Open Thread Wednesday

By on November 20, 2024 12:20 am in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • karateca2000

    Yesterday I found a new store on Atlantic Avenue called "Art of Play" (between Hicks and the Adam Yauch playground). I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the store is. I will be back to get some gifts for the holiday season. I recommend you to take a look, you won't be disappointed.

  • Andrew Porter

    Here's 71 Cranberry Street in one of those 1940 tax photos. The building at right is on the corner of Henry Street:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76f0e3558538d1d19234a676fe0481a78d24c4af0aef031465276f0a84d7a980.png

  • clarknt67

    The sidewalk sheds that have been an eyesore in Brooklyn Bridge Park are gone! I am talking about the ones around the Main Street lawn, the environmental education center, under the Manhattan Bridge area. Such an improvement in the area. May we vanquish this blight city wide.

  • Peter Scott-Thomas

    If you were to guess at their ONLINE site, you would guess right. Hoping it won't be suppressed, because it is likely to make you either plan a little trip that way … or buy off their website:
    https://artofplay.com

  • Nosey Neighbor

    Does your home have lead water service lines? Check this amazing map from the city.

    https://nylcvedfund.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/342497b697cf4994ab64652e4dbdc4fc

    Our neighborhood isn't as bad as Cobble Hill or Boerum Hill, but there are still a lot of buildings that have lead service lines according to city records. The records may be inaccurate because they are based on old info that hasn't been updated, but if the map says you have lead pipes, it probably would be a good idea to have your water tested

    The map doesn't work very well on mobile devices.

  • Nosey Neighbor

    I think those were put up because a painter fell off the bridge on the Manhattan side three years ago, and they realized it was pretty dangerous to have workers above the park

    On the other hand, scaffolding collapsed in Chelsea a couple days ago injuring three, so maybe there should be a reconsideration of the risks

  • MaggieO

    to be clear – that scaffolding in Chelsea didn't just collapse on its own, it appears to have been pulled down by a box truck.

  • Andrew Porter

    Walking around BH on Wednesday, I see that the reasoning of dog walkers is apparently if your dog poops in a tree pit, you don't have to pick it up. Really gross!

    Also noticed a big load of lumber in the empty basement of the long empty 27 Cranberry Street building site. Perhaps something might actually be happening here?!?

    I saw workers jackhammering off the brownstone ornamentation around the entrance of 132 Montague Street.

    Lastly, Vineapple has placed an illuminated sign and separate light above their door. I asked inside about permits from Landmarks; they couldn't answer me.

  • Nosey Neighbor

    When my building had work done five years ago, the scaffolding got hit twice by box trucks while it was up. It happens a lot in this neighborhood because of the narrow sidewalks. There is not a lot of space between the scaffolding and the road.

  • Andrew Porter

    I shared the link widely with people I know in NYC. Excellent resource!

  • Peter Scott-Thomas

    Bikes on sidewalks – and other violations like using bike lanes OPPOSITE to their design:

    It's a serious problem – high up there on "quality of life" violations in the community we all love. That the City "is committed to" being bike-friendly IS wonderful, but when it's followed by "But we're just gonna HOPE that cars, pedestrians and bikes share the road and sidewals in ways that don't lead to too many deaths or serious injuries," we have insanity and chaos.

    Of course ebikes – weight & speed – make the problem dramatically worse, and there are more of them every day.

    Even modest "enforcement" might make a difference. Crossing guards are a wonderful thing; maybe, some could go "full time," with the City Council empowering them to issue tickets.

    One specific – maybe, there appeared to be no BETTER choices, but where Clinton St. ends (with a curve) right near the front door of 1 Clinton … we have "traffic insanity." A heavily trafficked bike lane crosses a heavily pedestrian-trafficked street – Cadman Plaza West, right in front of the 10 Clinton St. high rise. Worse, 10-20 bikes per hour turn left at that point traveling on the sidewalk for the full block to Clark St. if they're headed to the N. Heights. (There is slated to be a preschool in operation with its entrance right in the middle of the block!)

    I'm not a traffic engineer, but it seems to me that an against-the-traffic lane in Cadman (make it striped green-and-yellow to connote CAUTION) would be markedly LESS BAD. Do we always have to have a kid killed before a known and severe problem is addressed?!

  • clarknt67

    I take that Clinton lane often and agree it’s dangerous near 1 Clinton. What’s not mentioned by you is every single day there are cars, or multiple cars parked in the bike lane. There is no enforcement on using bike lanes for parking.

    And I agree. DOT needs to find a way for cyclists to continue north on Cadman from the Tillary Clinton dead end. It’s a common route and there is no bike lane on Cadman and many trucks and buses speeding there.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    Citywide, traffic accidents are down significantly from the 1970's when there were over a thousand deaths per year. I Think 2011 was the lowest in recent history and has been on a slow uptick since, despite "Vision Zero's lofty goals. That's probably due to the increase of "Smart phone zombieism" and transplant residents, who ride bikes and cross streets as if they were still back in a small midwestern town…
    Bottom line, Look both ways before crossing, even if you have the light and "right of way", and not just a casual glance LOOK and continue to look while crossing, as if your life depends on it, because it does!

  • Peter Scott-Thomas

    Good advice, and – believe me – I've come to realize that you probably couldn't have enough "enforcers" to get compliance to 80% and be affordable and not be draconian, but we have a huge number of kids of all ages these days "walking around," and I believe B.Hts is rather "grayer" than the NYC avg. Both make your advice necessary – but not sufficient – as I used to say. (And for many kids – pointless, too.)

    And the assumption that the "bigger boat" would let the pedestrian "little boats" go by seems to me – could be age talking, of course – to be much diminished in recent years. Cabs and delivery people KNOW that time=money, and neither occupation is too well compensated.

    I also favor banning Citibike use under age 18.

  • Bagel Hole

    It’s sad how bad Montague Bagels has gotten the past few years. Has it always been this bad, and I was just young and foolish? The service always been slow, but now the bagels are always smooshed or covered in burned bits. The cream cheese tastes funky, and the whole place is dirty.

  • Effective Presenter

    Are legalized marijuana laws responsible for so many accidents?

  • Effective Presenter

    Tremendous revenue $$$ for our city if fines were given to illegally parked cars in the bike lane.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    I doubt it is a significant factor. Smartphones certainly are.
    About 15 years ago I was driving up Bergen St at the intersection of Hoyt, I had a steady green light. suddenly a young woman pushing a stroller and staring into her phone, proceed to cross directly in front of me! Fortunately, I was able to stop in time, with less than a foot between her and the front of my car. I remember she just looked at me, looked at the light and then just continued on as if nothing happened. The incident really shook me up and I related the story to everyone for several days afterwards.
    Alas that wasn't the only time it happened In subsequent months and years it happened more times than I can remember, men, women some with strollers some without but all with a phone in hand.
    He fortune et al, was at least partially due to my habit of taking my foot off the accelerator and covering the brake when approaching an intersection.

  • Downtown Dad

    I'm a relative (2.5 years) BK Heights newcomer, so I was wondering if some veterans could weigh in on what's up with some longstanding neighborhood items: the not insignificant pothole on Monroe Place, the curled up Pierrepont Street Sign at Monroe Place, the (seemingly) forever sidewalk sheds/scaffolding around the Unitarian Church & St Ann's Church and further afield, the twin exterior boiler monstrosities outside the DOE along Court & Livingston Streets and I noticed they now have a 3rd boiler friend across the street on West side of Court as well.

  • Peter Scott-Thomas

    A couple of new ones (that pothole) and a couple of "golden oldies." Unless you just came to Gotham from the Emerald City (where's that?), sidewalk sheds cannot be new to you. But I think they're part and parcel of what's increasingly being UNIVERSALLY recognized as some very big things wrong with NYC's laws that have anything to do with housing, construction, etc. (Things like it being cheaper to leave a sidewalk shed up for 20 years or more than it is to remediate.)

    The City Council periodically acknowledges the problem, but my guess is that members hear from "moneyed interests" – who don't live in places where the problem is irksome – that if they're fined heavily, it'll just cut down on amts they donate to re-election campaigns. The CITY is a frequent violator (the boiler situation – not QUITE the same) is the former hdqtrs of the Board/Dept. of Education, still used as office space by NYC. So are churches, so "cracking down" would likely be tricky and/or unpopular. The whole thing is a spectacular example of unexpected consequences. Someone WAS killed by falling debris from a building with facade issues. Sheds reduce the 1 in a million chance to 1 in 10 million, but – among other things – rats LOVE this "fix."

    We happen, I think, to have an excellent City Councilman, but he's part of the liberal group that's entirely (?) apart from him people of color representing districts with very different priorities & problems from those in Bklyn Hts.

    Sure, I'd say that the Episcopal Diocese of NY, which still owns a sizable chunk of downtown Manhattan, could have found the $million fixing St. Ann's would have cost when the shed first went up – (let me consult an historian) – in 1983 (per the editor of this blog: http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/100001

    But they didn't, and if it was $1MM then, it's probably $10MM now. I leave it as an "exercise" to ascertain the cost per year of a disfiguring "shed."

    Oh yes, the hardware at Montague & Livingston is clearly labeled "Boiler." I guess, NYC makes a similar calculation – replacing an old boiler "way below" IS expensive (and disruptive.) I'm sure a case could be made that what they're doing is "less bad." No the problem won't go away, but it's possible that that building has a remote possibility of being sold, and then "it'll be someone else's problem."

    In short – not my wheelhouse – it's "kick the can" on a humongous scale.

  • Andrew Porter

    There's a bakery coming to the former Clark Pet and meat store at 57 and 59 Clark Street, according to permits from Landmarks and NYC posted in the covered-over windows of the stores.

    I've shared the info widely with people I know in the Heights.

  • RickP
  • No concrete recylcling near ho

    I believe we are down wind from this, so even though it's not technically BK Heights, it's worth joining if you're around:

    “On Tuesday, November 26 at 10.30 am, a number of elected officials will be gathering at Columbia and Kane Street to promote a community effort to close the cancerous concrete crushing operation that is in the Red Hook Container Port. PLEASE BE THERE TO HELP SHUT IT DOWN.

    In February, NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) relocated a Department of Transportation (DOT) concrete recycling plant from an industrial area in Sunset Park to Columbia Street and Kane Street, right across from residences and businesses. Since then our neighborhood has been plagued with disease causing particulate pollution, noise, vibrations, and increased truck traffic. (Concrete dust contains known carcinogens including silica and formaldehyde, and particulate pollution is a cause of asthma, heart disease, strokes, lung disease, diabetes, and a host of other medical conditions.)

    EDC and DOT says the operation meets environmental requirements, and to date they have not provided a timeline for relocation.

    This neighborhood rally is happening because of advocacy by the BROOKLYN MARINE TERMINAL (BMT) NEIGHBORS ALLIANCE.”

    PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO WHATEVER LISTS OR FOLKS WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED.

    More here; https://www.brooklynpaper.com/pols-dot-columbia-street-concrete-facility/

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    Ah, NIMBYism at its finest. Please provide proof there are any dangerous amounts of pollutants being emitted from the plant. Otherwise, suck it up. The Container Port was there before you moved into the industrial area.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    The place has been in a downward spiral ever since the original owner sold it, a dozen or so, years ago…

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    "I asked inside about permits from Landmarks; they couldn't answer me"
    Wow, you really are an insufferable jackass, at times…

  • MaggieO

    Perhaps DOT should release their findings. There have been literal clouds of concrete dust in the neighborhood and I think the concerns of the residents are legitimate. Is the answer to move the operation somewhere else? I don't know, perhaps the best next step would be to consider some alternate mitigation strategies to keep down the dust before taking more drastic action. Pretending that residential and industrial uses don't conflict at times is what leads to all industrial functions moving only to areas where residential populations have a lower capacity for advocacy due to economic, language, or racial barriers. If there's this amount of dust we should also be concerned about the workers and whether they and their families are being appropriately protected by DOT.
    https://www.star-revue.com/how-safe-is-that-columbia-street-concrete-plant-anyway-by-oscar-fock/

  • MaggieO

    I highly recommend engaging with the city's online 311 complaint system for the street sign and pothole.

  • Andrew Porter

    I checked your profile. Says you're deceased. No wonder you smell so bad.

  • Andrew Porter

    If you're not on Facebook, here's the photo, from the Long Island Press (and in larger image than the FB post):
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a145f9710e915da4702da859c62f8170dac13ce5f9aa7d13867a7321258bb7cb.png

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