City Fishing for Jail Block Developers
Trying to soften the blow of sticking the newly revitalized community with another 700 to 800 inmates, the city is testing the waters with developers to gauge interest in erecting two 10-15 story residential buildings with ground floor retail on the back side of the jail along Boerum Place and State Street. (Boerum Place runs…
Trying to soften the blow of sticking the newly revitalized community with another 700 to 800 inmates, the city is testing the waters with developers to gauge interest in erecting two 10-15 story residential buildings with ground floor retail on the back side of the jail along Boerum Place and State Street. (Boerum Place runs along the foreground of this photo; State Street recedes back into the photo.) If the developers don’t bite, the city will just build something else. There’s no preference for residential, but we certainly wanted to test the market to see what the developers thought, said Jennifer K. Friedman, a vice president in the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which is soliciting the responses. “It’s absurd to take an obsolete building and sink more taxpayer money into it, said Sandy Balboza, president of the Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association. At this rate, Sandy may have to worry about a rival neighborhood group springing up: How does the Atlantic Avenue Detriment Association sound? Does anyone remember how much taxpayer money is going to be spent on this effort at making criminals’ lives more convenient? On the other hand, the neighborhood really could use some more places to get bail bonds. People are getting really tired of restaurants and clothing boutiques. They are so 2006.
City Tests Idea of Building Apartments by Brooklyn Jail [NY Times]
City Eyes Unlocking Brooklyn Jail [Metro]
Change in ‘Store’ at B’klyn Jail [NY Post]
Parking will the be the least of your problems if this jail reopens.
Brooklyn House of Detention is non-issue…from someone who has lived most of life near enough. Court officers and corrections parking is another issue – and even though jail not currently used – still issue. But that is different issue.
And if Bloomberg were so interested in ‘green NYC’ he would address all their permits and parking wherever and whenever they feel like it.
The jail will reopen. It should reopen as is though. At one point in the 90’s DOC had a jail barge in Bay Ridge, a converted motel on Forbell Street in East New York and the Brooklyn Correctional Facility on Flushing. Prior to the opening of the barge, their was community resistance but it opened anyway. This barge was docked in the terminal market area away from private residences. Property values did not drop and crime in the area did not increase. The East New York community did not give much resistance to the opening of “Forbell” which housed sentenced women. This building was literally across the street from private homes. Officers were allowed to park in any legal parking space so this did at times annoy residents when they could not find parking in front of their homes. Crime in the area actually began to decrease. This meant that with the exception of Queens with the 9 jail on Rikers Island and the Queens House which is now closed as well, Queens County had the highest number of jails and Richmond had none. The majority of the inmates then and now come from Brooklyn so if the population continues to increase several jails may come to Brooklyn again. The need for so many jails can be eliminated through a number of social programs and we’ve heard them all before. Education, Job training, etc.. First and foremost, we have got to get the mentally ill out of the city jails where they can get the services that they need. Substance abusers are another problem. I think that the number of inmates who commit crimes “just so they can support their habit” is lower than reported. What many drug dealers do is cop out to being drug abusers to avoid lengthy sentences and then take up limited space in the few drug rehab programs. I have heard inmates sitting in dorms laughing over how “the judge went for it” in reference to this scam. Many inmates in city jails are awaiting trial, the vast majority have not been released on bail because of the severity of the crime they allegedly committed and their prior criminal records. Many of them are parole violators, probation violators, state prisoners returned to the city for new cases or cases that they’ve filed in family court or other venues. Most inmates stay in custody for no more than 3 days. Those who are in custody longer will ususally cop out. Very few go to trial. The communities upstate fight for jails to open in their communities for all of the reasons that the previous posters have stated. Gang activity is now becoming more of a problem both in jail and out. So a jail in Brooklyn is the reality.
8:52 is right–I don’t think the jail should be relocated to an area where there the majority of the population is “upper-middle class whites”.
However, neither do I support moving the jail to an area where the population is predominately “poor and with darker skin tones”.
Jails don’t belong in residential neighborhoods, period.
If the relocation of the jail has nothing to do with racism or NIMBYISM then can someone please provide a list of suitable locations for the detention center?
Afterwards, lets see if this new location is anywhere close to upper-middle class whites or those who are poor and with darker skin tones.
I think that this is a fair test. Don’t you?
This should be really good!!!
Sandy Balboza, members of the Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association, and those who support the relocation of the jail, I’m waiting…….
Putnam-denizen,
The vast majority of the people who live in close proximity to the detention center aren’t new to the neighborhood nor rich. Most just remember what an awful neighbor the detention center was when it was in operation and are (rightfully) apprehensive about an even bigger jail.
You may not think that police and CO’s parking on curbs and blocking walkways, inmates in their cells yelling at passerbys on the street, children constantly having to deal with seeing men in chains is not a big deal (and these are the minor issues), but they’re serious detriments to the quality of life for nearby residents. Are their concerns less valid than those of inmates to you?
You wrote that inmates are the “most vulnerable” segment of society. Forget about children in underfunded schools, the elderly with no health care, illegal aliens who toil in sweatshops here in the states–it’s the inmates who are the “most vulnerable”. Give me a fucking break.
While I don’t completely disagree with your stance on resource allocation, this is hardly the forum to debate how the Census counts prisoners–and yes, it is “narrow mined” (sic) of you to toss in the “real problem” because it’s a much more complicated issue than you imagine. Even experts like Dr. Prewitt of Columbia (formerly director of the Census Bureau) concluded that while there are distortions created by counting inmates by where they’re incarcerated, changing count procedures would result in greater inaccuracy–what are your credentials?
And prisoners aren’t “denied” voting rights–they lost that right because the COMMITTED A CRIME.
Brownstoner doesn’t owe you or anyone an apology–I don’t think anything he wrote was bigoted in any way, and I have no idea what exactly was so offensive to you–unless you’re just the type to see racist overtones in anything and everything.
6:17 –
I have no patience for rich people who bought houses near a jail and now demand that it be moved away from the courts and next to black people because it “inconveniences” them (and we are still waiting for any reason why it should be moved). Why all the love for inmates and “their loved ones” (sic). because a society is judged by how it treats the most vulnerable. None of these facilities are “prisons” (technically places where people are serving more than a year sentence) and the vast majority of the detainees are not, in fact, convicted of any thing, but are awaiting trial ( see five posts above saying that). Not sure that anyone has advocated for country clubs – just a rational allocation of resources rather than pandering to Muffie and Biff. Is it narrow mined for me to toss in the problems with real prisons – the fact that they are located far away from urban centers and that they (fasten your seat belt) are similar to the 3/5ths provision of the U.S. constitution in that they move men of color to state senate distircts upstate but deny those men the right to vote, thus rewarding Republican districts with jobs, disproportionate clout in the sstate senate, etc. Hardly hyperbole, and a process which strips “law abiding NYC residents” of benefits.
That said, given that the anti-jail folks continue to assert things which simply aren’t true, don’t read posts, and won’t give one reason why their increasingly white neighborhood somehow deserves to be liberated from a pre-existing social institition (the jail), I retire from this conversation (yeah, applause, indifference). BTW I am still waiting for Mr. Brownstoner to appologize for his initially bigoted comments which started this mess… Or was he playing the role of his own troll to get additional hits to sell more advertiising? Pretty gross either way, Mr. Neighbor.
I’m sure many more people read this site in one day than will ever see your cute little novella.
Sorry Anon 8:18am, how can you have visited this site for 3 weeks, and already have a novella coming out that includes the ideas people express in it?
I am offended by alot of the comments here as well, but you haven’t “learned anything” about the people who post here. There are a wide range of views, and you seem to have to decided you know things based on a few weeks of reading anonymous posts.
When I don’t like someone’s views (and they aren’t clearly trolling), I like to post a reasoned response with my views. Other people may comment and correct my views, and if they are polite, I try to respond in kind.
Your post is just so condescending – I guess you are somehow more intelligent, wise, and intuitively brilliant than the rest of us. So I’m sure you don’t want to waste your time here anymore.