McCarren Park Development of the Day
We hadn’t taken a stroll around McCarren Park in a few months, so we were rather surprised to see how much development is going on around its perimeter. Given the building boom in the rest of Williamsburg (and to a lesser extent Greenpoint), we shouldn’t have been too surprised. For the rest of the week,…
We hadn’t taken a stroll around McCarren Park in a few months, so we were rather surprised to see how much development is going on around its perimeter. Given the building boom in the rest of Williamsburg (and to a lesser extent Greenpoint), we shouldn’t have been too surprised. For the rest of the week, we’ll feature one of these developments a day and hope to get some input from all of you about developers behind the projects, schedules, potential pricing, etc. The good news is that none of these projects (okay, the one on Thursday’s pretty hideous but…) looks anywhere near as ugly as most of the stuff going up further South in the Burg. We’re going to start out with one that looks recently completed but is, in our opinion, fairly uninspiring. Located on the South side of the park, this 4-story brick appears to have some residential tenants already but has a whole lot of retail space yet to be claimed.
I have a hard time imagining something successful in those commercial spaces too. As for the Balconies, I thought sukkot shacks had to be staggered, so everyone gets to see the sky through the reeds.
I think the main reason for ugly useless balconies is because they are a cheap “amenity” to add that also boosts total square feet.
this was built by an italian family that’s got roots in the hood, going back three generations (i know them). it actually doesn’t look bad at all from the street. the apartments have all been taken. the storefronts are for rent for 4500/month. okay, they’re big, and they’re on the park, but what are you going to sell to make that kind of rent? no bars, since it’s next to a church. might be good for a spa, but that leaves two storefronts. anybody?
the tiny balcony is also good for smoking.
Thanks for the sukkah explanation, I always thought of those as “child cages.” many are very small though, are they really for sleeping or are they just symbolic? They are a truly unfortunate architectural element, glad to hear that they’re at least there for a reason.
This is an odd construction because it looks part hipster, part Hasidic.
In the Hasidic parts of Brooklyn, those little balconies do have a use. On the Hasidic apartment buildings (the really massive new borg-ship apartment buildings teaming with children are around Lee and Myrtle), the little balconies are for the religious holiday “Sukkot” where booths (A “Sukkah”) are built in which to sleep outside.
Here sare some photos of Sukkahs: http://www.satanslaundromat.com/sl/archives/000165.html
The booths are a reminder of that their ancestors dwelt in temporary shelters in the wilderness
see http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday5.htm .
Maybe the hipsters will buy some popup sukkahs, and take up the tradition too.
http://www.popupsukkah.com/ It’ll be the new rage: trucker hats and tents on the balcony.
Why do they insist on adding those tiny balconies? No one ever uses them except to get a better look down the street at whose car alarm is going off. O.K. you can store your bike as well.
Compared to the new construction going on in bedstuy (buildings so ugly they should be illegal), that place is architecturally interesting.
I think this is the one that is rentals and they were marketing as “mini-lofts.”
This isn’t so bad, I don’t think. They should have made the windows bigger though.
This is truly a hideous looking building