Myrtle and Flatbush Building Boom, From Above
We stopped by the offices of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership at 15 Metrotech Center last week. It turns out to be the perfect perch for keeping an eye on the Flatbush Extension building boom. Pictured here, clockwise from top right: 1) 180 Myrtle, supermarket kingpin and aspiring politican John Catsimatidis’ 500-unit mixed-use development; 2) 156…
We stopped by the offices of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership at 15 Metrotech Center last week. It turns out to be the perfect perch for keeping an eye on the Flatbush Extension building boom. Pictured here, clockwise from top right: 1) 180 Myrtle, supermarket kingpin and aspiring politican John Catsimatidis’ 500-unit mixed-use development; 2) 156 Myrtle, BFC’s 37-story condo project currently in high gear; 3) 157 Myrtle, the half-block of low-rise properties awaiting the wrecking ball courtesy of rentals-only developer AvalonBay. Kinda puts it all in perspective, huh. GMAP
FG – you are so wrong it is frightening. Density is BY FAR the most economic and environmentally efficient method of development.
You are essentially advocating sprawl. In every area HVAC (both in terms of insulation and economies of scale); transportation costs (mass transit and pedestrian friendly); land useage and habitat preservation; even in terms of resource usage per person high density apartments are more efficient then single family or low density.
The cost of an elevator is miniscule even if you just consider the cost of lighting 1 lobby compared to the entry way of 75 different homes.
As for the social costs of high density – I dont think that Manhattan has demonstrated this issue – the problem with the ‘projects’ is not one of denisty as oppossed to segregation of poor people in one area. South Central LA is mostly single family homes but it is besieged by the same social problems as the projects in Chicago.
Wow – a lot here! The discussion reminds me of when I read Ecotopia, which imagined an ecologically sound San Francisco and Pacific Northwest. The vision of a human scaled city which is nestled in a thriving ecosystem is very attractive, and I would hope all new developments and renovations focus more on being at one with mother earth. But, uh, don’t we live in New York City. A city which under any environmental dictatorship would be broken up and its inhabitants marched out to live in smaller cities like Scranton and Rochester? But that seems unlikely to happen and it seems unlikely that the wealthy (who are, after all the target of these projects) will chose to live in communal dormitories no more than six stories high, then I think I would chose density and height over sprawl. Which is better – building a tower within public transportation/bike/walking of jobs and commerce or allowing them to pave all the way to the Poconos?
Once you except the insanity which is NYC, how can you begin to suggest that we don’t build up?
Fortgreener, you’re completely wrong–obviously high-density housing is infinitely more efficient than sprawl. The electricity drawn by an elevator is miniscule compared to the resources consumed by cars, road-building, lawn maintenance, low-quality houses that will be torn down and replaced every 30 years, sewer and power infrastructure, storm-water runoff…. and on and on.
And while we’re talking greenery, yeah, flourescent light bulbs are more efficient–but what about the costs of the depression and suicide that result from their cold, ugly glow? Huh?
12:38,
It doesn’t matter if demolition of NYC public housing has never happened in NYC. There was a time when it had never happened in Newark, Chicago, etc., as well.
Ever hear of the saying, “There’s a first time for everything?”
Obviously not.
I have a really hard time understanding how stacking people in high rise, high density structures, no matter what their income, is a positive thing. We are people, not sardines, or containers in a ship. I have no desire to live stacked up like they are in Tokyo, or living like some sanitized version of the Middle Passage.
Studies have shown that people do not respond well in the long term to that kind of living. See oft mentioned high rise housing projects. I can’t see how it would matter if you are in a low income unit or a gilded high end cage.
Science fiction is becoming fact more and more everyday. Blade Runner looks like a vision of tomorrow I don’t want to see.
Polemecist:
You claim that public programs exist so politicians can get re-elected by the beneficiaries. Bullshit.
Poor people are less likely to vote than any other group. I fail to see how safety net programs to ensure that nobody is homeless, starving, or dying for lack of medical care have helped anybody stay in office. All we’ve seen for quite some time now are irresponsible promises to eliminate taxes. Those politicians are repeatedly re-elected. Show me the last politician who was elected on a platform of support for poor and low income people. For goodness sake, the president got away with vetoing expanding S-CHIP. Our political class if entirely responsible to the DONOR class, which DOES NOT include poor people.
1:12…agreeing with many of your points…but, I’m not sure you’re correct in predicting mixed-use becoming so widespread. Take a moment to consider, for example, what FCR has baited-and-switched to for the proposed apartment towers in Fort Greene/Prospect Heights (Misnomered as “Atlantic Yards” since the project will sit heavily on land that has nothing to do with rail areas).
Apparently, FCR proposed mixed housing and got tax status based on this, but then came back to it and decided to segregate the level of housing into separate buildings but still trying to keep the abatements (of course, it is also debatable what they are calling “affordable†but that’s another story).
Good luck integrating housing in the US. It’s going on in Europe but in only isolated ways this side of the Atlantic.
FG/GL
I’m sorry 1PM,
A huge percentage of US energy use is revolves around our buildings. Transportation uses a lot of OIL, yes. The built environment uses a lot of total ENERGY: burning of fuel oil, methane, coal for direct heat and/or electricity generation and nuclear power and hydro for electricity. Okay…in Colorado there is a town making good use of high-heat geothermal (the region sits over a hot zone…they can even heat the sidewalks so the snow melts off in winter); there is a wood-fired power electricity power plant in NH; and St. Paul, MN has a dual heat’n’power plant (steam piped to downtown buildings and electricity generation). Renewables currently accounts for what, 1 percent of total US production? Yee-ikes!
Thank you Polemicist for your anger, but you’re simply incorrect on your other points as well. Elevator use IS energy-intensive. Low-scale building projects are more energy efficient by far.
I can’t imagine where you’re coming from to think “electricity” is so clean as compared to the internal combustion engine…where do you think electricity is coming from right now? It’s not clean energy in the least. Granted, yes, internal combustion engines in vehicles produce more noxious pollutants than, say, a methane-burning electric plant in NYC but the country gets most of it’s electricity from burning coal which is environmentally-devastating, both in the mining and burning processes.
I am hardly co-opting “environmental policy”…BTW, we have one?! Wonderful news…I thought “we” don’t have “environmental policy” around here…just an un-environmental one.
Anyway, this aside, no, I am not co-opting so-called environmental policy, oh Angry One. How can you assume I am some “rich homeowner” enjoying a “luxury”…trust me…I’m not. Please don’t jump to conclusions while not reading things closely.
Now…if you think it’ll be a luxury to somehow emerge out of “the masses†(you make it sound like you’re living in a ward or workhouse with Oliver Twist) into an apartment up on an upper story of an ultimately unsustainable building, get ready to realize down the road you may have made a terrible investment…that no one will want to buy your apartment…that the value may drop (due to oversupply, economic distress, high maintenance costs/energy use…name your combo).
Listen, would you want to live in a building with elevators that have a coin slot or (more in line with the times) a swipecard/RF chip reader that charges you each time?
This may sound strange to you…but, guess what:
There are elevators still in use in European cities that you can only take if you drop money into the coin slot (to go up AND down in the elevator…so you can choose to walk down the stairs…or up them for that matter…instead of taking the elevator).
Think about the cost of ownership of a less-sustainable lifestyle before you start yelling. It seems you may be angry since I was hardly writing in “rant” style. You may have read it that way though. Take a breath…you’re gunna blow a gasket.
Just remember, our non-transportation energy use in the US is sky-high and a huge percentage of total energy use. I’ll post some links if you’d like.
Thanks for reading,
FG AKA GL
Also – the elimination of public housing throughout the country is based on the belief that it is unproductive to house the poor in ghettos. Chicago has moved poor people throughout the region rather than concentrate them. This kind of experiment has been going on for a while, and you know what? Poor kids who grow up in mixed-income areas do much better than those who grow up in completely poor areas. New York City is already trying to do this through the various HDC programs – it’s just that the low cost of capital right now has made condos much more attractive. In time, the bond financing the HDC provides will result in more affordable housing. Someday, instead of housing projects, we’ll have low-income housing in every new building in the city and finally the culture of poverty will be broken.
The problem is politicians really benefit from generational poverty. It creates a permanent, stable voting block.