Kent Avenue Synagogue: What a Shame
How f’d up is the situation with the makeshift synagogue on Kent Avenue in South Williamsburg? Very. It’s been almost a year since the 17,000-square-foot building was thrown up in a kind of urban barn-raising (200 people working in shifts 24 hours a day for 20 days) during which one worker was seriously injured and…
How f’d up is the situation with the makeshift synagogue on Kent Avenue in South Williamsburg? Very. It’s been almost a year since the 17,000-square-foot building was thrown up in a kind of urban barn-raising (200 people working in shifts 24 hours a day for 20 days) during which one worker was seriously injured and a Stop Work Order was issued. Despite the less-than-exemplary track record during construction, the congregation was able to wrangle a Temporary Place of Assembly permit for 10 dates in September and October of last year, which is when this video was made. (Irony of all ironies: the synagogue is next door to a fire station.) Since last fall, the owner (which is listed on DOB filings as Congregation Kahal Adath Krasna of 1623 44th Street) has not lifted a finger to finish the exterior of the building and has been denying access to buildings inspectors who have received numerous tips that it’s being used illegally as a school. The building has yet to receive a Certificate of Occupancy. Our question is who’s running interference for the synagogue? Is the political clout of the Hasidim so great that they can just skate by for a year in clear violation of fire safety and buildings department regulations with no consequences?
Sin-A-Gog Outrage: This Is Getting Ridiculous [Brownstoner]
Synagogue Needs Some Skin, Baby! [Brownstoner]
GMAP P*Shark DOB
I read in the Times a few years ago that a Hassidim community in Queens voted as a single block in elections. As a result, their political clout was hugely disproportionate to their size. If that’s the case here (and I’d love to know if it is), no wonder our spineless pols let them get away with behavior that the rest of us couldn’t.
2.56, it was white before it was hispanic, but anyway.
If you don’t vote, you don’t exist.
The Hasidim are effective becuase they vote, and they work as a single voice, an actual community. (Rather than the “community” that everyone else refers to when they actually mean “the people living in area x”, which is not the same thing).
Maybe if it had Miele appliances. Still a stretch, though.
Oh, and 2:56 pm, blacks weren’t the first to settle brooklyn, and neither were the hispanics. The original minorities were waves of poor Europeans (germans, poles, irish, italian). not exactly the “whites” you’re talking about, but still, if you’re gonna be color-correct, be color-correct.
Touche, Freddy.
It looks like krap on the outside, but if it had Bosch appliances and Fresh Direct storage on the inside, you bitches would be over there in a heartbeat bidding above ask.
Hey 2:39PM, while you posted the same thing three times, we were still imagining if it was a mosque-congregation taking on an identical order of events. Thanks though.
Anon at 2:42 said:
“They do some things that are good for the community, I would imagine–not the least, populating Williamsburg during an era when nobody else would”
There’s a color-blindness among new arrivals to Brooklyn. Hispanic people populated Williamsburg probably longer even than the Hasidim. In fact, there’s a long history of tension between the two groups, often over the Hispanics being shut out of city money. I’m tired of people using the phrase “nobody” as though Hispanics and blacks didn’t exist. Surprise: neighborhoods are in place before white people “discover” them.
And Annabea, it’s simply factual that the Hasidim have built an enormous number of HIDEOUS buildings in Brooklyn. It is not racism to point this out. They do some things that are good for the community, I would imagine–not the least, populating Williamsburg during an era when nobody else would–but they also should be held accountable for the damage (visual and otherwise) they inflict on the neighborhood around them. Like anybody else.
Wow… Imagine if this was a mosque-congregation taking on an identical order of events. Then, after the completion of the illegal mosque, a video surfacing w/ an interior shot of the same thousands in celebration and prayer whilst blatantly disregarding the laws of the powers that be. I personally have read articles in the non-mainstream news outlets that speak to the illegal policing and harassment of “other†houses of worship; sticking them with fines and lockouts based solely off our (as a country) biases towards certain faiths. What a sad un-balanced world we live in.