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]
Just so you’re all aware – the ‘real’ Criminal Court Building is no longer adjacent to the jail.
The State (Ratner-btw) built a new building for Criminal/Supreme/Family next to the Marriot. Currently the old Criminal Court Building is being used for Arraignments and I believe will be used for Grand Juries at some point.
I believe this will mean that prisoners will still need to be transported by vehicle to the Courts.
Given the value of the land it might make more $ sense to put the Jail in a less expensive area (like industrial section of Gowanus for example) and sell the existing plot.
I live near some projects and boy are they an eyesore! Even worse, the people who live there aren’t locked up, so they just walk around the neighborhood whenever they feel like it! TERRIBLE for property values! I hope that after we move the jail to a yucky neighborhood where none of us want to live (yet) we can move the projects there, too!
I am refraining from obscenities because you control these posts, Mr. Brownstoner. The current penal colony on Rikers Island (the largest in North America, if not the world) is incredibly inefficient, requiring the shuffling of detainees to five county courthouses each day. Lawyers have very little access to their clients, and jurors sit waiting around for detainees to be “produced.” A criminal justice system is part of a civilized society (if I remember correctly you spent a lot of last year trying to up the arrests of drug dealers in your neighborhood – where did you think they went after the arrests?). Downtown Brooklyn is where the courts are, and so, ahem, that’s where lawyers, the accused, jurors, bail bondsmen, et al, are as well. If you really think it is inappropriate for such necessary aspects of civil society to be in downtown brooklyn, maybe it is time for you all to move to the suburbs. The racism and down-right ill-will directed to the family members of the detained is really quite disgusting; they simply want to be able to visit their family members without having to take off a whole day to do so. What, your eyes are hurt by having to see a sign that says “bailbonds”? Grow up. For a guy who’s only lived in Brooklyn for four years, you are mighty fast and loose with the lives of people more unfortunate than you. Shame on you. Shame.
worst thread ever
Firstly, I can’t imagine anyone would buy a condo attached to the jail. There is a lot of foot traffic associated with the jail – corrections, lawyers, family visitors, etc. Anyone who would buy a condo there is really desperate.
I’m neither for nor against the jail reopening, but I am totally against the overdevelopment of the area.
Yes, how convenient. When all the owners of brownstones on Columbia Heights are in the clinker for the night for getting caught with coke in the BMW’s, it’ll be so much easier for Muffy and little Carter to come visit!
Orwell? Seriously?
And Stoner, I’m surprised that a sharp, well-educated mind like yours takes a public official’s pronouncements at face value – DOC wants jail here because the jail’s here, and it’s the easiest thing to do.
How many inmates are from Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, or Brooklyn Heights, the neighborhoods closest to the jail?
Sell the jail, make some dough, and relocate that eyesore to an area that makes more sense.
Let’s see. 5 blocks east is a perfrectly nice neighborhood that the State is going to demolish because it’s blight. Here there’s real blight that the government would like to expand. Thank you Mayor + Governor Orwell.