Streetlevel: Nigerian No Time Soon in Fort Greene
Fort Greeners who’ve been waiting with bated breath for the Nigerian restaurant to open at the corner of Lafayette and Cumberland are going to have to wait a little longer. As it turns out, all the work on the ground-floor space—including new storefront windows—was done without permission from either the Department of Buildings or the…
Fort Greeners who’ve been waiting with bated breath for the Nigerian restaurant to open at the corner of Lafayette and Cumberland are going to have to wait a little longer. As it turns out, all the work on the ground-floor space—including new storefront windows—was done without permission from either the Department of Buildings or the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Oops. That kind of mess could take months to unwind.
Streetlevel: Nigerian, Not Thai, for Lafayette [Brownstoner] GMAP P*Shark DOB
11:19 here – Thanks, 8:25, you bet I did. I got out my hearing aids and my old tin hat and kazoo(they’re collectible now), and partied down. Just wait a couple years, you’ll see – lots of things get better with age, not only the price of landmarked real estate. There’s even hope for 9:05 – the youngster still has time to learn spelling and manners before s/he “rolls over and dies.”
In the words of the immortal Don Marquis, “There’s a dance in the old dame yet!” Happy New Year, whippersnappers!
Hey Papi: Is that a crack in the building? Looks like it’s going to cave in.
11:19 hope you could hear the fireworks and the popping of champagne, enjoy the party!
9:05: Are you serious? “The old are the greedy ones for selling for ridiculous amounts”? Excuse me, I’m probably older (or at least wiser) than you, so of COURSE I’m not entitled to fair market value for my property. But I’m a little hard of hearing, so let me see if I heard you right: I should sell to you at a humongous discount because you’re “finally able to buy a home in your 30s-40s”, when I bought a home a few decades back (in my twenties) at a time when far fewer people wanted to live in Fort Greene – so it was affordable to a graduate student working two jobs. I may be old, I may be deaf, but senile I’m not. And now I’m off to do some serious partying. Happy New Year!
6:33, what is this bull about priviledged kids moving the old poor out? The old are the greedy ones selling for rediculous amounts to people who are finally able to buy a home in their 30s-40s. If the old had treated their own kids better then maybe they’d be there to help them through the bureaucratic crap the officials they elected created long before the newbies arrived. The old guard bought low, so if they’re not interested in selling they can take out a damn line of credit and hire an architect, expediter, etc. like the newbies have had to. Or you could just roll over and die.
6:33 put up or shut up. all things must pass including you. hipsters are here to take over like or not. my parents and people your age bred us and you created monsters on this planet, then blame it on us. so puhleeze don’t cry over spilt milk and be glad it’s another year in a few hours!
YEAH…PUSH OUT THE ELDERLY, THE COLORED AND THE POOR…DON’T WANT THEM IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD WHERE THEY HAVE LIVED FOR YEARS BECAUSE THEY CANNOT HANDLE THE ADMINISTRATIVE BURDEN AND COSTS OF LALALAND.
5:42…do you see what terrible taste your comment is in?!
Ugh…
Hhh…sad…
Look, we have jumped through all the hoops in terms of our past renovation so please get it out of your head that I am somehow the owner of the property in question.
Now…
There are LOTSSS of things happening in landmarked neighborhoods (FG included) that homeowners fail to pass through Landmarks: new windows, outdoor lighting, garbage enclosures, mysterious removed front railing (on Cumberland), changes to the color on new paint jobs of clapboard houses (numerous example in the nabe), changed entry doors, etc…
Look, I hate some of the non-historic changes and have pangs when I see old casings, doors and curved top transom frames in dumpsters…half the time I want to call in on the people (the evil doers…) but frankly, I resist even though, yes, it galls me when I know we did everything by the book and paid through the nose…but you have to choose your battles and also, not necessarily wreck other people’s lives.
Okay, listen…In an ideal and decent world, instead of just setting up landmarking and the burdens it entails on middle and low income neighborhoods and then letting so many people get pushed out of their homes over time, there should be funds available, city architects, etc., etc., etc. Even a non-profit like Legal Aid set up with architects would be a start. The burden and costs are laid on property owners, many of whom do not have the chunk of dough associated with privilege and/or a new mortgage to go out and pay the $3K to $5K for “expediting” (i.e. “grease”) costs or $10-40K in architect’s fees.
And in neighborhoods where people have aged and are reaching 80 years old YES, there should be help out there. The situation is, frankly, abysmal. You wouldn’t find it this way in Germany or France where there is a great sense of historic preservation. There is state and city help for people, ESPECIALLY, when they are seniors, to get help maintaining the historic integrity of their properties. What? We have the lovely jerks at champagne-brunch the Preservation Trust? Sometimes that group does more harm than good…same goes for NHS.
No…because all the 20 and 30-somethings (and some slightly older and likely privileged people) now moving in who are steeped in the Wild-West/Survival-of-the-fittest upbringing rammed down our throats since 1980 (actually earlier), it is okay to think and write that people should just move along and step aside, or better disappear, when a wealthier set decides to move into a neighborhood?
As I wrote last week on Brownstoner regarding the newbies: “bathed in the waters of retrograde and reactionary rhetoric”
(http://bstoner.wpengine.com/brownstoner/archives/2007/12/thursday_blogwr_26.php#comments)
Where is Mountrose Morris when you need him to add to this discussion? Probably everyone’s off celebrating…maybe we’ll get more comments tomorrow on this thread.
Frankly, these landmarked neighborhoods have survived to a large extent because they were low income neighborhoods that benefited from benign neglect before and after landmark designation. Because of this, FG, luckily, ended up with few bad examples of “fieldstoning” of brownstone facades, paving of front yards, etc. The main thing that damaged buildings or led to their removal in FG was block busting on the one hand and on the other the Brooklyn Hospital’s effort, I hear, to buy up and rip down buildings (back in the day) trying to consolidate enough lots to expand.
Look what happened because the buildings at Greene and Carlton got ripped down years ago: a metal-sheathed tower that ended up much taller than the promised “same height as the old Eye and Ear Hospital”
Some of the infill horrors that have gone up in FG and CH (some small, some rather large) are ugly and some, hideous.
The changes to “Mr. Tommy’s French Cleaners” are relatively minor and, ultimately, not that bad.
[Musing] I wonder if the tattletale would have called DOB and the LPC if a different type of restaurant or a chi-chi dress shop was opening?…
Addendum response to 6:05:
1) The rent amount was agreed upon (and not very high) in a solid lease agreement…no measure of lying on the part of the bodega owners can reverse that fact.
2) They said they planned on opening a pet food store. That was the agreed upon usage…are they now saying they planned on opening an organic store?! Hhhh…sounds like revisionism with a sense of PR. If they want to go organic, they can do just as well where they are now in their own space, a building apparently owned by the family, WAY undermaintained, apartments a mess, repointing desperately needed. That bodega building is an eyesore, the rental they have behind for a car service is yucky, they redid their signage and lighting outdoors and never filed…
3)The cost of repairs exceeded the deposit entirely. No questions asked. The owner won against the tenant hands down.
4)Yes, the fencing may squeeze sidewalk pedestrian traffic but it is well within the legal property line…oh well…and frankly, it does enclose a space deep enough for one row of small tables up against the building so will probably be used for outdoor dining.
I’m really wondering at this point what the hell you all are arguing about. As I see it, someone gave Mr. B a story tip. Having reported it, someone else with more detailed knowledge of the situation, has now provided some of those details. Although the latter poster impressess as clearly pro-owner (maybe the attorney, perhaps?) I don’t hear him/her arguing that the violations should be waived or that the owner should not have to comply with LPC guidelines.
1:28, it sounds to me like you are the one, in fact, who is missing the point.
What is the problem here in sharing a more rounded out statement of the facts? In doing so, it might actually help others who may be similarly situated and lurking here to avoid making the same mistakes.
The climate on this blog seems to be getting worse and worse as time goes by. Must every thread descend into a slugfest? It’s a new year people! Stop being so damn angry!
Random points about the situation:
1) The old man dramatically raised the rent on the bodega guys after the lease was signed, but before the construction started. Whether any damage to the central support was done out of incompetence or maliciousness might make for an interesting story
2) The bodgea guys were going to open an organic market or a pet food supply place (if the latter, they were thankfully stopped just in time)
3) Their deposit was kept, and exceeded the costs of repairs/reversals
4) that fence they’re installing is really stupid; not wide enough for decent outdoor dining, basically it just squeezes sidewalk traffic