t frighten the tourists. And Brooklyn is the convenient rug. And with money so tight I will take bets there will be no new Manhattan center.
As to the City’s “concessions” on the move of the homeless intake center to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory:
First, any move by the City to redirect the flow of the homeless to the Crown Heights community is unacceptable. We already have way more than our fair share of homeless services. And even if the City splits intake between 2 centers, Crown Heights, and the neighborhoods between CH and Manhattan (FG, CH, PH, PS, downtown), will experience thousands and thousands of additional transient homeless men passing through each year.
Second, you will have to excuse us if we view the City’s ambiguous promise with a degree of skepticism. they have not acted in good faith so far – trying to sneak this change past the community at first, then gaming the numbers and feigning ignorance when confronted. Now they claim they will create a new intake center of undetermined size at an undetermined location when they “close the Manhattan site”. We’ve been told they expect to start shipping men to the B-A Armory this fall (beds have already been moved in). But their “new Manhattan Center” won’t be online until June 2009 (if it indeed ever happens). They cannot be trusted.
That Greenpoint park would have an excellent view. The waste of waterfront in this city has been huge, and I’m glad to see it’s being turned around. After the collapse of the waterways as a major thoroughfare of commerce it seems that the citizens of the city at the time just scratched their heads and then turned their backs on the waterfront.