City Used Eminent Domain for BAM Cultural District

Happy to follow the double-dollar-signs. Tell me where you got the $650M number, preferably from the actual budget.

I didn’t say BAM isn’t driving this initiative, just that they weren’t writing the checks.

I am old enough to remember the Grenada. I cannot believe people are getting nostalgic about it. It was a blight on the entire neighborhood.

Huh? The Mark Morris building is new, as is the Theater for a New Audience. A scaled back arts library, which I didn’t mention the first time cause that seems kind of tentative for now, would also be new. BAM’s expansion is a new building. The Danspace center is new–what existing cultural center did it replace? All I remember is a liquor store.

And, bkn4life, you make renovation sound like something you do over a weekend. Hardly. If it was so easy, why was the Irondale space under-utilized for so long? Should the city build BRIC a whole new facility ’cause renovation is just so second-class? The other thing you ignore is the residential buildings contribute in their own way to the vitality of the neighborhood. Or perhaps you’re a fan of surface parking lots, in which case this is utopia. I don’t think the facts support your case.

BrooklynGreene, the BAM Cultural District isn’t a project of BAM, so your comment about who funded Irondale’s renovation is off base. As for the BAM triangle, it continues to be structurally unsound despite whatever positive signs you saw on the sidewalks. Don’t expect any good news here for a while.

I’m curious: I thought the Irondale Theater came into the Lafayette Presbyterian Church without significant BAM financial assistance…Am I correct or completely wrong?

Yes, the destruction of that hotel was a bit atrocious. In fact, a lot of money was put into replacing the windows and other work not many years before the City closed it and then POOF! One day it was gone! …well, maybe it took some time…we were abroad for a little while and was shocked when it was both gone and a lousy parking lot was on the spot upon our return.

I always figured there was some asbestos issue with the building that they felt would be too costly to “abate” to continue its use but this is just my crazy idea.

Frankly, that area has been a bit of a mess for years but part of it the problem is the neglect and piecemeal takeover by BAM over the years, years when many lots have sat empty or buildings ripped down for nothing.

The rather ugly Mark Morris building was a small two-storey store with marble carvings and big plate glass windows upstairs. They let that building fall to pieces with a multi-year more-derelict-by-the-year scaffold around it. It was atrocious and collected garbage…was very, very poorly handled.

BAM has had its eye on the area all around it since the 70s and before. They haven’t been afraid to use their “non-profit”, “arts organization” veneer to push intimidate locals.

The triangle bounded by 4th Avenue, Flatbush and Pacific Avenues was sold to BAM by the City for a nothing. It was parking for a long time and then the community garden that rejuvenated a large piece of it. Meanwhile, BAM sold much of the land to FCR for a large profit and the community garden got chopped short and had to battle it out for years.

This highlights, to some extent, BrooklynForLife’s premise that all this BAM development is a dressing up of for-profit developer takeover. It seems BAM has played the rôle of stepping stone which, although possibly not initially intentional, ended up whitewashing and/or delaying proper scrutiny of private developer profit.

Isn’t it probable that having all the land E.D.’d for “a cultural institution” will not preclude ownership of any eventual buildings from being privately held by for-profits while BAM and company simply ends up with reasonable long-term rent deals. Or, maybe the flipside of that: BAM owns the buildings and has the liability and a developer gets a relatively cheap 99-year lease that becomes an exceedingly valuable thing in its own right.

Also, (and this is an ongoing issue), a number of us in the neighborhood wouldn’t mind at all if the “BAM Triangle”, the little park at Lafayette and Fulton, could return to its originally promised open hours and if were maintained a little (much) better. Thank goodness at least the sinking sidewalks look like they’ve been fixed for now!

A green spot accessible to the public…a place to sit in the shade in high summer is sorely needed at that spot. There is one gate, the placement of which speaks to the triangle’s focus only toward BAM and away from the community. And I wonder if they even bother to open enough to align with the Parks Department’s new 2009 requirement that community gardens have 20 open hours per week from April 1st to September 30th.

I know, I know, it is open sometimes on weekends, no? It is just that it seems to be closed just about every time I walk by.

I’m sure BAM staff members are reading this. Take this as notice that making the BAM Triangle much more accessible to the public would be a noticed and appreciated PR move vis-à-vis the community. Although it is small, it might be a spot for a community involved landscaped garden like the much larger Jefferson Market garden in Greenwich Village. That garden is a “community garden” but it is much more a manicured, institutional/professionally-managed garden because the members follow the hired landscaper’s directions and plans and rarely, if ever, deviate…there are no scraggly tomato plants to be seen. It more like a pocket park in a rather ritzy part Paris.

Maybe BAM should put together a slimmer-than-slim budget, do some communications and PR and amass a group of volunteers to spruce up the BAM Triangle and turn it into a show stopper…I wouldn’t mind being part of this for one.

Did I deviate from the topic?

“just how much ‘culture’ will be in this ditrict? and how much residential?”

Culture: renovated Strand Theater (home to BRIC, BCAT and UrbanGlass), new Danspace rehearsal and performing space, Irondale Center, 80 Hanson Place converted to office space for creative enterprises, rejuvenated Brooklyn Music School, expanded Brooklyn Academy of Music, and permanent homes for Mark Morris Dance Group and Theater for a New Audience.

Residential: three new buildings–Fulton Street between Rockwell and Ashland, Lafayette and Ashland, and the southern part of the triangular block bounded by Flatbush, Lafayette and Ashland.