Friday Links
Months After Cutbacks, MTA Approves Higher Fees [NY Times] Brighton Beach Reality Show to Become a Reality [New York Times] Coney Island Development Chief Moves to Staten Island [NY Post] Brooklyn Bakery Bread Product Recalled [NY Post] Brooklyn Bus Kills Boy [NY Post] Flatbush Gardens, Haven or Hell Hole? [NY Daily News] Musician, Wife, and…
Months After Cutbacks, MTA Approves Higher Fees [NY Times]
Brighton Beach Reality Show to Become a Reality [New York Times]
Coney Island Development Chief Moves to Staten Island [NY Post]
Brooklyn Bakery Bread Product Recalled [NY Post]
Brooklyn Bus Kills Boy [NY Post]
Flatbush Gardens, Haven or Hell Hole? [NY Daily News]
Musician, Wife, and Baby Call Pink Bus in Williamsburg Home [NY Daily News]
The Goofiest of Garage Bands [WSJ]
City Wants Wind Mills for Red Hook [Brooklyn Paper]
1,500 People Attend First Green Block Party [Brooklyn Eagle]
Witness to a New Waterfront [Brooklyn Eagle]
Activists Seeks to Prevent Construction Near Waterfront [Real Deal]
Barney’s Co-Op to Open October 14 [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
“What the hell have you done to invest in this city’s housing stock, other than that tinderbox in Flatbush?”
Thanks to benson for being so classy and not making things personal, hey? You are way over the line benson.
Brenda;
By the way: google “Vanderveer Estates” and look up the history of this development. This development literally beat some previous landlords, its problems were so intractable. Here you have folks who have invested 10’s of millions of dollars, are not evicting anybody, and are looking for a new tenant mix as units come on-line. All that you, the ultimate frownstoner, can do is tsk-tsk your disapproaval.
Grand Army and Montrose;
I call your attention to the fact tha the two buidlings that have been built recently facing Prospect Park (the one on 9th Street and the Meir building on GAP) are both top-rate architecturally, even if they are not your cup of tea.
Developers know their market. If you are building on a rough-edged street like 4th Ave, you build one type of building. If you build on a premium street, you build another type.
Montrose, how about this for outdated: No elevator, lousy layouts, no central air, no W/D hookup and probably exposed pipes everywhere.
Brenda from Flatbush:
You are the biggest Debby Downer on this site. You spout your negativity even when you don’t know what you’re talking about. Flatbush Gardens, formerly called Vanderveer Estates, has been one of the most troubled housing developments in the city’s history. Cheaply built and poorly maintained from the outset, it became a hellhole. The current owners have invested TENS of millions of dollars to try to make it a decent place to live. So they are trying to target a new market to make for a more balanced residential mix. So friggin what? The folks who live there would most certainly welcome an improved tenent mix, given what they have had to endure.
What the hell have you done to invest in this city’s housing stock, other than that tinderbox in Flatbush?
If the couple in the pink bus weren’t hipsters, ACS would already be there. Because of the article, ACS may come. Not the smartest move, parents.
Good lord, Brenda, that sounds absolutely horrifying. Right up there with the baby that is going to freeze to death this winter if its parents don’t wise up.
benson: I couldn’t disagree more about PPW. As has been much discussed on this site, look at the huge disappointment presented by the redevelopment of 4th Ave. I was all for replacing the under-scaled, outdated, and — for the large part — architecturally undistinguished buildings lining the street. But what has been built there? The most mediocre, drab, dull apartment buildings imaginable. And almost all offering zero contribution to the street life of 4th Ave: HVAC vents and medical offices occupying most of the ground floor space. PPW, on the other hand, has a wonderful mix of brownstones, mansions (many repurposed as schools or other semi-public spaces), and early 20th century apartment buildings. What’s not to like?
Not legal. Baby will freeze to death. What are they using for heat, the cat and a cigarette? They should consider this their summer cottage, look for a cave to get through the winter.
I commend the “Flatbush Gardens” story in the Daily News to your attention. To see one of the most nakedly cynical RE marketing ploys in recent memory, check out the FG website in which only white or biracial couples are featured, and (in the bizarre video) a Midwestern white guy sings the praises of the project (which has just racked up its 3rd murder of 2010), and the local black children playing in a schoolyard are used as scenery to illustrate the “promise” of the neighborhood he has adopted.
http://www.flatbushgardens.net/brooklynapartments-video/
It’s like a parody for “Stuff White People Like,” superimposed on a real-life hot spot for tragic black-on-black homicide…I don’t know the area or the development myself (I’m Brenda from Flatbush, not East Flatbush, and thus no expert), but I’d love to see the backstory on this weirdly blatant marketing campaign by owners who are described in the News story as “slumlords.” If I lived here, seeing this website would make the blood vessels in my brain pop.
benson, you’re outdated and need major reno.