Lots of Love for the Schermerhorn House
The Schermerhorn is not your average affordable housing project, as The Times makes abundantly clear in its profile this weekend. (As we put it a couple of weeks ago, “This place is about as sexy as supportive housing gets.”) Stand-out amenities include a gym with floor-to-ceiling windows and a ground-floor performance space. (The Brooklyn Ballet…
The Schermerhorn is not your average affordable housing project, as The Times makes abundantly clear in its profile this weekend. (As we put it a couple of weeks ago, “This place is about as sexy as supportive housing gets.”) Stand-out amenities include a gym with floor-to-ceiling windows and a ground-floor performance space. (The Brooklyn Ballet will be the anchor tenant.) Designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, the 217-unit building will end up being split fairly evenly between arts-related professionals who don’t make a lot of dough and those who qualify for supportive housing, typically the formerly homeless and others in need of help. The interior photo in The Times story is pretty darn slick for this type of thing, seeming to confirm our suspicions that lack of creativity and resourcefulness is usually more to blame than small budgets when ugly new buildings are put up.
New Homes for a Varied Cast [NY Times]
Schermerhorn House 1/3-Rented [Brownstoner]
Development Watch: Schermerhorn House Nears Completion [Brownstoner]
Development Watch: Schermerhorn House Gets Its Skin [Brownstoner] GMAP
Development Watch: 160 Schermerhorn Tops Out [Brownstoner] P*Shark
Development Watch: Schermerhorn House Rising [Brownstoner] DOB
Some More 411 on the “Schermerhorn House” [Brownstoner]
Z
You have a narrow definition and role of the arts. A $100 million movie is not quite the same as a $10k documentary about genocide in Africa.
Z;
Uh-oh! Saying that some artists produce crapola!! You better go back into exile for a while!!
😉
PS: I agree.
“The “non-profits” in this town are all heavily subsidized by government. Many are nothing more than financial intermediaries of government money.”
Yeah that includes medical research and services, children services, education, rent control/stabilized housing programs, shelters, tax breaks for religious institutions, etc.etc
I am in good health, agnostic, don’t have children, paid for school with my own money and don’t live in RC/RS.
With that logic, we should eliminate all of them.
It’s absolutely shocking to me that some people on this blog don’t seem to understand that without the arts, New York City is nothing.
Some seem to like to say the same about Wall Street. You know what…NYC will be just fine with a scaled back Wall Street.
This city would cease to exist as we know it without artists. From Broadway to the MET, Lincoln Center to the Williamsburg and Gowanus Music Scenes. To the costume designers for Sex and the City to Mercedez Benz Fashion Week and everything in between.
Art is what keeps this city alive. If you don’t realize that by now, you are rather clueless.
I can’t say the same for life without nannies. Without them, rich people would have to watch their own kids and buy a smaller house. Not the end of the world.
“Are the arts less important than nannies? How much do nannies contribute to society in general compared to the arts?”
oh come on. nannies play a key role in raising children, which is a pretty damned important contribution to society. by contrast, people in the arts create things that are luxuries — movies, tv, music, paintings — that are nearly always expendable from a basic needs standpoint, and that are frequently total crapola.
sneering down on other professions isn’t helping your cause.
30K, 40K, 60K. Even 80K. It doesn’t really matter. None of those incomes are sufficient to rent any of the new construction built in downtown Brooklyn. I think a secretary making 50K has just as much of a right to an affordable apartment as some lighting guy at BAM. Well, okay, possibly more, but that is my own bias.
Me agreeing with Benson AND Rob is rare, but it can happen.
What I honestly think, (and maybe the What could say it more colorfully), is that the developer didn’t want the standard “low-income” housing, especially with the stigma of housing the formerly homeless added to that, because that would basically leave them with “projects,” so they threw in “arts” subsidies to cherry pick the kind of tenants they want.
Since much of the affordable housing for people that have lived in downtown Brooklyn for ages has all been torn down, this seems especially sad.
11217;
I was referring to myself!
I say that’s a stretch, Heather. the wealthy can afford nannies, so what’s your point?
benson- ever go to a show? Ever go to a museum? Care about history? Care about the disabled, the mentally ill, the poor? Ever think we wasted millions (not to mention the lives it devastated in 2 countries- ours and Iraq)on the war in Iraq? Did you speak out about that? Your worry over this building being subsidized is the equivalent of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.At least I have the confidence of knowing the money for subsidized artist housing goes for something positive.
Even if i did qualify to live in this buildling i wouldn’t – it’s ugly, on a crappy block and will be full of artists – bleh.