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]
No one is asking that a new jail be built smack in the middle of a residential area. The jail was there first, and only in the last few years closed. So if new jail space is needed, the most obvious solution is to re-open it. Somehow, Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill managed to survive all those years with the House of Detention nearby. I don’t understand how many of you can throw out phrases like the city has some “responsibility” to people of that community to keep that jail closed. If you bought a house or apartment near the jail, you knew it was there, there were no promises made differently. Suggesting it would be better located near places where poorer people live is takes NIMBY to a new level.
Major drawbacks:
Not convenient to downtown
Not near the subway
Not walkable to courts
Across the street from a different (albeit darker) residential neighborhood
Conflicts with existing plans to build supermarket for aforementioned darker residential neighborhood
And yes we can fault people for voicing concerns about “their” neighborhood if it seems their motives are selfish
I don’t think we can slight people for voicing concerns about “their” neighborhood (it is theirs if they live there Serge). I don’t live in Boerum Hill btw. It might be best to leave the jail where it is, just putting ideas out there.
I am looking forward to the redevelopmetn of the Navy Yards. The part of it I’m talking about is not the Steiner Studios end, but the other end to the West near Sands Street and the crumbling buildings that formed part of Admirals Row. Maybe it wouldn’t work, but I don’t think redevelopment of the Navy Yard as a more vibrant industrial park and a jail facility on a small portion of the large underutilized area a necessarily mutually exclusive. Also, there are no people, as far as I know, legally living in the walled off confines of the Navy Yard. I really think it does offer the proximity to downtown and accessibility to lawyers and families people are pushing for, while having the advantage of not being in an area that is a commerical hub or residential neighborhood – nor are there plans to make the Navy Yard a residential neighborhood or a retail destination, rather it will be an industrial park under current plans. So what would be the major drawbacks? Seems like it would be a good solution to me if it did not displace jobs in the Navy Yard.
I don’t believe that everyone who wants the jail out is a racist. I think, unfortunately, that Mr. Brownstoner’s initial posting reveals a great deal of disrespect for the lives of those who are either held at the House of Detention and their families. His assumption that we shouldn’t care about them was stomach-turning to me, especially first thing in the morning. I guess I just haven’t heard why we should move the facility at all. And why is behind a wall across the street from the Farragut Houses any less an impingement on a residential community than where it is now? it is hard for me to see that there is any difference beyond the race and economic status of those who will live next to it. Essentially the fine burgers of Brooklyn Heights/ Boerum Hill, don’t want to have to see it.
Also practically, the two sites are not equally convenient, either in terms of attorney access (attorneys can walk to see clients at the Brooklyn House) or families. A subway to a bus is not the same as every subway line in the city. This has been gone over time and time again when people suggest that the Arena would be better placed exactly where you suggest the jail could be (basketball teams and prisoners should all be down by the impound lot – okay, okay, okay, that’s too paranoid even for me). It simply does not have the advantages the current site has.
LP, of course I don’t know you (or if you went to Vassar or Wesleyan), but since no one has pointed out a single real problem with the jail except that they would prefer not to live near it, I am left wondering whether we are just talkign about upper class sensibilities. And what are we trying to hide by banishing the jail? If we don’t want to be reminded that we jail a higher percentage of our population than any other developed nation or that those imprisoned are disproportionately men of color, I guess getting rid of a jail on Atlantic Avenue is a good first step. If you don’t think your specific thoughts are motivated by racism, more power to you, but if you refuse to acknowledge that racism has a part in urban planning, the allocation of resources, and the empowerment of certain economic interests over others, then you are missing a whole lot of what is going on around you. “The Court House” and other developments came to the jail, the jail didn’t come to them.
P.S. I have liberal guilt about that brownie I had last night, but not about my sentiments here.
The Navy Yard is an industrial park that is supposed to attract new businesses to Brooklyn. One of the biggest movie studios in the east coast is located there. I don’t think the folks in the Yard nor in the surrounding community would take kindly to having a new jail plunked down in their neighborhood because the folks near the civic center think it is not the best and highest use for “their” precious real estate.
The best we can hope for is a new facility on the old site and not just a re-hashed 1960’s era jail building.
Putnam-Denizen, respectfully, I think your liberal guilt or otherwise personal point of view is affecting your ability to even consider what might be practical alternatives. If The Navy Yard at Sands Street was a viable alternate location (which some say it is not due to light construction currently located there) – it is currently a walled off area that is not accessible to pedestrians from the projects or northern Fort Greene, nor is it a residential or commercial hub like downtown Brooklyn currently is. it, however, is close to downtown and to public transport (buses). If there is no problem in your mind with having a jail for defendants awaiting trial in a residential neighborhood, then why would you have an issue if it was located in a non-residential area, separated by a street and a 10 foot wall from the Farragut Houses you are referring to, but still accessible by defendants’ lawyers and their families. Take it easy on labeling people racists pal. You don’t even know who you are talking too with your knee jerk statements.
For the record, I’m not necessarily advocating moving the jail if you read my first post, just throwing ideas out there for consideration. However if labelling people racists without foundation is your idea of discussion, then there is no use in trying to discuss this with you.
So let’s put the jail down out of the way on Navy Street. Let us see who lives down there… Why the projects are there. Yeah, racism has nothing to do with this conversation…(sarcastic snort).
I would absolutely love the idea of living near a large, growing jail. It would just wash the stench of yuppie right off of me when I return home from the office at night.
“The jail was there first, before anyone wanted to live in the vicinity. I also grew up around there and the jail was not a blight. So why shouldn’t they reclaim the facility that was theirs to begin with?”
Perhaps, but to expand it is a different proposition, no?