Desperately Proposing Alternative Uses for Jail
November 28, 2005, NY Daily News — A jail located smack in downtown Brooklyn is set to house inmates once again – but now housing and retail may be included on the Atlantic Ave. site. Despite protest from groups who want the Brooklyn House of Detention closed forever, the city can reopen the 11-story facility…
November 28, 2005, NY Daily News — A jail located smack in downtown Brooklyn is set to house inmates once again – but now housing and retail may be included on the Atlantic Ave. site. Despite protest from groups who want the Brooklyn House of Detention closed forever, the city can reopen the 11-story facility at any time. The jail – shuttered two years ago because of the declining population behind bars – will likely reopen in 2007 when an East River jail barge is closed for repairs. Faced with the prospect of an 815-bed jail reopening near hundreds of new luxury condo apartments and two trendy shopping and restaurant streets, residents and Borough President Marty Markowitz suggested the facility be integrated into a larger mixed-use development. “The idea was raised by the community if it was possible for some mixed-use design on an existing part of the facility we don’t need or on space that could be built on,” Antenen said. “We didn’t close the door on it.” Markowitz asked Pratt Institute architecture students to come up with possible designs for the jail/housing/shopping complex by next month.
Mixed Use Proposal for Jail [NY Daily News]
Let say up front that I am not very sympathetic to the anti-gentrification rhetoric that seems to flow so freely in this city. When my white, professional mom bought a house in Park Slope in 1974 we were clearly part of a longer term trend. Our block was literally in the middle of the slope, yet a third of the buildings were burned out and abandoned. Another third were two-family houses/brownstones and the remainder were tenaments with renters, many of which had been in their apartments for generations.
The abandoned buildings brought a type of excitement that we really didn’t need, so while we were a little wary of the developer up the block who converted some of shells into coops, it was a vast improvement.
What followed was a bit of a golden age. There was an active block association with block parties, street cleaning, crime watches, window box drives, etc. Both homeowners and renters from the tenaments were part of this. But through all of this, the coop dwellers were never really involved. Signs would go up, but they never showed up at meetings or participated in events. Often there was high turnover and they just weren’t the type of people that were invested in the block. As more and more of the tenaments became coops, the active block association dwindled until it disappeared.
Now the house owners are still pretty close knit. Many have lived in their houses for more than 30 years and watched each other’s kids grow up. Neighbors have big multi-house parties in their yards, many of which are connected with gates. Even as the value of their homes has doubled then tripled and, at least in the case of my mom risen more than 30-fold, many have remained.
The co-op residents still turnover a lot and are still not really part of the block. Every week someone moves in and someone moves out. This isn’t a gentrification issue, it’s a values issue. The “luxury condo” is about luxury, not community or fellowship. It’s about flipping and subletting and leaving for work early and coming home late and having a washing machine in your apartment. It’s useful and important to have these types of developments, no doubt.
It’s just bland.
Bland areas? What do you mean by that bkborn? Please explain.
David:
Rent growth has been slow to moderate over the last 5 years and housing development rates citywide are at the fastest rate since the early 1970s. Rent increases have been particularly slow and development rates particularly fast in the outer boroughs. Rattner is about to put in thousands of units a mile away and there are four new or converted apartment buildings completed or in progress within a block of House of Detention. Smith Street, Court Street and Atlantic Avenue must have at least 100 restaurants. There’s a Macy’s three blocks away, a Target at Atlantic Terminal and a multiplex two block away.
There appears to be ample development in this area.
Overcompensated is a comment on the the types of people that live in the new developments in the close-in communities. Their compensation is such that they are compelled to live in bland areas as long as they are close to the office. (I’m doing just fine by the way.)
ahh-hah! So iceberg (is that slang for a crystal-meth addict?) you are a self-admitted anarchist, gee, thats such a great way to operate, just ask the Somilies. On the other hand there would be no one to put us in jail when people like you get murdered, so maybe its not such a bad idea after all! All hail the rule of the gun! lol.
And you cant even turn left in NJ. Is there anything dumber than ‘jughandles’
send our civil service jobs to new jersey, that is crazy talk. New jersey sux they can’t even keep track of what person they issue drivers licenses to. Why would we sanction such a drive toward lower performance? I mean have you been there?
It also makes no sense from a logistics sense, what, I have to go to New Jersey to get a building permit or renew my drivers license? We are gonna have building inspectors spend half the day to drive to jersey to report for work, and then drive back to New York where they can actually start inspecting buildings? You wanna do this for trash collectors, police, fire, etc? Stop reading atlas shrugged, its interfereing with your common sense.
bkborn – while I really have no problem with keeping the jail where it is – the rest of your post is so assine that I find myself responding (I know I shouldnt)
The reason why people would like to see so much redevelopment is exactly because there arent enough -apartment buildings, restaurants and retail. And it is this shortage that contributes to people moving out of the city. As to people being over compensated – I assume this is just some throwaay comment made out of bitter resentment.
The proof of the shortage that I speak is the fact that NY has insanley high housing costs, and retail rents. If there was more housing, than the supply would inevitably lower the cost (over the long term) and if the retail rents were too high then retail and restaurants would not be able to sustain their biz and overtime the number of vacancies would lower rents.
While you (and many others) would apparently like to keep things the way they were, others of us, dont like to see prime real estate (45 min from mid-town) lying dormant or worse (garbage strewn, graffiti filled and rat infested). Therefore we hope for redevelopment to fill in these black eyes and to provide jobs, economic activity and the change and vibrancy any successful city needs.
That said we need jails too.
I don’t think it’s such an ugly building either. Frankly, a lot of those Fedders apartment houses are much more aggressively ugly.
http://gothamgazette.com/community/33/news/1366