Brooklyn Heights resident/writer/historian Henrik Krogius has a thinkpiece in the Brooklyn Eagle this week discussing the Brooklyn Heights Association and the battles it has fought throughout its history. He mentions David Walentas’ quote in last Sunday’s New York Times piece about his son Jed asserting that if it had been up to the BHA, “there would be no DUMBO.” He wonders how the BHA will navigate through the new and evolving “cool” Brooklyn in the years ahead.
Brooklyn Eagle: Just this past year a rift was opened within the BHA membership, when the BHA leadership sued to block the conversion of the Tobacco Warehouse into a theater for St. Ann’s Warehouse — what many saw as one more move essentially directed at the Walentases. St. Ann’s has found a three-year refuge in another building, but the issue is likely to arise again.
Change is happening all around in Brooklyn. The challenge for the BHA in 2012 and beyond, as it protects the character of what [B. Meridith] Langstaff called “a spot that is healthful, high, cool and quiet; a spot that is withdrawn from the great traffic lanes and yet reached by every subway line in the City,” is to become a better partner with the rest of Brooklyn as the borough continues its climb from mid-century decay into perhaps the liveliest part of the city — to keep the Heights cool even as it welcomes the new “cool” of Brooklyn.
What’s your two cents on this issue?