Pratties Develop Alternative Plans for Admiral's Row
Finally, an article in the mainstream media about Admiral’s Row that considers the possibility that the decision over the future of the site isn’t an all-or-nothing one, something that the blogs have been saying for some time now. Per this morning’s Brooklyn Eagle: The debate pits more well-off residents of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill,…
Finally, an article in the mainstream media about Admiral’s Row that considers the possibility that the decision over the future of the site isn’t an all-or-nothing one, something that the blogs have been saying for some time now. Per this morning’s Brooklyn Eagle:
The debate pits more well-off residents of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, who support preserving the houses, against the 12,000 residents of nearby public housing, who want a place to buy fresh food as well as the jobs that a supermarket could provide. But the controversy is not so simple, and many preservationists believe that both sides can have what they want.
A team of architecture and city planning professors and students at Pratt have come up with alternative designs for the site (one of which, from Prof. Brent Porter is shown above) that include the preservation of the 10 navy officer mansions (complete with green bells and whistles like solar panels and the construction of big-box retail). At least one of the proposals involves using the dilapidated houses for small businesses like a daycare center and a bookstore. The Navy Yard Development Corporation, however, says that ideas to preserve the houses simply aren’t feasible, citing independent studies that show it would cost between $30 and $50 million. (A study released by the National Guard in January pegged preservation costs at $18 million.) It’s just not economically viable, period, said Andrew Kimball, president and CEO of the corporation. It would basically involve rebuilding them from the ground up. These things are soaked and rotted.
Pratt Profs Seek To Reconcile Competing Plans for ‘Admirals’ Row’ [Brooklyn Eagle]
FGA Pushes Preservation Plus Market for Admirals’ Row [Brownstoner]
Admirals’ Row: Debate Still Framed as Either/Or Decision [Brownstoner]
Officers’ Row Supermarket Not Happening Anytime Soon [Brownstoner]
Ella,
Nice try, but my post in no way bordered on being racist.
Ageist, maybe. But, not racist.
A supermarket that is forced to hire the teenagers from the projects (of ANY race) will be a miserable place indeed.
How many teenagers does this Navy Yard summer program actually hire?
As was asked above, where’s the 12000 signatures of the folks saying they support this?
Your post borderlines on being racist, from your ivory tower dictating what these poor teenagers need.
You say the navy yard hires “plenty” of teenagers. I never see them.
5:57 – besides bordering on being racist, your post also contains many untruths. There are plenty of residents of the neighboring housing project who work at the Navy Yard. In addition, the Navy Yard has a specific summer program that hires teenagers from the local neighborhood to work in the Yard over the summer. Also, the Navy Yard has committed to make it a requirement that the supermarket have a program to encourage the hiring and training of the local population to work in the store.
Other than that you did pretty well.
Ella
Sorry, but you definitely are dumb. The argument is whether to restore the houses back to a museum like state, and have them be just that; a historical museum of sorts, or…knock them down and build a mall, parking lot, supermarket, etc.
No one, has suggested that they be developed into housing (as someone has already tried to tell you).
Er, so what, are you proposing office space, 8:17?
At a tune of $30 to $50 million renovation cost?
I’m not the dumb one.
No one, anywhere has suggested these should be made into housing. You are dumb, 8:00.
It’s not baloney to ask our city not to spend a gazillion dollars on building more high-income housing that nobody will buy because nobody is going to spend millions to live next to the navy yard WHERE THERE ARE NO AMENITIES.
You don’t need food, 5:57?? I’m sure many of your neighbors beg to differ.
One one thread everyone says there are too many condos flooding the market, but then on this thread people argue these need to be made into housing.
Which is it?
@4:39 Go! Create Jobs! Great Idea!
You don’t have to tear down these buildings to create jobs. These buildings aren’t stealing jobs from anyone.
It only makes sense to renovate into a mall? huh?
And I’ll let you in on a little secret… No-one wants to give jobs to the local teenagers!!
Try this: Go to the McDonalds on Tillary and Gold… and get a job application. I did exactly that when I was laid off. Guess what? They didn’t have ANY in english! They don’t want to hire local teenagers (and if you’ve ever patronized the local wendy’s, mcdonalds, burger king, duane reade, etc… you’d know why.)… they’d rather hire immigrants, because it is assumed they will have a proper work ethic.
How many teenagers you see getting off work from the Navy Yard every day? From the Cumberland Packaging Corporation? From tri-star building supply? From all the supply places on flushing avenue? From the stores on Park ave? Fix-a-flat? NONE.
Take your baloney elsewhere.
Preservation needs to be a balance, sure. But we need no mall, no supermarket, none of it, here.
Those buildings are cool but sadly they are just too far gone and neglected. Parts of the facades or a building here or there can be nicely implemented into a shopping mall. But to fully restore the buildings intact as housing? It really doesn’t make sense.
People need to have a larger longer view and realize how important jobs are to a local economy. Just because YOU aren’t going to apply to work there doesn’t mean you won’t benefit from more local jobs. Benefits like just to name a couple examples, teenagers getting jobs as opposed to hanging out on the sidewalks causing trouble, and people who are laid off (or a spouse who wants to bring in extra income) can take a retail job as a cushion thereby avoiding foreclosure or accumulating crippling debt. Preservation has to be balanced with other considerations or it’s totally NIMBY and exclusionary.