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
A lot of times on this site people complain about neighborhoods gentrifying and Starbucks, et al., pushing out the 99 cents stores or what have you. Others reply — in my opinion correctly — that if Starbucks is what t he market is supporting, then Starbucks is what should be there.
Well, Fulton is the flip side of that. You have a thriving set of businesses there, which pay the landlords handsomely. They may be downmarket or cheesy or whatever term you want to use to diminish them, but the market is supporting them. I think it’s no more fair, or wise, for exogenous groups to force out thriving businesses — even thriving penis-tooth-cap businesses — any more than it would be to artificially prevent a Starbucks from displacing a mom-and-pop store.
Free market cuts both ways, folks.
I essentially agree with bored at work. (love the name) There is no reason for the merchants currently in the mall to change what they are doing, or how it looks. Since they must be able to pay the high rents, they must be doing just fine. The ones who don’t close up and are replaced by others. That is capitalism at its best, who is anyone to mess with it?
That’s not to say that I like how it looks, or that I don’t wonder how all those stores that sell basically all the same merchandise all manage to make money, but I guess they do.
I agree, as I said on the last contentious thread on this subject, that the upper floors should be opened up to business – especially the kinds of businesses that could flourish in a central location such as the mall, but don’t necessarily depend on street traffic: dentists, medical, law, architects, accountants, graphic arts, etc.
As for Gage and Tollner, they did everything short of move the building, in order to bring people in. They had private valet parking, great chefs, and other incentives. The fact that the upscale clientel that should have flocked there did not, was not G &T’s fault. (which no one said it was) I find it sad that the upscale crowd gave it a lot of lip service, but didn’t actually show up. For God’s sake, even at its worst, it’s not like one was going to get killed getting from their car to the restaurant. Upscale people let it die, not the lower classes. The interior is landmarked, and TGIF is doing a pretty good job with the place. They stepped up to the plate, and I say good on them.
This is why we think it’s more about class/economics/education than race. It just so happens that in Brownstone Brooklyn the majority of the poorer people are black so that these divisions can seem to line up along racial lines. We know plenty of black people who do not identify with the current retail mix at the Fulton Mall. We can’t speak for them, but we’d bet they’d think it was insulting to assume that they do.
Anon at 10.50am, your anger at the idea of removing tacky signs is what I was asking about in my 10.42am post. No one said anything about “faces”. Do you equate restoring the old grand streetscape of Fulton Mall (i.e. removing ugly signage) with being anti-black? I don’t get it.
Also, I’m not sure I’d equate sneaker stores and cell phone outlets with black culture.
Instead of mumbling about putting in a boutique hotel in the Bklyn Jail building, why not have a boutique hotel in the upper floors of one of the bigger Fulton Mall buildings (or break thru several floors of adjoining buildings). If this was done at the end of the mall closest to Borough Hall, I’m sure the hotel would be booked 24/7.
And the rest of the mall building upper floors a combo of: moderate income rental units, a day care center, affordable artist work/living space, affordable rehersal space for theater and dance groups.
Haven’t been into new TGIF – but I think interior of Gage&Tolner was landmarked – so should still be nice.
Recommendations are fine, but until there is a financial incentive for the property owners/retailers to change, it will not happen.
I understand that rents and gross/sq ft on Fulton Mall are among the highest in NYC. Landlords are making a fortune renting to sneaker and cell-phone stores. Unless they can be convinced that they will make more renting to someone else, they will not. The store owners think that the facades and signs are what work for them.
Where is the incentive to change?
I have lived and worked in the area for 15 years. The Mall did not change one iota since the opening of MetroTech and there has been little movement on the sidestreets, either.
It will be interesting to see what impact the conversion of the Verizon building to residential will have. Will they be able to sell? Will the new (presumably) higher income residents be able to demand better retai?
What does “signage” have to do with African-American culture? That’s a pretty paranoid conclusion.
i love the sneaker stores, what gives with so many of you on this blog? everyone loves “black” culture, but doesn’t want to be exposed to it? you root for the knicks–who are the players, you love tiger woods, you love jazz, the blues (where did rock come from), baseball players, football players, muhammed ali? yet when you are exposed to the “signage” all of the “faces” on fulton mall, you are so ready to CHANGE it all? what’s wrong with this city, and country?