A Last-Ditch Effort to Save Admiral's Row
Until the Navy Base at Wallabout Bay was closed in 1967, if you were a married officer, you got a chance to shack up in one of the ten historic row houses looking out over Flushing Avenue (drawn here as they were in 1855). When the Army Corp of Engineers took over the location, the…
Until the Navy Base at Wallabout Bay was closed in 1967, if you were a married officer, you got a chance to shack up in one of the ten historic row houses looking out over Flushing Avenue (drawn here as they were in 1855). When the Army Corp of Engineers took over the location, the houses were left to decay, though some Navy families continued to live in the houses into the 1970s. In 1996, the New York State Historic Preservation Office signed off on an agreement that gave the Army Corp the right to demolish the houses without any landmark review. The city, which took control of all of the Navy Yard except Admiral’s Row in 2001, is planning to knock the houses down to make way for a supermarket when it finally takes control. (The transfer is still hung up in bureaucratic red tape.) Despite the efforts of various preservationist groups in recent years, the Bloomberg shows no signs of budging, citing the $25 million cost of restoration as being prohibitively high. Now a group known as Brooklyn’s Other Museum of Brooklyn has made an eleventh-hour appeal to Governor Spitzer in a letter last month:
I am but one American, yet Admiral’s Row is mine and belongs to every citizen of the United States of America. Don’t allow the Mayor of the city of New York to demolish a national heritage site to satisfy a political favor. It appears you are the only person who, with a stroke of your pen, can undo this madness and insure longevity for Admiral’s Row. Please rescind the A.R.M.O.A. (Admiral’s Row Memorandum Agreement).
Does anyone know more about the “political favor”? How about a timeline for the expected demolition>
Admiral’s Row [B.O.M.B.]GMAP
Retail May Trump Admiral’s Row Preservation [Brownstoner]
City Trying to Demolish Admiral’s Row [Brownstoner]
Group Asks for a ‘Pardon’ for Admiral’s Row [Curbed]
Why can’t the preservation of Admiral’s Row and the building of the supermarket be combined? I would never suggest a full-on restoration for residential use, just preservation of the facades to maintain the historical context of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There is so much precedence for this kind of project in Europe. Commercial uses and historical preservation can work together brilliantly. The area needs the supermarket I agree, but the older buildings can provide a human-scaled, friendly enviroment — almost an “instant” neighborhood feel — that encourages shoppers to linger at stores, cafes etc while also attracting small and large businesses as commercial tenants. Otherwise, what are we going to get? Another hideous Atlantic Terminal-type mall that is deliberately hostile to the local community? What a lack of vision!!
ella, 12:49 here — thanks; I had to do some real work. Are you single?
CHP, I admire your brainstorming but it’s not very well grounded in reality. I think $500/sf is an underestimate and federal tax credits don’t add up to a lot.
The Atlantic Yards argument is a straw man. Fundamentally sound, but ultimately rhetorical.
very nice, crownheightsproud. you go!
oh, for cryin’ out loud! if we managed to get the city to save 1/1000th of the monies stolen through corruption and squandered by incompetence, we could save a hundred admirals’ rows.
i’m an ardent capitalist, BTW – but do NOT, do NOT attempt to tell me that this city is lacking FUNDS. give me a break.
But Ella, your analysis operates only in a small vacuum. You may well be right that it would cost approx. $500/sf. But given that this is an historic site, there is federal money available to pick up some of the costs. Depending on what the end use of the buildings would be, there could/would be private grants and coffers to dip into as well. Appeals could be made to veteran’s groups, historical institutions, and private individuals. Perhaps a university, like Columbia, which has an historic preservation program in its graduate school of architecture, could get involved, and some of the work and the planning could be worked into a cirruculum. St. John the Divine Cathederal kept alive the dying art of stone carving and masonry through its apprentice program, and trained a new generation of stone carvers. Perhaps something similar could be done here, with a training program for brickwork, or preservation and restoration technologies and practices. Maybe Home Depot or Lowe’s or Ace Hardware could donate materials, or maybe one of the local trade high schools could teach a new generation of tradespeople. I could go on and on.
It requires the will to find a way, and some untraditional thinking to make it work. I would think that the officer’s housing for the people who protected our city and country during three or four wars would be worthy of a little effort, and I think that it could be quite feasible for it to be done.
Hey just cause it’s been neglected and needs work doesnt mean it can’t be restored. It’s never too late to preserve history.
If that’s where our soldiers slept while on leave or whatever from our past wars, than I think it has historical significants. And not to mention a great story for our grandkids.
I wonder what life was there during the civil war?
If only these greedy fools can think that far ahead.
Leveling it for fresh pastrami shows our future generation how greedy and FAT we were at this age of time.
Of course it’s not worth it- after all aren’t we giving all that money to those who promise sports arenas? and how much money did our Mayor blow just trying to get a football stadium on the West Side. Oh- and what about all those tax write offs the City gives? And the breaks to landlords who are supposed to build affordable housing and then never do. Please.
Maybe if the City prioritized better, we’d all get what we need and still keep Admiral’s row. Which, by the way, is hardly the only available space.
OK Crown Hieghts Proud, here’s an analyses for you. It would cost around $500/Sf to renovate those buildings. Without going through a whole spreadsheet, you would have to rent out the space at a rent of around $55/SF in order for that to pencil out. That’s more expensive than an office building in Downtown Brooklyn (which has mass transit access, unlike Admirals Row) and even more expensive than all but the top of the line in Lower Manhattan. Who is going to pay that much for this site? No one, that’s who.
What you ignore is the fact that the City’s budget is a zero-sum game. If the City spends money on Admirals Row, it has to take that money from some other place in the City budget. While the City may want to generally save Admirals Row, the preservation of AR is not worth the kinds of services that the City would have to give up in order to do it.
Don’t know why Tyepekey didn’t have its little symbol. Above was me. Dopplegangers always afoot.