Carroll Gardens Historic District May Grow
The Landmarks Preservation Commission released the boundaries of the expanded Historic District it is pushing for in Carroll Gardens and, not surprisingly, not everyone was pleased. The city would like to expand the pitifully small area that was protected back in 1973 (shown above) to include all the blocks bounded by Court Street, Henry Street,…
The Landmarks Preservation Commission released the boundaries of the expanded Historic District it is pushing for in Carroll Gardens and, not surprisingly, not everyone was pleased. The city would like to expand the pitifully small area that was protected back in 1973 (shown above) to include all the blocks bounded by Court Street, Henry Street, Huntington Street and First Place. Sounds like a nice idea to us but there are bound to be some whiners, right? Right. “Landmarking will force the old-timers out,” said John Esposito, co-founder of Citizens Against Landmarks. “All the new people who have $100,000 income a year think this is a great idea.” (This choice of this number seems reminiscent of Dr. Evil’s famous “one million dollars” line in Austin Powers; after all, it’s not like $100,000 a year goes too far in the Carroll Gardens housing market these days!) The plan for expanding the historic district is supported by the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association and the Brooklyn Preservation Council, and seems to be in keeping with the spirit of last year’s rezoning which made it harder to put up new out-of-context buildings in the low-rise community. No-brainer!
City Wants Second Carroll Gardens Historic District [NY Post]
Well, I see that we have another person (Lifer) assuring us that the hostility was real, but can’t cite any incident. Here you have a neighborhood (CG) that is 4-5 blocks from one of the largest black projects in the city (Red Hook), yet no one can cite a case, in a city replete with the names of notorious racial incidents (Bensonhurst, Crown Heights, etc.) What’s going on? Let Uncle Benson explain, boys and girls.
As I said above, for many years, working-class Italians have served as the bogeymen for this city’s liberals for the evils they hate. Any racial incident involving Italians is amplified and put in the history books. Having this bogeyman allows them to trumpet their supposed superiority.
But why, you may ask, do liberals still make Italians the bogeymen, when their presence in Brooklyn has diminished significantly, such that there are only 2 or 3 neighborhoods with a sizable Italian presence.
Well, boys and girls, you see, liberals have a problem. For the past 15 years or so, the majority of racially-motivated hate crimes has been blacks on either Chinese or Mexican immigrants. Now good liberals can’t go around condemning black neighborhoods, can they? Better to stick with the Italians.
Google the following: “Chinese Kids being beaten up in Lafayette HS” or “Mexicans being beat up in Port Richmond” and see what comes up. In the former case, the harassment of Chinese studies was so bad that the DOJ Civil Rights dept had to step in.
I’m not trying to start a pissing contest about which ethnic group is the most hostile to outsiders. Just knock it off with the bogeymen stuff, where people like BABS use the occasion of a thread on landmarking to bring up stereotyping of Italains, and I’ll shut up.
Babs,
“Poor little rich kid”, really? Because my family has been in Brooklyn for 100+ years means I shouldn’t care about the cost of renovations or that someone else tells me how to run/renovate my property my property? If I’m concerned about my income and expenses that makes me a “poor little rich kid?”
I don’t care if I have $100 million dollar house and money to burn, I don’t want some group/agency telling me what I can and can’t buy/use and thereby dictate my costs.
The extra cost and hassle is a by-product of the real problem, which is a “commission” that suddenly gets to tell me what I can and can’t do and I will have little to no recourse.
Landmarking is an all or nothing deal and I have a big problem with that. Good to know you don’t care about your personal costs and who tells you how to spend your money. Me, I have a big problem with others telling me they know better about my life/home/money/etc than I do.
“novaglus, you’re either a renter or have money to burn.”
Nope, just the owner of a place worth about 1/3 -1/6 of what a house in CG goes for.
I would probably be making some of the same complaints if I owned one of these places, and boy oh boy I hope I do have such an opportunity.
Many people have owned their homes for years, paying far less for them when these were very different neighborhoods. They may now be “house rich,” but not in any other way. Landmarks-compliant windows, doors, etc., do often cost more than the Home Depo or worse models that such homeowners can afford (and often prefer the looks of, believe it or not). The landmarks-approved doors for my house, for example, cost $5K, well beyond the means of many of my neighbors. And I really object to the LPC’s policy of only taking complaints, rather than having staff inspect properties, because I don’t want to tattle on my neighbors. I try to spread the word about grants and low-cost loans, and how by making/keeping their properties landmarks-compliant they are increasing their value, but some people don’t want to hear it.
So this isn’t really a “poor little rich kid,” story (except, apparently, in the case of Christopher above) and I appreciate peoples’ financial fears, but these things can be worked out. A knee-jerk anti-landmarks reaction is not the answer.
>”I have to spend money to preserve the $2.5 Million historical treasure of a home I own” ranks pretty low on the list”
novaglus, you’re either a renter or have money to burn. I own a ‘house’, not a ‘historical treasure’, which I maintain to the best of my ability. I won’t do anything really weird to it, but I dread the thought of LPC increasing my maintenance 2x. I paid, say $10k to redo the steps and some of the facade. It looks quite good. And it was all I could afford. Had I got an LPC-approved firm to do it would have been double. And I’m planning on painting my front door mustard yellow.
I used to work with a black guy who grew up on Park Pl. between 5th and 6th Aves. The city provided a school bus for him and his siblings to attend JHS51 on 5th St. and 5th Ave. because it was dangerous for them to walk through the blocks in between. This was in the 80s.
Are we really talking about how much of a burden buying non-vinyl windows is for owners of $2-3 Million dollar homes?
Lots of people have problems. “I have to spend money to preserve the $2.5 Million historical treasure of a home I own” ranks pretty low on the list.
I haven’t wanted to jump into this, but as smeone who grew up in the late 60’s, and 70’s on the border of CH, CG, and I concur with Cobblehiller, etc. I believe we are the same age or close, where Christopher is somewhat younger (if his profile is correct which says he is 33), which means he was in elementary school in the early to mid 80’s middle school close to the 90’s.
The 60’s and 70’s were alot different from the 80’s. I can go on forever about personal experiences that are not exaggerated with the racial hostility. The 80s was a different time. The hostility certainly, absolutely existed.
“How about friends east of Court St.? :)”
Likewise, I had friends in Boerum Hill on Pacific, Dean and Bergen Streets as far east as Nevins.