FCR Begins Dean Street Demo, Claiming Safety
After leaving them open to the elements for the past year and a half, Bruce Ratner began demolition of 461-463 Dean Street this week claiming that they are a safety hazard. Hmmmm, those workmen don’t look like they are worried the building is about to collapse. Demo Slated for Dean Street [Brownstoner] GMAP Dean Street…
After leaving them open to the elements for the past year and a half, Bruce Ratner began demolition of 461-463 Dean Street this week claiming that they are a safety hazard. Hmmmm, those workmen don’t look like they are worried the building is about to collapse.
Demo Slated for Dean Street [Brownstoner] GMAP
Dean Street Demolition Porn [Curbed]
Prospect Heights will not be destroyed, only enhanced. It’s all a matter of opinion.
Re moving a few blocks – this neighborhood happens to be my home, where I have lived for the past 25 years (some of which were very challenging) raised my children and where I hope to live for the rest of my life. I don’t see why the neighborhood should be destroyed by the greed of a developer with the collusion of a state agency.
Eminent Domain – gotcha!!!
When David said “ED” (with both capitalized) he was refering to Eminent Domain, not Ed the guy who posts on this site. 😛
Excellent point, Ed. People behave as though they’ll fall off the face of the earth if they travel east of Classon Avenue. Brooklyn is enormous and there will always be plenty of quiet neighborhods for those that prefer them.
This is Ed. Which “Ed” are you talking about???
Anyway, I know that development is a tricky issue, but I have to say, I’m psyched for the Ratner development, provided he do a better job than he did with Metrotech and Atlantic Center. Gehry on board leads one to believe it will be better.
I’m sorry for the few people who are getting booted out, but for the rest of us, it means our neighborhoods should improve further.
Fortunately, there are enough historic districts and building height limitations in Brooklyn that I don’t think we have to worry about it turning into Manhattan any time soon.
I think the development is exciting, and I don’t understand why others don’t. Move further into Brooklyn if you want smaller-scale.
Sarah, ED is so irrelevant at this point – there are 3 owners (of multimillion dollar condos – built in the last 4 yrs) and 57 renters left living on the site. The ED ship has sailed….
The remaining hurdle is the EIS and what avenues of litigation it opens.
I think there is some confusion about Ratner and property rights. Yes he does own the buildings but he was not orignially allowed to do any demolition of them until the state approved the environmental impact survey. (Which they have not completed and which will have an impact not only in this neighborhood, but all of the surrounding neighborhoods.) The way that Ratner got around it was to get the building declared a safety hazard by his engineer. DDD fought the case in court and lost. So Ratner is allowed to tear down the “unsafe buildings”, but not allowed to build anything on the property until the survey is completed and hopefully modified. Until then we are looking at empty lots of self-created blight, which will help him win eminent domain.
“greed of the wealthy developers triumphs over the lives of the middleclass and poor.”
What poor? Hahahahaha! What a joke! Now Park Slope, Prospect Heights and Fort Greene are inhabited by the poor – living in multi-million dollar homes – who now need our protection!! Ha! No one is ever poor when folks are beating their chest about how fabulous their nabes are. But when the argument serves their purpose, all of a sudden the entire community is riddled with poor people! Pathetic.
The AY opposition’s attempt to make this an issue about jobs, affordable housing and the poor is so transparent and disgusting. They never cared about the poor until someone with more money wanted to knock down a few decrepit buildings, build over a dilapidated rail yard and erect some luxury high rises next to an arena.
Perhaps if the opposition had their ducks in proper order they could’ve won and stopped the development but they were just too sloppy – from the very beginning to the bitter end. Sloppy!