Illegal Paint Job on Landmarked Block of Clinton Hill
We just got a tip that someone just started painting one of the brownstones on Grand Avenue between Gates and Putnam white this morning. (Yes, a certain blogger does live on this block.) Something tells us the Landmarks Preservation Commission didn’t sign off on this. If any readers are nearby, we’d appreciate a photo asap….
We just got a tip that someone just started painting one of the brownstones on Grand Avenue between Gates and Putnam white this morning. (Yes, a certain blogger does live on this block.) Something tells us the Landmarks Preservation Commission didn’t sign off on this. If any readers are nearby, we’d appreciate a photo asap. If anyone from LPC is reading, please get on the stick! Update 7/27: Here’s the photo from about 11:20 this morning. The address is 373 Grand Avenue. LPC confirms that there are no permits out on this.
Update 7/29: As the Daily News article reports, it turns out that—luckily—the owner was only repainting the area around the door. While we understand that some people feel it was an overreaction on our part to post about this before all the facts were known, here’s why we think it was warranted: First of all, had the painters been intending to paint the entire facade, every second counted when we got the tip (we were in fact in Dumbo, and not just across the street, when the tip came in, so popping over for a friendly chat was not an option); secondly, we were on the phone with LPC within five minutes of getting the tip, and LPC told us that (1) the owner had no permit for the painting and (2) that he had racked up, and failed to cure, several other landmark violations over the years. All these factors led us to conclude that, on balance, it was not worth taking the risk that something really destructive might happen. You know, better safe than sorry. With 20/20 hindsight, this was clearly the wrong call. Apologies to the owner—our obsession with historic brownstones may have gotten the better of us on this one.
Bottom photo by Rosier for the Daily News
one thing this thread does prove however…
clinton hill is the NEW PARK SLOPE!!!!!!
just kidding. even i can’t admit that.
no one on here claimed that we were discussing a topic on events that harm or injure people, 5:57.
that’s all coming from people like you. we were talking about paint. don’t twist things around.
this thread was like a “hey…look at that” and it’s posters such as yourself that have deemed it the moral dilemna that you seem to now be making of it.
Dear Whatthefuckisayuppie. First the root of “yuppie” is Young Urban Professional, so, yes, many of the posters here and many of those that currently own brownstones are, in fact, yuppies. You say this: “…a building he genuinely and understandably thought was about to be ruined.” Nothing involved here would “ruin” a building, stop overreacting. Genuinely thought, maybe, but it is then incumbent upon upon JB to check facts and verify (particularly as fact-checking in this case need involve nothing more than a short walk down the block to talk to a neighbor.) Understandably thought, not so much, as white, black, and rust-red (the most common colors for exterior primer) are not colors that one would normally paint the facade of one’s house, the “understandable” assumption would be primer. Again, I find it most disturbing that so many are willing to turn their neighbors in to the Gestapo over something that poses no risk of injury or harm and does not affect them in any way, shape, or form. Some of us moved to this great city from shitholes like Dallas and Houston for the anonymity and tolerant attitude cocommitant with urban living. Perhaps if these watchdogs of the color-wheel were as vigilant concerning street crime, industrial pollution, political and corporate malfeasance, a corrupt and ineffective police force, and our crumbling infrastructure, this could be the “shining city on a hill” that is Nueva York’s potential.
how absurd. some people get all riled up about a facade being painted, but until the owners of Brokenangel were forced to take down that hazardous monstrosity referred to by some as “art”, not an objection was voiced. I would be threatened more by that crap falling on me as I walk by, rather than the white that graced the walls of the brownstone. didn’t hear any objections on the contrary there is a post to save it. go figure.
WTFisAYuppie? WTF was that??!?!? You are so not getting the point…Ruin what? It’s COURTESY!!!
Here, take a puff of this…im passing it through the screen…Now don’t u feel better… 🙂
i’d suggest shitshow.com but that’s neither here nor there.
agree, wholeheartedly, whatthefuckisayuppie.
we’re all yupsters here though anyway. get it right!
😉
WTFisAYuppie? WTF was that??!?!? You are so not getting the point…Ruin what? It’s COURTESY!!!
Here, take a puff of this…im passing it through the screen…Now don’t u feel better… 🙂
For people who spend so much time reading a blog about historic preservation, you sure are bitching mightily about JB’s attempt to save a building he genuinely and understandably thought was about to be ruined.
That Daily News article was pathetic and lazy, a typically lame reduction of the genuinely important issue of historic preservation to a knee-jerk rant about “yuppies” versus real, Brooklyn old-timers. (“Yuppies” again? Didn’t Bonfire of the Vanities come out in the mid-eighties?) That’s not what this was about AT ALL.
JB was correctly trying to sound the alarm about what looked to be a desecration of an important block. And, while the house in question apparently does happen to be on JB’s block, presumably JB was at the Brownstoner office in DUMBO. You can’t expect a one-man blog operation to have a glass of sherry with every old coot in Brooklyn who might be about to ruin a landmarked building.
If you disagree so mightily with the concept of protecting historic buildings, WTF are you doing here? Maybe you should find yourself a split-level in Houston or someplace, and write your own damned blog. You could call it, perhaps, ShitSandwich.com. Good work, Brownstoner!
Gawker material, yet again.
You nosy boobs.
Pay the guy’s health care premiums for a month.
He’s my Brooklyn hero of the month.