Friday Links
Crown Heights Cathedral. Photo by Betty Blade. In Coney Creek, Yellow Submarine Sticks Out [NY Times] Bernanke: Economy’s Going to Get Worse [NY Times] City’s Coney Island Plan Conflicts with Sitt’s [NY Times] Controversy Over Columbia St. Plan [Brooklyn Paper] Debate Over Traffic Studies Bill [NY Daily News] Weekend Subway Guide [NY Post] Kensington Stories…
Crown Heights Cathedral. Photo by Betty Blade.
In Coney Creek, Yellow Submarine Sticks Out [NY Times]
Bernanke: Economy’s Going to Get Worse [NY Times]
City’s Coney Island Plan Conflicts with Sitt’s [NY Times]
Controversy Over Columbia St. Plan [Brooklyn Paper]
Debate Over Traffic Studies Bill [NY Daily News]
Weekend Subway Guide [NY Post]
Kensington Stories [Kensington Blog]
The complaints the CB6 people raise are reactionary and naive. The Columbia Street developments have long been “non-contextual” in materials, for the last 20 years. Look at those developments. It doesn’t make them bad places to live. My in-laws live over there, nice place. Not a landmark but when they moved over there 20 years ago (leaving a rent controlled apartment for rich people to move into at market rates) it was the frontier. There is still a working waterfront over there which is good neighbors. Long Island College Hospital built an enormous garage on the other side of the highway for chrissake. Eighty feet is not the Empire State Building. This downzoning is ridiculous and anti-urban. And, Pugliese is supposed to be a union guy. The woman quoted is a loose cannon. Apparently the reporter cannot distinguish between sources.
How is that sidewalk parking is permitted on Eastern Parkway, as it is in front of this building? I’ve noticed the problem not only here, but at other locations, where Olmsted’s urban design for set-backs (intended as gardens) has been subverted by cars. (There’s even a car wash near the Brooklyn Museum, for crying out loud!) Eastern Parkway is one of Brooklyn’s jewels and it’s maddening to see it devolve into a highway strip with parking pads.
The old Kameo Theater was actually a fascinating building in its day. During the silent era, the roof slid back to cool the audience with the night air. With talkies, it stopped the practice because the neighbors complained about the noise. But as late as the 50’s and early 60’s it was a fun place to go for family-oriented double-features (especially when my classmates and I played hookie from school).
Nostalgic on Park Avenue
Another distinctive Crown Heights building.
Agreed, 10:15. New Yorkers, especially yuppies and white transplants, are very fearful of any change and become downright hysterical when any new building appears.
Re: Controversy over Columbia St. plan –
It is mindboggling and upsetting that almost any plan for development of new housing (which is in short supply in NYC) is always met with resistance. Sometimes I think we are more provincial and small-minded and selfish than any other part of this country.
The cathedral looks a lot better than the old Kameo theatre [at least in it’s declining days when I used to drive past it daily on my way to work].