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
The Pratt Report’s own survey of Fulton Mall Shoppers ( 310 people, 58% Black, 10% white) indicated that approx 85% of the shoppers wanted some “fix up” of the Mall buildings and 71% wanted the Mall “improved” and only 17% wanted it to remain as is. Considering these findings I dont know why these threads always disolve into discussion of class/race and leave it alone vs. change it – it seems that it is near universal that people (Mall shoppers and non-shoppers alike) want change – the only real question is what to do.
they don’t have time to discuss their business in a blog they’re at the bank depositing checks from their profitable penis engraved gold plated fronts, stop snitchin and snowman shirts.
Is it true that there are only a small handful of landlords on Fulton Mall who each own dozens of buildings? Where are the property owners in this discussion?
as a person of color, I must say I’m not a big fan of Fulton Mall but in a weird way I appreciate it for what it is. I know if I want a bargain on a JayZ/Notorious BIG shirt or bootleg DVDs I have a place to go. I think if I were 15 I’d love that area but the selection just doesn’t speak to me. however, if there were muffin shops there, I’d definitely never go there. I agree that the selection should be more diverse along the lines of more stores like Express or Gap or whatever stores are in real malls but I don’t think it needs to change either. I’ll be the first to admit that I’d rather it be the way it is now than to have it bumbarded with the stroller set for $9 lattes as we have enough of those places already. Brownstoner makes a good point in that it may not be possible to do both because that would mean that hip hop kids and stroller pushing yuppies will have to shop together and I just can’t see that happening.
BrownBomber – That Classon and Fulton building gets uglier by the day. A real shame. It looks like design on the fly, with random ornaments added here and there. Really sad. Bite my tongue, but I’d prefer a plain Fedder’s box to that place.
Although the Pratt report made some good points I have to agree with Brownstoner- it’s a mess. It sounds very vague and touchy-feely. Maybe there is nothing to really do except open up the upper floors, restore the facades and improve the look of the streets, but otherwise let the market evolve as it will. Stores that succeed or fail based on their own merits. It’s already a success as a retail area- that’s been said. The Theme idea sounds atrocious- like the Brooklyn Theme Park. You see a great mix of up and down-scale all over Manhattan and they do fine. With all the offices and residences coming to downtown Brooklyn, changes will naturally follow.
Come on, I can’t believe that all Afro-Americans that are shopping for hip hop clothing and music, ethnic hair care products/wigs and having their nails done; are only comfortable doing so in a Mall that has been ghettoized by down-market stores with tacky signage and lack of retail and restaurants to draw a more diverse group of shoppers. By railing against aesthetic upgrades to the existing stores (no one is advocating kicking them out an installing *all* generic suburban chain mall stores in their place) then your saying that Afro-Americans don’t want improvements and perfer to remain ghettoized?
I’m not for forcing businesses to change either. I’m more interested in making the area more visually attractive (i.e. removing tacking signage and preserving old buildings). The only opposition to this I could imagine is that those who like the mall as is could view this as making the area attractive to people who do not shop there now. For those who want to maintain the status quo, I think there is resistance to any change that may make the Mall a destination that could attract a different set of people and potentially lead to changes in the stores. Just my guess, I could be wrong.
Mr. B, we should revisit at some future point the fugly twin towers on Classon and Fulton. What’s happening there? It appears that construction has stopped for two months or so. Any reason?