GL’s Best & Worst of Brooklyn 2007

Here’s a very random “Best & Worst” of Brooklyn list that is probably more notable for what we’ve left out than what we’ve included. In any case, here’s our take on the obligatory end of the year list:

Achievement in Hellish Construction/Demolition
1) 143 Huron Street. This building appeared to have been virtually above the law.
2) 525 Union. They were on the job virtually every weekend and DOB never saw a thing.
3) 5 Roebling. This nightmarish demolition job and the fact that no one could seem to get a handle on it is Brooklyn’s best symbol of why the entire buildings system is a vital municipal system that is terminally ill and a threat to the quality of life of every Brooklynite.

Adventures in Rebranding
It started the year as an oily mess you could smell a block a way and ended the year as Warehouse 11 or W-11. Here’s hoping that luxe condo buyers don’t look at online pictures.

Community Groups of the Year
1) CORD. They are loud. They are insistent. They have made enemies. But good community groups are supposed to do all those things.
2) Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights. Major props to this group. It’s hard for anyone in the South Slope or Greenwood Heights to slip anything past them.
3) DDDB. The model of long-term commitment to a cause they have created will be followed by groups in the future.

Bright Ideas of the Year
1) The proposed ban on listening to an MP3 player while walking, brought to you by State. Sen. Carl Kruger. Yes, that Sen. Kruger. Much more to come in ’08 as well, as the State Senator appears ready to the be leader of the anti-Bloomberg plan group.
2) The proposed ban on feeding pigeons, brought to you by City Council Member Simcha Felder.

The Nevermind Award
The Department of Transportation’s short lived one-way proposal for streets in Park Slope. Didn’t go over too well.

Participatory Democracy Award, Checkbook Version
The busloads of Coney Island meeting “protestors” paid for by Sen. Carl Kruger with campaign funds. Is political theater legitimate campaign spending?

Participatory Democracy Award, Genuine Version
1) The Carroll Gardens Development Moratorium movement. It started with opposition to a single building and became a neighborhood-wide cause.
2) The F Train Express Effort. A lot of people signed the online petition. Of course, by the end off the year the MTA was not only saying “no way” until 2012, give or take, it dropped the bomb that it was shutting the Smith-9th Street Station for repairs.

Ugliest New Buildings
1) Northside Piers. Even if the building was shorter, it would still be one of the ugliest new tall buildings in New York City. And what’s with the college dorm-looking brick crap in front?
2) Oro. One could say that, well, it’s only on Flatbush Avenue and that anything would have to be better than the car washes and other stuff that’s been demolished, but Oro makes a car wash look kind of pretty.
3) 525 Union Avenue. The ugliest Karl Fisher building on the planet?
4) Novo Park Slope. Mental institution or college dorm? You decide.

Ain’t Nature Grand
1) The Bay Ridge Tornado. Here’s hoping it was a once-in-a-lifetime event.
2) Gowanus Canal Clap. Seriously.
3) Sludgie the Whale. Gave us hope, then crushed our spirit.
4) Brooklyn Parrots. They are spreading to new neighborhoods and we hope the poaching problem is finished.

Saved by the Bell
227 Duffield. We’re not sure that it will really matter in the end, but it was still nice to see one of the Underground Railroad Buildings saved.

Developer of the Year (aka the Foot in Mouth Award)
Joe Sitt/Thor Equities. Rarely have we seen a developer alienate just about everyone through a series of unfortunate public statements, miscalculations and PR disasters. One by one, even those who had been relatively supportive or open minded about Mr. Sitt’s Coney Island plan became opponents. Then, the big bomb dropped. Not pretty.

Community Spirit Medal (aka the Ektorp)
Ikea. It’s not that Ikea is coming to Red Hook. That has been a forgone conclusion for years now. It’s Ikea’s attitude about things like filling a valuable Graving Dock and chopping up piers that could prove useful in the future and its refusal to even pretend to care about many community concerns that have made the Swedish retailer a class act.

Mean Idea Award
The Parks Department for threatening our beloved vendors. Their future is still up in the air. Shame on callous bureaucrats behind this boneheaded move.

Williamsburg Overdevelopment Trophy
Williamsburg, of course. Is it a neighborhood or a construction site?

Best New Brooklyn Blogs of 07
1) Brooklyn Junction. We look forward to a lot more intelligent coverage of Flatbush.
2) The Bay Ridge Three. We’d fill all our slots with these new Bay Ridge blogs so, instead, we’ll cop out and name them all here: Bay Ridge Blog, The Bay Ridge Rover and Right in Bay Ridge.
3) Icky in Brooklyn. A bright new voice from Windsor Terrace. A lot more to come in 2008.
4) Bed-Stuy Banana. Started in the second half of ’07 and made an impression.
5) Brooklyn 11211. They’re paying attention to development and land use issue in Williamsburg, which need all the attention they can get.

Video of the Year
Going Postal at the Kensington Post Office, of course.

GL’s 2008 Brooklyn Coming Attractions

We took a look back at 2007 on Friday, now here is a look ahead at some stories that we think will make news or that will keep making news in 2008:

1) Coney Island. If the city is committed to it audacious Coney strategy–rezoning, buying out developer Joe Sitt in the amusement district and/or doing some land swaps–2008 will be an eventful year. If there isn’t much progress next year, stick a fork in the new plan and wait for the new mayor.

2) New Domino. Any project as big as the New Domino is not going to be a slam dunk, so count on it generating some noise in 2008 as the plans move forward.

3) Gowanus Rezoning. The city will pick a development team for the toxic Public Place site in 2008. Will the Bloomberg Administration ram through the high density residential rezoning that developers like the Toll Brothers want?

4) Carroll Gardens Development. Residents are getting increasingly testy about out-of-context development and appear ready to fight every big development announced in the neighborhood. We don’t think 2008 will be a quiet year as newly energized neighborhood activists aren’t going to give up without a huge fight.

5) Red Hook Gridlock. Of course, there’s a chance that everything will go smoothly when the Ikea opens on Beard Street next year. We could be wrong, but we think there’s going to be major traffic chaos as up to 50,000 cars a week pour into Red Hook. It’s going to be ugly.

6) Developer Bloodletting. As the residential market softens, look for a lot of marginal Brooklyn condos, especially smaller ones in Williamsburg and the South Slope, to turn into white elephants. We’re seeing major price cuts, buildings going rental and the possibility of bankruptcies among developers without deep pockets.

7) Subprime Pox Spreads. While buyers in affluent Brooklyn neighborhoods aren’t being hit, parts of low income neighborhoods that were epicenters of the subprime mortgage market are being decimated. More awfulness to come in 2008.

8) Dock Street. Dumbo developers David and Jed Walentas have hired lobbyists and battle lines are hardening over the 18-story Dock Street development that Two Trees wants to build near the Brooklyn Bridge. They’ve intimated that they can build a 35-story hotel on the property without getting anyone’s approval. It could get very ugly.

9) Ratner-Renzo Tower. Mr. Ratner’s bold plan for a Renzo Piano-designed building that would be Brooklyn’s tallest, will not continue to fly under the radar.

10) Admirals Row. Will these historic buildings be creatively reused or turned into a parking lot for a supermarket? 2008 should provide answers.

11) Bushwick Inlet Park. Will the city’s big new park plan for the Williamsburg-Greenpoint waterfront move forward? Or will there be some eminent domain-related wrenches thrown into the works?

Our Weird Predictions for 2008:
1) Whole Foods Throws in Gowanus Towel. What’s up at the Gowanus Whole Foods site? Is the grocery chain backing away from developing a below ground grocery on a site with toxic issues that is in a flood plain? If nothing happens by the middle of next year, it might be time to rethink this one. The grocer wouldn’t opt for a Sunset Park location or go to Williamsburg first, would they? Eh, this will probably look like a stupid prediction by February. Or not.

2) Williamsburg Waterfront Slowdown. There are odd rumblings along Kent Avenue that could indicate the waterfront boom will not be going ahead with the speed that was originally anticipated. Does it mean delays for additional Toll Brothers towers? Will The Edge be a little less sharp? We’re sensing less unbridled optimism than in the past.

Gowanus Whole Foods Year End Special: Come On In

The abandoned Gowanus Whole Foods site closes out the year the way it spent much of the last half of 2007: wide open to visitors that want to check it out. The environmentally-challenged site got some attention in November when Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and others criticized the grocer for maintaining a public hazard. Well, attention from public officials can have a very short half life. The site was closed up for a couple of weeks, but the shoddy fence has been more open than closed ever since. (A reader notes that even the portable toilets on the site have been removed, which we suppose is one way of economizing.) Advice to the grocer that own the toxic property that gets many, many, many visits: invest in a work crew, buy some new wood, get a lot of nails, install a sturdy new fence around the property & keep an eye on it. Will Brooklyn’s biggest toxic playground remain to entertain in 2008? Keep watching. We will.

Park Slope Crest Improves Fouth Ave. Streetscape

The fencing around The Crest in Park Slope has come down. The mindboggling results are above. We will refrain from a long diatribe about how such architecture is the equivalent of saying “screw you” to the streetscape and how people that design residential buildings this way should be held up to professional ridicule for designing walls at street level. (Though we love the big vent effect.) We simply can’t understand why anyone would make the entire first floor of a condo being pitched to a high end market into a wall. Ironically, it is across the street from this gem at the Con Ed building, which we called “The Great Wall of Gowanus.” It looks like Brooklyn’s “Park Avenue” is off to a shaky start architecturally speaking.

Bklink: "Brooklyn Under Seige"

From the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Best & Worst of 2007 list comes “Brooklyn Under Seige.” Needless to say, Brooklyn is included on the “worst” list. Topics covered include Ikea, Coney Island and Ward Bakery.–Preservation Nation via No Land Grab

Brand New: The Tear Down & Build Up Gallery

The year is ending and the new year beginning in Greenwood Heights in much the same way that 2007 did: with residents keeping an eye on a new development in their neighborhood and creating an interesting model for other neighborhoods. The Greenwood Heights crew used YouTube vids documenting construction issues on development to great effect this year. In this case, it’s the demolition of a 1900 two-story home on 23rd Street and construction of new condo that is being chronicled by Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights. The “Tear Down & Build Up Gallery” is online. From the email we got:

As many of you know, in July of 2007, our neighbor at 312 23rd Street, Brooklyn, NY sold his circa 1900’s wood frame 2 story home to a local developer. In a nutshell, tear down the old, build up with the new. Here’s to a slightly biased documentation of the demolition of the “old” 312 23rd Street and construction of the “new” 312 23rd Street condos...AND, have photos of your own? Send them to us, and we’ll add them…And as always, if you see something fishy at 312, CALL 311, take a snapshot and let us know asap. We hope this new development site’s documentation will be a treasure to remember and not an bad-boy to forget. So far so good.

There are already a lot of photos of the process online.

Upcoming: Prospect Park New Year’s Eve Fireworks

The New Year’s Firework are GL’s favorite Brooklyn New Year’s thing.

Brooklinks: Monday Last Day of 2007 Edition

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images. Happy New Year to all. May all be well in the 365 days to come.

• Atlantic Yards 2007 Year in Pics [No Land Grab]
• The Times on Atlantic Yards in 2007 [AYR]
• 2007’s Big Atlantic Yards Stories [DDDB]
• Wild Ride for Brooklyn in 2007 [NYDN]
• Eight Things to Watch in 08 [Brooklyn Junction]
• Caton Place Developer Does a Rezoning Bait-and-Switch [Courier Life]
• Water Taxi Press Conference [Brooklyn 11211]
• Kruger Strikes Again [Kinetic Carnival]
• Investment Opportunities in Sunset Park? [Sunset Park Blog]
• De Blasio in Iowa Stumping for Hillary, MIA in Carroll Gardens [PMFA]
• Cobble Hill Rat Heaven [Lost City]
• Bed-Stuy Links with Street Couch [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Winter on the Water [Sail Brooklyn]
• Jacks Cancellation Shoes [INSIJS]

Street Couch Series: Noble Seating

Our latest Street Couch Series installment is more of a van seat than a sofa, but it is, nonetheless, street seating. This specimen, from Noble Street in Greenpoint, comes to us courtesy of our Greenpoint correspondent.

Will a Parking Lot Foil City’s Coney Plan?

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and the most bizarre of all may turn out to be the odd alliances forged by the Bloomberg’s Coney redevelopment plan and its effort to dislodge developer Joe Sitt from the amusement district and to swap the parking lot next to KeySpan Park for the developer’s property. The rub, of course, is that the KeySpan lot (and the Abe Stark Ice Rink) are defined as parkland. The parkland has to be be “alienated” (or de-parked) in order for it to be transfered. And so, on the last day of the week after Christmas, State Sen. Carl Kruger held forth on the need for a lengthy environmental review before that can happen. As it turned out, New Yorkers for Parks, had asked the state Department of Environmental Conservation for an advisory opinion, which Sen. Kruger used. The city wants to swap 9.6 acres of land (the bulk of which is a parking lot but that is defined as parkland) for 10 acres of land Mr. Sitt owns in the amusement district. The land swap requires legislative approval. Of the involvement of New Yorkers for Parks, the Times reports:

Christian DiPalermo, executive director of the nonprofit group New Yorkers for Parks, asked for the advisory opinion to ensure that the public had more chance to comment before parkland is lost. Mr. DiPalermo said his group was not opposed to the Coney Island plan as long as the proper environmental procedures were followed.

Will an extensive environmental review process be required over a parking lot (an an ice rink that the city’s plans show will be replaced)? Will pro-parks groups and environmental organizations align themselves those trying to slow or stop the city’s plan? One sensed many possible legal and bureaucratic fights when the city’s plan was announced. All it will take is a couple of legal challenges, and the city’s plan could be effectively halted for the duration of the Bloomberg Administration.