Riverside Apts Makes Case with Pretty Website

By on April 4, 2008 7:30 pm in Brooklyn Heights

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As previously reported, the Pinnacle Group owners of the Riverside Apartments on Columbia Place and Joralemon Street, really really want to build a parking garage in the courtyard of the complex. It’ll be extra fancy with trees and stuff. For those of you who are into architectural renderings, Pinnacle has a website discussing its plan.

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  • http://riversideaptsmakescasewithpretty bill ringler

    How deceitful, and irresponsible this plan is. The owner, Joel Wiener, is an outlaw who has failed to obey a DHCR restoration order to restore the courtyard to the condition it was in in 1990. He has not maintained the courtyard since he bought the buildings in 2003 and refuses to let the tenants plant flowers or bushes there. (He says that plant watering attracts “West Nile Mosquitoes”.) The courtyard is blighted, because he made it that way. His garage plans have been rejected by: the Tenants, Willowtown Assoc. Brooklyn Heights Assoc and CB2. To learn more about the landlord – google – Joel Wiener, Pinnacle Group

  • Amanda Trees

    Glad to hear the Truth told about this “Emporer’s New Clothes,” really the ludicrous pie-in-the-sky idea meant to disguise a menacing presence of grinding engines, echoing car alarms, carbon monoxide fumes pumping into our windows, further noise pollutio by the sir conditioning system, and a frou-frou grouping of temporary disguises on top to bamboozle people naive enough to trust or believe it. And why is the Courtyard portrayed so negatively? Public Relations Teams gone Wild maybe? Have they also taken a walk over to the Promenade and peeked at other gardens in the bleakest time of the year? See much “whipped creme and lollipops” there fellows? Duh.
    Guess what, it’s not blooming cos it’s still really winter out and nothing has sprung up yet. Wait. We have roses, a cherry tree and those so-called “bleak” “nothing” trees burst forth with huge green bowers and leaves that DO filter out the noise and pollution just fine, and are great old trees who deserve to live. Nobody is going up atop a garage to enjoy the Closeup/BQE exhaust and “fun” Car Show. And after a tragedy a few years back, I doubt parents will let their kids up on that garage to play. I’ll spare the details, Please just let us nurture the real things that are trying to grow back there now. And restore honestly, in keeping with the principles of the Brooklyn Heights area you have chosen to enter.

  • Amanda Trees

    Just wanted to correct two misspelled words I wrote, “Air Conditioning”
    and “pollution,” I should’ve put the ‘n” on “pollution,” and the ‘a’ in “air conditioning” but there was no “edit” button, so please count this as my little “edit,” thanks – Amanda

  • anon

    This “parking” is a travesty. The poor people of Riverside had to suffer the
    BQE running through their homes and now, the exhaust fumes
    of a parking garage that will serve only the super lux apts inside
    the other travesty called Brooklyn Bridge Park. When will the city
    or the BHA for that matter respect the low and moderate income
    dwellers of the last remaining building that might just be affordable
    in the Heights (and a landmark building, by the
    by) and reject this proposal? This guy Weiner is the worst slum lord
    the city has to offer – just look at the Daily News articles
    on Pinnacle. Common already. REJECT this plan. Let the lux developers of
    housing inside of public parks build their own lux parking lots.
    Let the people of Riverside keep their park – they certainly won’t be welcome
    in that new “park”. mmmmmm.

  • bklyn20

    There’s a court order (DHCR- Housing Court) order to restore the garden. There are 4 or 5 empty storefronts on the first floor on Columbia Place that are vacant — people call the landlord to rent them, leave a message on a machine and…the calls are never returned. The beautiful historic building is decaying while Pinnacle tries to build a pseudo garden, featuring a wall of rocks in cages. Rent out the storefronts to increase revenue, fix the garden and then you can charge even more for the market rate apts — a large and growing percentage of the tenants. Isn’t rock breaking illegal in prisons now?

  • Amanda Trees

    Thank you to those people courageous and true to speak words from your hearts in favor of our nice, old Courtyard – really the heartbeat of Riverside Buildings. I can actually say I’ve lived here since BEFORE I was born, cos my dad located this wonderful treasure of a place when my mom was carrying me, and I was literally born here. Mom used to sing to me outside near the (then)swan statue, and I have actual memories of those times. My sister Bev, who loved these buildings also and felt the Courtyard was wonderful, said to me once before she died of Cancer, that “as long as we still have a yard with trees growing from the ground and grass and flowers there, life will go on here,” and I also thought tonite of another thing she said right around this time of year, “Please tell them a message from me, that I love this place, love you, love certain people, and all animals. And tell them, I got my morals from Superman and Felix the Cat.” I guess maybe the reason I’m telling you this now is that the people who wrote in in support of our homes, our Courtyard, are heroes, too – and my sister would have agreed with that. You’re our Superman and Felix! Thanks!

  • Amanda Trees

    We were shocked and horrified at the sudden reversal of fate in the allowance of testing for the construction of this awful garage plan.

    This is a real blow against the heart and soul of Brooklyn Heights, as well as our hearts and souls as residents here in Riverside Apartments.

    Another blow took place the other day when the giant claw of the Caterpillar truck, there to make “tests” for the proposed placement of the underground garage, rammed into the side of the building full force, shaking up the building. Two test diggings were requested, and instead, the operators, for one reason or the other, did not check the site as it was written in the plan, and broke two sewer pipes. Two holes were designated to be made. They dug four. This was just the “test.” The Caterpillar truck is still parked in the Yard.