Marty and Mayor Deal Death Blow to B'kln History
Selling the public a giant shovel-ful of b.s., Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. President and CEO Andrew Kimball yesterday claimed that he has”no option” but to tear down the ten historic residences for naval officers that line Flushing Avenue at the Southwest corner of the yard. The buildings, which were built between 1858 and 1901,…
Selling the public a giant shovel-ful of b.s., Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. President and CEO Andrew Kimball yesterday claimed that he has”no option” but to tear down the ten historic residences for naval officers that line Flushing Avenue at the Southwest corner of the yard. The buildings, which were built between 1858 and 1901, will be replaced by a 60,000-square-foot supermarket and a 300-car parking garage. Not everyone agrees with Kimball’s analysis. “[Preserving Admirals Row] is definitely doable and worth doing,” said New York Landmarks Conservancy official Alex Herrera. “They’re really a part of Brooklyn and Brooklyn’s history.” In another betrayal of Brooklyn’s heritage, Marty Markowitz joined Mayor Bloomberg in hailing the forces of progress: “A crucial community resource must take priority over preservation at Admirals Row.” Marty better hope he just won a lot of new votes from residents of the Farragut Houses (the most likely patrons of the supermarket) because he sure as hell just lost a lot of support among Brooklynites who care about preserving the borough’s history.
Addendum: Marty’s office contacted us to clarify that Navy Yard officials make all decisions regarding Admirals Row, and that he was simply stating his priorities in the Daily News article. He also pointed out his efforts to restore the historic Loew’s Kings theater in Flatbush and to preserve the character of Coney Island, including the Parachute Jump, as it is revitalized.
Admirals Row Sunk [NY Daily News]
Brooklyn Navy Yard Expansion Begins [NY Times]
Admirals Row [Historic Fort Greene]
Photo by D.K. Holland
Our history is important. How nice it would be to have an administration that cared about investing in saving our architectural heritage and using it for community purposes. It’s not like preserving the livable scale of a neighborhood and its unique qualities precludes developing amenities like supermarkets. For instance, instead of letting every shady developer build every piece of cheap crap on every square inch of available land, how about insisting that, if you’re going to add 30 families or whatever to an area you also develop a building to lease to a supermarket? Those navy yard buildings are in horrific disrepair–because they’ve been deliberately neglected. Nobody is putting up a garage or a whole foods to benefit the economically disadvantaged residents of the profits. It’s to make an ungodly amount of money. How about developing a usefule educational or recreational resource incorporating the buildings or even the shells? No imagination and NO CONCERN for poorer residents anywhere in this borough. Just unbelievably slimy doubletalk. Ugh.
why can’t there be a compromise where they figure out how to incorporate the existing structures into the new one?
i dont think they should be allowed to simply destroy a part of brooklyn’s history.
11:45 am:
I would be glad to put my money where my mouth is, but unfortunately I have no control over my money. Unelected unaccountable untransparent crony state authorities are making decisions about where to spend public moneys. If they were making wise decisions, I could tolerate it, but there is no plan for Brooklyn.
And don’t tell me I’m not doin’ nothin’. You don’t know what I’m up to.
You guys are crazy! If you like the site, and want to restore it, put your money where your mouth is. Otherwise chill. Those buildings have been there for years decaying and you did nothing!!
The residents of Farragut, Ingersoll, and Walt Whitman (those are NYC Housing developments, for those of you who don’t know there are poor people in New York) know that this new development is just another nail in the coffin of public housing in New York. If Marty Markowitz cared anything about the providing services to the NYCHA tenants, he would have protested the destruction of the supermarket and other shops on Myrtle.
Marty does not care about the votes from these NYCHA developments, because the city is busy emptying them out.
The destruction of Admiral’s Row does not help Brooklynits, and this is something that preservationists and NYCHA residents can fully agree on.
The ROI analyses of this scenario are, for nearly 30 years did absolutely nothing to stave off decay and destruction.
not to bring atlantic yards into this but it seems to be the MO for corrupt deals these days – let the area become blighted by intentionally neglecting it and use that as the justification for destructive development. That is EXACTLY how Robert Moses operated, except he did it with infrastructure- let the MTA get run down and then said ‘see we need parkways’
Rascal is right. I would call myself an ardent preservationist, but restoring (more like rebuilding) these totally decrepit buildings is, conservatively, $40-60 million prospect.
If someone wanted to buy the properties and raise money for full restoration, that would be great. But at this high a cost I’m not sure it’s a very good use of government money, nor would it necessarily provide enough benefit to the community. Sometimes practicality trumps history.
I’d be a million bucks that anon 10:41 owns a car.
Anon 10:39,
DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights may be geographically close to this site, but in reality they may as well be in California. Given the barrier created by the subway line over the bridge, these buildings are located (literally and figuratively) closer to the Farragut Houses – that is an underserved community and it deserves this grocery store. And I don’t see why the size of the store should be reduced. People love Fairway, but when residents of public housing stand to gain a place to shop, suddenly everyone cares more about rotting buildings. There are thousands of residents in the Farragut Houses, so the proposed size seems justified to me.