On Flatbush, a $3 Billion Pipeline of Projects
There is more than $3.1 billion of construction projects in the pipeline for the one mile stretch of Flatbush Avenue between the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburgh Bank building, calculates The New York Post this morning. Here’s how it breaks down: In addition, there’s another $1 billion in projects off the northern end of Flatbush…
There is more than $3.1 billion of construction projects in the pipeline for the one mile stretch of Flatbush Avenue between the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburgh Bank building, calculates The New York Post this morning. Here’s how it breaks down: 
In addition, there’s another $1 billion in projects off the northern end of Flatbush and, of course, a $4 billion project some of you may have heard of called Atlantic Yards. “Flatbush Avenue is the borough’s quintessential boulevard and the gateway into Brooklyn,” said Joseph Chan, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. “It is to Brooklyn what Broadway is to Manhattan, and it is poised for some dramatic change.”
Boom on Flatbush [NY Post] GMAP
6:05, don’t tell me you have all of this great moral outrage because I suggest that multi-millionaire, or even billionaire developers take less profit, like they and their corporations wouldn’t write off any supposed “loss” anyway. Poor, poor gazillionaires! No thanks, don’t need to email you.
I think development in downtown is both necessary and desired. Nothing wrong with decent supermarkets, etc, etc. Wouldn’t it be nice if those in the projects had a chance to have those things, too, and weren’t just populations to be kicked to the curb when the site of their homes becomes desireable. While I am certainly not naieve enough to say that these were always places of safety and comfort, but they were homes for thousands of people who work hard to make ends meet, and try to raise their families in the same quiet enjoyment that all of us want. The only difference between all of us are the chances of birth, background, education and the opportunities that follow. What happened to the people who lived there, where did they go? Does anyone care? Apparently not.
So tell me, anon 6:12, what white anglo-saxon master race spawn of Heinrich Himmler are you? Seems to me everytime one of you fascist morons chimes in, its to talk about shoving minority groups out of your elitist way. I lived for over 20 years in the downtown Brooklyn area and there were plenty of middle class people living there with me.Of course I don’t have your refined and delicate sensibilities so I actually went out into the neighborhood and see what it was really like. For the record plenty of businesses could have moved into the area- there were loads of people who would have supported them, But business doesn’t like poor- lower income neighborhoods, no matter how much money is spent- no. they think minorities don’t drink lattes, or like to eat in nice restaurants. So businesses come in to fill the need. Then they get kicked out as the money nazis move in.
Unfortunately ignorant folk like you have no clue as to the financial or political power of Black communities. But they are discovering it for them selves, and there will be a day when they’ll buy you out and put you in the dinky little trailer park you belong in.
Sterling writes:
“Half of Brooklyn may be what you want to call affordable, but whether people want to live there is certainly the other topic de jour on this site.”
AGAIN, ever heard of Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, PLG, Kensington, Windsor Terrace, Midwood, Marine Park, Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Bath Beach, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurts, Fort Hamilton, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Gravesend, Sheepshead Bay, Flatlands, Bergen Beach, Brownsville, East New York, Canarsie, Flatbush, East Flatbush and Greenpoint? You just insulbted 85% of this borough!!!!
The vast majority of these nabes are fine, middle class and upstanding communities, you condescending ass wipe! That’s the problem with you handout addicts (e.g., panhandlers), you’re on your hands and knees begging all day, then you get hostile and look down on others who refuse to give you a dime simply because they’re too preoccupied with their own issues: busting their butts to make ends meet, holding down decent jobs, running stable households and contributing to the well being of their community.
Who the heck do you think you are begging/demanding to live for peanuts among the rich simply because you don’t want to live among your own economic class, ethnic or racial group. Don’t like you income strata? Get another effing job! But don’t come begging to the rest of us (especially those “greedy developers”) for opportunities you simply refuse to create for yourself. There’s affordable housing for the middle/working class throughout Brooklyn but if you’re too lazy, racist or snobbish to live among “common folks” then YCGFY!
Wow — Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, and PLG are for middle and working class people now — I guess if middle and working class people can afford to pay $850K and up for a house.
And new Bed-Stuy resident (“Thank God”), congratulations on your new neighborhood, but just because you’ve moved away from the proposed Ratnerville, you shouldn’t stop caring about it — a travesty of justice is the same anywhere and your tax dollars are going to subsidize Bruce Ratner along with everyone elses’ — and the subway and traffic nightmare the would ensue from this horror will affect you as well. So please keep fighting.
Yes, if you cannot live in downtown Brooklyn or in a brownstone neighborhood, then your quality of life is doomed. The only way to have a happy life is to live in downtown Brooklyn or in a brownstone neighborhood. If you live east or south of Prospect Park, then you are doomed to be miserable.
It’s a simple fact. Just ask Sterling Silver. His word is law.
Obviously the people on this thread hyperventilating about “the displacement of the middle class” and “where are the working class people going to live?” are (i) picking the wrong fight on the wrong neighborhood, and/or (ii) don’t know the neighborhood. This isn’t Ft. Greene or Prospect Park. This is Downtown Brooklyn. I’ve lived in the neighborhood for ten years and believe me for those of us that ACTUALLY LIVE HERE, the development is VERY welcome. The prospect of having proper grocery stores, dry cleaners, restaurants and other services like those found in neighborhoods communities will be a God Send! Take the Myrtle Avenue development as an example…the new development with its retail component will replace “Kennedy Fried Chicken”, a terrible Associated “supermarket”, multiple check cashing spots and liquor stores…GOOD RIDDANCE!! Take note people there were very few (if any) “middle class” people in the neighborhood to begin with…so it’s really not a matter of them being displaced. There area was primarily populated by the folks in public housing (Ingersoll, Kennedy, etc.) and those of us in University Towers (where I live) and Kingsview Towers. The population in the projects is down to about 20% (check it, it’s true) and those of us in University and Kingsview CAN’T WAIT for the much needed additional services!
“I don’t know why the market does not produce adequate housing for people with modest incomes, but it does not.”
Yes, as evidenced by all the people we see living in tents and caves.
“That is abyssmal, no other word for it. It’s crap that they can’t afford to develop more affordable units in these projects. Oh, poor, poor developers! They don’t want to, that’s all. If you are building a tall residential tower, how much more money is it to build a few more affordable units in the same building?”
Sterling what do you do for a living? Mind if I come by and tell you how to do it and how much profit you are allowed to make? Email me thanks.
The level of hostility in the comments thread on this blog toward people who can’t afford million dollar apartments is really startling.
I don’t know why the market does not produce adequate housing for people with modest incomes, but it does not. Therefore, it’s necessary for the government to intervene in some fashion. There’s plenty to argue about in terms of how the government intervenes, but without intervention, people of modest means are often hard pressed to find a place to live.
When thousand and thousands of units of new housing are being created and almost all of it is far beyond the means of the average Brooklyn earner, we have a serious social problem.
Remember — we live in a society in which the top 1% of the people rake in 50% of the income. And that doesn’t take into account wealth — accumulated assets.
That’s for the United States as a whole. I’d love to know what it is in New York City. What do you think? What proportion of the total wealth of all New Yorkers do you think the top 10% hold? What proportion of the total income earned in NYC does the top 10% take home?
The reason we have such problems with affordable housing is because we have such extreme income and wealth inequality.
It’s unhealthy.