Big Bucks for Jazzing Up 'Outdated' Fulton Mall
As part of a $40 million investment in the Downtown Brooklyn streetscape, the city’s Economic Development Corp. will pony up $15 million to spruce up the Fulton Street Mall. “You’ll have a great new open space a la Herald Square at 34th Street in Manhattan, and an overhaul of the Fulton Mall’s physical environment,” said…
As part of a $40 million investment in the Downtown Brooklyn streetscape, the city’s Economic Development Corp. will pony up $15 million to spruce up the Fulton Street Mall. “You’ll have a great new open space a la Herald Square at 34th Street in Manhattan, and an overhaul of the Fulton Mall’s physical environment,” said Joseph Chan, president of the city’s Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. The effort will include new bus shelters, benches and street furniture as well as the addition of new lights and trees. Another $3 million to $4 million will be out towards creating a 10,000-square-foot green space at the former Albee Square mall that could double as a place for public performances. Work is expected to begin a year from now. Even sooner, the greening of Downtown Brooklyn will also extend to two “gateway to Brooklyn” planting projects on Flatbush Avenue and Boerum Place.
$15 Mil for ‘Herald Square in Bklyn’ [NY Post]
you can’t see a darn thing from the rendering above to deem it dreadful.
if you can, it means you are a person who would complain about ANYTHING!
I agree that pedestrian malls just don’t work that well in American cities. They work in the fairy-tale-like centers of certain European cities like Munich, Stockholm, and Salzburg, but unless you are catering to a very affluent, concentrated group of locals and tourists, it doesn’t work. The mall has not killed Fulton Street but it has diminished it greatly. They need to rethink it. I think the rendering at the top of this thread is just dreadful.
Are they actually trying to make it as awful as possible?
anon 2:47- wouldn’t you think that if they can do all that rezoning, and fixing up of other areas, why can’t they do the same to improve the look of Fulton Mall? The problem I have with what they are doing is that the intent is to drive out the merchants nad clientele that have made Fulton Mall successful over the years.
So I guess it’s ok to be successful only if you’re also “classy” but not ok to be successful if you’re “tacky. So therefore, it’s only ok to throw money into an area to bring in rich white people and high end business because their money is somehow better than lower or middle income money- however much of it there is
?There is something inherently racist in the argument about putting money into Fulton St. to attract “better” stores and clientele. Why can’t they put money into Fulton St. to make it even more successful for the clientele who have made it sucessful in the first place? I shopped down there for years- still do- and there was a time when I was the only white face on the street. And I shopped in stores run by some of the hardest working merchants I ever met. Long hours, no money- certainly no help from the City. So now that Fulton St. is thriving the money grubbers come crawling out of the woodwork and find it desirable so long as the present businesses and patrons go away. I think that attitude is disgusting.
YOu want it pretty- fine. Do that- the people who shop there deserve a nicer environment. And they don’t deserve to be driven out.
fulton mall IS a pedestrian mall primarily.
i’d say 100,000 shoppers a day means they do indeed work.
Brower, the document you recall may have been the Downtown Study sponsored by the MAS, the Brooklyn Heights Association and a consortium of other white folks. Very few of these buildings have actually been officially designated by the city’s landmark agency.
The answer to the upper floor issue may be to join two or more of the smaller buildings so as to make it viable to put in an elevator and a second means of egress leading to more apartments. It can be done but it will require imagination.
Although it is obviously better to have these improvements than not, it won’t amount to anything substantial by way of aesthetic or economic improvement. What would really make a difference is tearing off all that cheap ’60s and ’70s metal sheeting and restoring (or replacing) the numerous 19th century storefront details hiding underneath. Then, let the vehicular traffic back. Pedestrian malls NEVER work.
1:57, I thought many of the other store buildings were protected. I remember seeing a week’s worth of pictures from a document about downtown’s buildings, here on Brownstoner, although I don’t have time to find the archive now.
In any case, that’s interesting about the smaller buildings, and too bad. I bet if solutions to the entrance probems could be found, there would be an eager market for these spaces. The ease of transportation and central location would make them a draw for any number of businesses.
Perhaps if the other parallel streets – Willoughby and Livingston, began to become more varied and interesting, many different kinds of shoppers and strollers could be drawn to the area. Livingston, in particular, has some wonderful buildings which could become great shops and restaurants.
Berlin, nothing stays the same in NY for very long. The currrent character of Fulton mall is realtively recent, it too will play itself out and make way for the next wave -whatever that may be. I don’t think that it will be Prada and Tiffany’s but it could well be
K-Mart and Century 21.