Plans for HOD Go Forward
Despite widespread opposition to the proposed $440 million expansion of the Brooklyn House of Detention on Atlantic Avenue, looks like it’s imminent. “The Department of Design and Construction inked a $32.5-million deal to hire Manhattan architecture firm Ricci Greene Associates to transform the prison into a 1,469-inmate facility with ground-floor shopping,” reports The Brooklyn Paper….
Despite widespread opposition to the proposed $440 million expansion of the Brooklyn House of Detention on Atlantic Avenue, looks like it’s imminent. “The Department of Design and Construction inked a $32.5-million deal to hire Manhattan architecture firm Ricci Greene Associates to transform the prison into a 1,469-inmate facility with ground-floor shopping,” reports The Brooklyn Paper. The jail sits across the street from new boutique hotels and a slew of new building projects; might be bad for tourism, but the city contends is best for the judicial process. “It is more efficient to have prisoners in Downtown Brooklyn — near the courts and their lawyers — and it is better public policy to make it easier for families to visit the incarcerated, who currently await trial on remote Rikers Island,” they write. Opponents have vowed to fight the project, either through the ULURP process or in court.
City Says ‘Go’ Directly to Jail [Brooklyn Paper]
Brooklyn’s Jail with Retail is (Maybe) Moving Forward [Curbed]
The Manhattan House of Detention on Centre Street has retail stores on the street level of that building and works well. Most people walking by don’t realize that it is a jail. It makes sense to reopen the Brooklyn House in this location. What didn’t make sense was spending millions of dollars to renovate it and now it will have to be totally redesigned. Of course they could always use this location as the city homeless intake center and remake the Bedford armory a jail.
THAL do you even live in the immediate area? are you a business owner in the immediate area? And what do you suggest they put in the HoD building > whats missing from the area…. more condos? mmmkay.
I only care that this is one f-in ugly building. I don’t care who they put in it as long as they fix it up so it doesn’t look a soiled and discarded old mattress.
If things get bad, we’ll be needing those cells…
I am confused why people want the HOD reopened??? I understand why the HOD was put there in the late 50’s but the area has changed drastically. I love how people say these Nimbys and so on but people have invested alot of money in the community and I see this as a major set back. Doubling the size is crazy and everyone knows it. Atlantic ave is finally flouishing and by putting something else in this spot would only connect the two sides of Atlantic Ave and really make it great. It seems like it all comes down to Bloomberg and if he gets elected again…
BH76- I lived on Schermerhorn just down the street from the Church. Talk about intrusive pains in the butt. Never a problem from the HOD- you and Mattt are right. It’s a fake argument about “property values. Yet doesn’t it seem funny that property values have always gone up in BH despite the HOD? If anti-HODers want to live in a gated community, there are several sitting empty in the midwest. Last I heard, the streets are open to everyone, whether or not you know someone in the HOD.
Went to one of the meetings for one of the groups that are trying to stop the expansion just to see what the fuss was about. What a bunch of assholes. They dress up their argument as being about crime and human rights for the inmates, when all they’re really worried about is property values (which won’t be affected by this at all) and not wanting people who visit people in jail wandering through the neighborood (i.e. property values again). Screw them. Its the city’s property, it makes sense for them to use it for the same purpose they’ve been using it for, and if it includes street-side retail (which I think every building that fronts Atlantic Avenue should be required to include), so much the better.
For all of us who have lived within a block or two of the HOD for all these years (26!), it is an non-issue. The presence of the HOD was what made the area around it affordable to most of us. Its presence back in the days of higher street crime made the area safer — our cars were not brokern into as were those just a few blocks away. Would we want the HOD if we had a choice — of course not. But except for a few minor annoyances — the officers who use the blocks around it as long-term parking for their cars with sensitive alarms, the very occasional noise when the inmates are watching a major sporitng event (not unlike being near a dorm!), it is not a bad neighbor. The Greek church on Schermerhorn that closes the block twice a year for a week at a time is much more of a problem.
Sammy “the Bull” Gravano and Ol’ dirty Bastard slept there, among other criminal greats, why wouldnt this hurt tourism? They should have double decker buses parked out front doing tours.