Catholic Church and City Stick It to Fort Greene
Here’s a rumor straight out of The Da Vinci Code…The eight-story pre-war building on the corner of Clermont and Greene has been home to a group of priests for years. According to a tipster who lives nearby, the priests began moving out last week to make room for the building’s new occupants: 155 juvenile delinquents….
Here’s a rumor straight out of The Da Vinci Code…The eight-story pre-war building on the corner of Clermont and Greene has been home to a group of priests for years. According to a tipster who lives nearby, the priests began moving out last week to make room for the building’s new occupants: 155 juvenile delinquents. The Catholic Church reportedly has leased the entire building to the City which obviously feels that Fort Greene is getting too nice. After a neighborhood has spent a couple decades pulling itself up by its heels, why not throw up another roadblock. Anyone have further details?
Update: It appears that the Church is partnering with a non-profit group called ANCHOR to create an urban boarding school, 15 or 20 of whose students will be housed in this building. It’s unclear if the rest of the building will continue to house priests.
I live across from a HighSchool – albeit a smallish one and find it much less a nuisance than the bars/restaurants around the corner.
And Brownstoner really sounding NIMBYish today – that FG can’t handle a juvenile hall.
C’mon – go back to the UES or the burbs if you can’t handle real city living.
From what bstoner posted, this will not be a High School, it will be a center for juvenile deliquents (a detention center or a halfway house…it is not clear). But young, disturbed deliquent teenagers with anger issues and absent parents are generally not looked at as a good thing. I don’t understand the “this is the city” and “serves you right” comments. I also think that, unless the City is paying the Church (or whoever owns the building) a significant amount of money, that this is a bad commercial decision.
All that said, this is all rumor. The “deliquents” may in fact be troubled kids who need a nice home. If they are not a bunch of violent teenagers, then this might be something worthy of the community’s support. Without details of who the “deliquents” are and what types of things they’ve done or had happen to them to land them in the place, it’s hard to make a judgment call.
Agreed. High Schools and METHADONE CLINICS? Gimme a break. I lived next to Brooklyn Tech for a year and loved it.
and for the record, this would be a great condo conversion candidate. No problem with that at all…
Great idea Catholic Church, take a prime location in a landmarked neighborhood and make it into a juvenile detention center.
With all of the budgetary shortfalls and closing parochial schools, you’d think the Catholic diocese would have a bit more business acumen when deciding to vacate this prime location.
Instead, it sounds like this will be a juvi hall. Maybe the pretty surrounds will make the juvi’s reform. Doubt it.
You ever live next to a High School? I would take a halfway house over that any day- even a wine bar would be better!
way to blame the Catholic Church for this one. Of course if the Catholic Church sold the building to another rich developer to make fancy condos you’d be blaming them for gentrifying the neighborhood “too” much too quickly.
I also don’t get the Da Vinci Code reference.