Locals Put Heat On City For Ignoring House of D Plan
A group of Boerum Hill residents is not at all pleased that the city is ignoring the one plan put forth to transform the House of Detention on Atlantic. The coalition is composed of local “stakeholders” including the Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association and the Boerum Hill Association, and has this to say: Although the Stakeholders…
A group of Boerum Hill residents is not at all pleased that the city is ignoring the one plan put forth to transform the House of Detention on Atlantic. The coalition is composed of local “stakeholders” including the Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association and the Boerum Hill Association, and has this to say:
Although the Stakeholders are not endorsing the Atlantic Gateway proposal, they feel strongly that it incorporates intelligent solutions across multiple dimensions: service to the judicial process, affordable housing, and Atlantic Avenue retail; and it addresses longstanding quality of life issues for neighborhood residents. What the plan does not propose is adding on to an already outsized jail facility standing at the gateway to Brooklyn in sharp contrast to the renaissance of the surrounding area since the jail closed its doors in 2003.
They’ve launched a website with a goal of “building consensus to stop the [jail’s] expansion.”
Brooklyn HOD Community Stakeholders Group
Groups Band Together to Push Brooklyn Big House Alternatives [Curbed]
Brooklyn Neighbors Really Don’t Want Jail in Their Backyard [The Real Estate]
A Look at the (Rejected) House of D Condo-Retail Plan [Brownstoner] GMAP
Photo by vidiot.
This is such a stupid debate. It’s pretty clear the near-term costs of relocating the prison make it difficult to do and the city seems to want to plow ahead with the reopening and they dont need the approval of the neighborhood association to do it. Granted. On the other hand, it is downright RETARDED to try to deny that there could be a higher and better use for this location given how the area is developing around it. It really has nothing to do with whether you’ve been living there for years or moved in last week, the thing’s a frickin eyesore and totally screws up the continuity of the neighborhood. Typical of this board that there are folks that will whine and moan about every new condo building that goes up but can’t get too upset about this piece of crap and the inane plans the city keeps coming back with to expand it.
I used to live across from the HoD when it was operating, and the catcalling from the prisoners was definitely true. I could hear them quite clearly on Dean Street.
But the biggest problem with the HoD is the retail “gap” it creates on Atlantic Avenue. The jail plus the bail bond offices that squat across from it make it very unpleasant to walk from, say, Sahadis to the restaurants on the eastern part of the Avenue. This is AABA’s big beef and why it wants street-level retail.
As a twelve-year Boerum Hill resident, I don’t think street-level retail, even if it were of high quality, would solve the problem. The intersection of Boerum Place & Atlantic Avenue is designed for large volumes of swiftly moving traffic and is completely hostile to pedestrian safety.
I suppose AABA believes that some of the new construction in the area will also have the type of retail that could tempt people to risk their lives for it, as they do whenever they walk to Target.
While I agree that the design of the structure does not provide for intergration with the neighborhood as 11:54 stated, I’m not sure why so many people are opposed to the reopening of this facility. I believe there is a huge gap between the perception and the reality of this facility’s impact on the surrounding residents and businesses. It’s not like you ever come into contact with the prisoners. And they’re not likely to escape. The population that was kept there tended to be those involved in a trial or awaiting arraignment. The average stay used to be 72 hours. This isn’t the type of jail where inmates are kept for extended jail terms. For that, inmates are housed in state facilities. In fact, there’s a great misconception about the city’s jails. For instance, people don’t spend years on Rikers Island. The average length of stay there is 43 days. Accused criminals tend to be a much more orderly inmate population. They don’t want to get in trouble while awaiting trial because it can result in longer sentences or additional charges.
Also, contrary to popular myth in the neighborhood, there were never scenes of girlfriends/wives standing on the sidewalk yelling up to their incarcerated male friends. The New York Times once printed this incorrectly based on tales told to them by some people in the neighborhood. But if the reporter had done some fact checking, he/she would have found out that this scenerio is/was impossible because the cells inside the jail building are not up against the exterior walls. They are on the interiors with no windows. They are separated from the exterior walls by a walkway/hallway. It’s virtually impossible for anyone in a cell at Brooklyn House to communicate with anyone on the sidewalk below also because the windows are frosted with no visibility through them.
I live in the neighborhood and I’m all for reopening the Brooklyn House of Dentention. Recent renovations that adhere to state and federal regulations for design and officer-to-prisoners ratios mean that they can watch more inmates at Brooklyn House with fewer officers. Also, having the jail right next to the criminal court building means that the inmates don’t have to be transported to and from Rikers Island at the beginning and end of each day. This would afford the taxpapers, you and mean, a great deal of savings. It also means that there would be more sworn law enforcement officers, i.e. uniformed correction officers, in our neighborhood making it that much more safe on the streets due to their deterance factor. Those officers also patronize local businesses when they are on duty or coming/going from work. Local businesses always benefited from their presence when the facility was open.
11:54 — the HOD is four blank streetwalls, not integrated with the surrounding community. good urban planning would create foot traffic around the structure to get the proverbial eyes on the street, and create some vibrancy around this relatively dead urban space. the DOC’s goal is to integrate corrections into the community more — retail would help that. retail would create the foot traffic that would bring life to the area.
11:54 — the HOD is four blank streetwalls, not integrated with the surrounding community. good urban planning would create foot traffic around the structure to get the proverbial eyes on the street, and create some vibrancy around this relatively dead urban space. the DOC’s goal is to integrate corrections into the community more — retail would help that. retail would create the foot traffic that would bring foot traffic to the area.
I’d like to see some more stats that the area between Atlantic and Livingston and Court and State “was a decent place in the 1950’s” that somehow declined faster than the rest of Brooklyn did in the 1960’s-1970’s before ascribing any fault to the HOD.
The only real negative to this building is an aesthetic one on te skyline — they seem to have been trying to improve the streetlevel somewhat, and I think retail would help with that.
Finally the plan mentioned in the website does not “incorporate intelligent solutions” for the most pressing need — adequate beds for pre-trial detainees and persons doing “county” time in light of the pending shutdown of numerous portions of Rikers and in light of the delays caused by remote housing of the pre-trial detainees.
11:16, my question was how would a retail store abate any of these real or perceived effects?
The area around the jail is self-contained. One could be dining or drinking on Smith or Court Streets and never even know that the jail exists. I still don’t see the big deal here.
“I think the decision to put the jail there had more to do with the site being on Atlantic Avenue and close to the courthouses.
If anything, this jail probably made the area rapidly decline once it was opened. North of Atlantic Avenue was a decent place in the 1950s.”
http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/html/jailist2.html#BkHDM
The Brooklyn House of Detention for Men, built on Atlantic Avenue in 1957, is a single-cell jail that can house 815 adult males, many of whom await trial in Brooklyn and Staten Island courts.
Riddle me this Polemicist, How did the Brooklyn HOD make the neighborhood decline? That area was always decent and the the neighbors never paid attention to the jail. I think i t was lately when the asshats moved in. Prisoners are moved underground under the street and the windows are sealed. I never saw anyone calling people out of the window. If you don’t like whats going on move out!
I bet you one thing, they are going to reopen that jail. I think the Department of Corrections doesn’t care what the asshats of Boerum Hill think.
The What
Someday this war is gonna end…
10:37 — i believe you have summarized the negative effects pretty well. add to that the effect on neighborhood character — perceived or real — and a stigma that may be perceived with an operating jail.