Catching Up on the Bedford Avenue Building Boom
In recent years, the Orthodox community that has traditionally lived in South Williamsburg has expanded south into parts of Bed Stuy and Clinton Hill. Nowhere is this building boom more obvious than on Bedford Avenue between Willoughby and Flushing, where eight buildings (by our count) are currently under construction or reaching completion. And, by and…
In recent years, the Orthodox community that has traditionally lived in South Williamsburg has expanded south into parts of Bed Stuy and Clinton Hill. Nowhere is this building boom more obvious than on Bedford Avenue between Willoughby and Flushing, where eight buildings (by our count) are currently under construction or reaching completion. And, by and large, they’re pretty fugly. GMAP
The diamond trade out of Africa is AWFUL. Literally blood money, per the name, the “blood diamonds”. Nobody can justify that commerce in any way. Not at all.
I don’t know which welfare office 4:11 worked in but they are full of shit. I work for HRA through a privately contracted agency in the Williamsburgh area and know for a fact that they receive a significant portion of the welfare dollars doled out in this city. They are in the forms of housing subsidies, medicaid, food stamps, free school lunch, special educastion services and the highest number of school vouchers anywhere. and to 1:26 maybe the Brownstone readers wouldn’t consider living in the locations currently occupied by the Hasidim but there are many Black and Spanish families who wouldlove to live in one of the newly constructed ugly buildings who will not even get a chance to submit an application because the buildings will be given to Hasisidic families by the private Jewish developers before the cornerstone is laid. BTW diamonds are courtesy of some African getting paid pennies to risk his life in a diamond mine while a Jewish businessman make millions.
None of you posting your objections would even consider living in the locations that the Hasidum have taken over and developed. So why do you even care?
Oh I know, you have to drive by, or walk by the “fugly” buildings that hurt your eyes….grow up.
This is a non issue, but a great way to start a useless racial debate.
LOL @ 7:38.
I would also like to know how much these places go for. Someone should get a bunch of hipsters together to check out the Hassidic paper’s classifieds and start renting or buying up these units. I mean, hipsters LOVE Williamsburg and these places are right there. Hell, the places are even big enough to throw some killer loft parties. Get a bunch of skinny-jeaned hipters hanging out listening to Vampire Weekend, blowing some coke, some gay dudes making out in the hallways, a bunch of art school grads having rambunctious hipster orgies. Maybe Todd P can even start having shows in one of the basements.
I see the making of a great reality show. Maybe I’ll go try to get a few friends together and move into one of the places just to have a reason to start a blog.
Brenda, thank you for coming up with the only nice thing I can think of to say about the Satmar–they indeed have quaint costumes. Problem is, I don’t think their issue with a plan like yours would be about letting people into the community. It would be concern about the impact of letting their own people see what’s out there!
I do so wish that the Satmar or one of the other Hasidic sects would endear themselves to the rest of us by following the Shaker and Amish playbooks: nifty but simple design, tasty home-cooked food, and a shameless willingness to market your culture to tourists (with a boundary set for privacy and real-life living). They are such a waste of quaint costuming, darlings. Just think if they started a visitors’ center with a family-friendly kosher restaurant and interpretive exhibits about their culture, (and a gift shop with cute little beaver-hatted dolls and educational DVDs and stuff) and really milked the whole Fiddler-on-the-Roof thing, they could rake in enough money to get off welfare, fund their weird Israel-baiting political projects, and design handsome old-world housing with Succoth-hut balconies that even the AIA would love. My consulting services are FREE, people! Take advantage, already!
Hasideous.
To return to the subject of interest to all: with all the bulk in these buildings can anyone tell me: are these apartments affordable?
The buildings are still fugly. Fugly, fugly, fugly.