Details On Brooklyn Bridge Park Housing
For the past five years, ever since the concept of using private development to help fund the ongoing operations of Brooklyn Bridge Park was floated, controversy has swirled. As Dennis Holt reports in The Brooklyn Eagle, the city agreed to revisit the idea, hiring a consultant to oversee the review. The process kicked off on…
For the past five years, ever since the concept of using private development to help fund the ongoing operations of Brooklyn Bridge Park was floated, controversy has swirled. As Dennis Holt reports in The Brooklyn Eagle, the city agreed to revisit the idea, hiring a consultant to oversee the review. The process kicked off on Tuesday night with a public meeting at LICH. At that meeting the Memorandum of Understanding that governs the review process was made available, and it included some interesting details about the potential developments that we were not aware of. The biggest is that if housing is approved, the first site to get developed would be the John Street site (not Pier 1, which has gotten most of the attention); nothing could start there until July of next year. And here’s how big all four projects would be:
What do you make of that?
What about naming rights as a source of annual revenue? Is it being considered? What did Barclays pay at AY, something like $400M over 20 years? Must be at least half a million workers in lower Manhattan looking at the Brooklyn Bridge Park waterfront everyday. I like the idea of making that screen thing (just a proposal I believe) that would cover the BQE the worlds largest electronic billboard. Cha-ching!
Bring on the luxury housing! And I agree with the thought of needing a modern day Moses to change some things in this town! We should preserve some of our history, but refusing to ever move forward strangles progress and hurts everyone in the end.
Minard;
Thanks!
I guess it’s fun to compare Robert Moses to Mao. I suppose it gives one a sense of moral virtue. As an argument, Minard, it’s weak, as is your name-calling.
Where do I argue against a public review process? I am arguing against those who ABUSE this process to advance their NIMBY/anti-development agenda.
Finally, history shows that many of Moses’ proposed projects were stopped or altered by the democratic process. A quick list would include: the cross-downtown Manhattan expressway, the cross-Midtown expressway and the Washington Square development. History also records that Riverside Park and the Henry Hudson Parkway were built in under three years, and under budget (by Robert Moses).
benson, you’re an architectural nincompoop.
We do not need a new Robert Moses or a Putin or a Mao or any other authoritarian strongman of your liking. The democratic process works by slowing down ill-conceived and damaging proposals.
The price we pay as a society is time, but it is well worth the price. This park has been improved by the public process and will continue to be so improved as work progresses.
Thank goodness that strong, independent New Yorkers finally stood up to the megamaniacal Moses before he destroyed the entire city.
You write the dumbest things sometimes.
There is absolutely no reason to oppose new residential buildings on the proposed site except NYMBY-ism. They will not block anyone’s views, they will contain their own garages, they will not entail the demolition of any historic resource, they will help separate the park from the highway, there is no reason to be afraid of them except for the irrational phobia of “new people” or “more people” -an argument more apropos in sleepy little villages in the country than in one of the largest cities on earth.
I has spoken!
Grand Pa;
Well said. To add to it: one of the iconic images of New York is the line-up of apartment buildings on 5th Ave or CPW, and their contrast with Central Park. Think of how many movies have overhead shots of the park and the line-up of 5th Ave buildings(Woodie Allen’s “Manhattan” and “Naked City” come to my mind right away). We used to celebrate such urbanity. Now we have the NIMBY/”Community input”/preserve-everything crowd who drag out any large development in this town, killing many of them. Yesterday it was the story of how the Domino’s project has been five years in planning, and lawsuits are still going on. Today it’s a RE-review of a park development plan.
I’ll repeat my mantra again: this town needs a latter-day Robert Moses to put a stop to this nonsense.
Star G-
No one is suggesting a mega structure, just standard urban buildings. There is virtually no population density around the park so by building around the park the City would be alleviating the crowding elsewhere in the City. I assume you would want to bulldoze all those “mega structures” around Central Park, Riverside Park and Gramercy Park.
Actually there were/are a number of buildings, including the 11 story one next door to Pier 6 at 360 Furman (aka 1BBP).
I am also hardly frightened by a tall building, but I think that there should be signifcant public discussion before turning an area that is otherwise bereft of transportation options into a skyscraper district.
735 units! Jaysus that’s a lot of inventory.
Brooklyn Bridge Park is going to be furking awesome!
***Bid half off peak comps***