Fulton Mall: Death By Compromise?
The Pratt Center for Community Development has released its full report–analysis and recommendations–on the Fulton Mall. Here are the five “strategies” the report recommends following. Clearly, they are trying to walk a very fine line balancing all the class and racial sensitivities that are all rolled up in the issue now. 1. Address the physical…
The Pratt Center for Community Development has released its full report–analysis and recommendations–on the Fulton Mall. Here are the five “strategies” the report recommends following. Clearly, they are trying to walk a very fine line balancing all the class and racial sensitivities that are all rolled up in the issue now.
1. Address the physical appearance of the Mall with innovative and culturally sensitive facade improvement (huh? sounds like politically-correct jibberish to us), building conservation and new building design techniques that embrace the aesthetic theme of “old meets new.” (We have no idea what this means but it sounds like a recipe for confusion and mediocrity.)
2. Better utilize buildings by activating vacant upper stories and carefully planning a mix of uses that supports the dynamism and diversity of the Mall and makes it more of a 24-hour place. (No quibbles with this one.)
3. Promote and enhance the current retail themes found on the Mall: urban wear, Hip Hop fashion and music, uniquely Brooklyn. (What, no Banana Republic? What about that diversity?)
4. Improve the public realm and enliven the side streets to enhance the experience of shoppers and visitors on Fulton Street, as well as workers and residents to the north and south. (Ah, so this is where they throw the gentrifiers a bone. The only problem is it sounds like they’ll have to wade through the penis-engraved tooth caps to get to their precious cafes. Not gonna work in our opinion.)
5. Engage a broad and diverse group of stakeholders in the planning process from this point forward. (We’re all just one big happy multi-cultural family!)Fulton Mall 2006 Report [Pratt Center]
Photo by f. trainer
Would anyone who lives in the surrounding area (Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene, et. al.) like to share their views about the Fulton Mall, whether positive or negative, with a reporter? I’m looking for people to speak “on the record” (basically, you tell me your real name and neighborhood) for a story I am working on on the mall. Email jesseorosco@gmail.com if interested
Arsenal, no sweat. Water under the bridge. Like Bx2Bklyn stated, “we get soo intense sometimes.” Although some of us may differ in opinion, the one constant is that we are passionate and unconditionally committed to Brooklyn. The exchange of ideas and positions is very healthy.
David- does this mean we’re engaged? Well Brownbomber- get yourself a dress girl! You’re maid of honor! :0) Nice to have some humor- we get soo intense sometimes, but it’s fun anyway and I love the back and forth of ideas.
There are plenty of big stores. There were even more but most of them were broken up as the old dinosaur stores closed over the years. If the landlords are making plenty of money this way, they have no incentive to change.
On the other hand, if they could make money by renting the upstairs, they might be persuaded to sacrifice some of the ground floor square footage and put the steps back.
However, I don’t see that happening. The same people who used to tell me that you took your life into your hands to walk on Fulton St. in Clinton Hill when I moved here in 1989 (which of course was not true!) will say that they wouldn’t want to live/work in an area where there is a major market for gold penis teeth (also not true).
The city could start with baby steps: enforcing litter laws, collecting sales tax, enforcing signage rules.
I wonder if undoing the pedestrian mall design (the sidewalks were widened in the early 1980s) would help force the “revitalization” (hate that jargon!) of desolate adjacent side streets. Vendors and shoppers might in effect spill over into these areas.
The Pratt report had an interesting finding that property owners lease out some of the ground floor spaces to numerous vendors, who are often multi-ethnic within a single groundfloor storefront. (The commercial equivalent of subdividing a one-family house and packing in the tenants!) It’s a way for the vendors to start a business that’s more stable than a sidewalk table (plus it doesn’t clutter the sidewalk), and more affordable than their own exclusive storefront.
It’s like FM is a victim of its own success. The vendors have an economic foot in the door and shoppers find the merchandise (e.g., ethnic and/or bargain rate). The biggest winners may be the property owners who get more, per square foot than if they leased to one tenant. Thus they tear out staircases to create more ground-floor retail. Will they thus resist efforts to revitalize upstairs floors, if it impinges on the ground floor gravy train?
It makes me wonder if, since there’s a need for multi-vendor venues – could a space be created to house them, some kind of collective? It’s “destination retail” so it needs to be someplace that’s convenient to subway and bus lines. But does it necessarily have to be FM itself?
Just musing here…
wow, bbomber, i didn’t realize that my disagreeing with you meant that you weren’t entitled to your opinion. thanks for giving me so much power i didn’t know i had. as a later poster noted, this is what makes brooklyn, and america, great: differing opinions in a healthy debate.
that said, i still think you’re wrong.
you do probably pay more in property taxes than i make in a year. congratulations. but we’re all stakeholders. and the people who shop on fulton mall are certainly bigger stakeholders in fulton mall than those of us (myself included) who pontificate on a blog about it.
ok, on to some other thoughts in response to more recent comments:
i think one reason high-end retail won’t move into montague/court is the retail space size. most of the stores are just too small for big chain retailers. i suppose a smaller fashion boutique (perhaps marc jabobs as he has on bleecker) could squeeze in but many of these places have sq.ft. minimums that brooklyn heights just doesn’t have.
the pedestrian mall aspect of FM is indeed troubling. ped malls are generally a bad idea, but i do wonder whether opening it to traffic would actually help or hinder it. the street could be widened, but that would greatly alter the streetscape. narrower sidewalks would lead to more crowding (bad) but less vendors (good?). it also would probably cut down on the social space the sidewalks allow (bad). that said, streetscape improvements would really help–historic lampposts; new bus shelters; etc.
traffic also could potentially be just terrible there. if there was a real grid throughout downtown brooklyn (i.e. no cadman plaza–not that i’m advocating that), then perhaps it would work better, but i think the congestion would get funnelled down fulton that now gets spread around. the bus routes complicate things further.
CHP (thanks for the shoutout btw)–you’re right about the disneyfied historicism that could happen. i hope that whatever plan they implement (or propose) avoids some of these pitfalls. funky signage should definitely (and, if pratt center is involved it probably will) be encouraged.
CHP – dont feel bad about CH and BS or FM; the lack of sweeping/cleaning extends to (as described above) high end 5th Avenue; I have often said the garbage blows up the street like tumbleweeds in Arizonia.
BTW – nice to hear that Bx2Bklyn and I are on the same page here…
Thank you Brown bomber! (:0>
While it would be nice (really nice) for things in this world to get fixed just because someone higher up says so, it doesn’t happen in the real world.
Anon 11:37 is correct in that some of the stores on Fulton St pay lip service only to the concept of sweeping and cleaning their pieces of sidewalk and the interior of their stores. The same holds true in many of the stores in my nabe of Crown Heights/Bed Stuy. Many store owners don’t give a flying fahootie about their customers or their comfort, as long as they buy their goods, and many customers don’t care what the store looks like as long as they can get what they want cheap. It’s a viscious cycle, and it won’t change until customers tell the merchants that they will no longer shop in a rathole, and then boycott the store until it is fixed up.
I don’t shop in nasty stores and I have told merchants that I will not be coming back until things change, but I am just one of a few, and I’m sure they laugh at me, or curse at me, as the case may be, as the next 30 people come in with their wallets open.
The people making demands and then withholding custom is the only universal language here. Util that happens, nothing much will change.
My desire to allow the mall natural change does NOT mean I like everything the way it is. Much does need to be done.