Save the View Now Group to de Blasio: Toll Brothers’ Pierhouse is Stealing a View for the Masses

By on January 7, 2015 12:38 pm in brooklyn bridge park, Landmark Preservation

A member of Save the View Now, the Brooklyn Heights based group focused on curbing what they say is the over built Pierhouse at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 1, has fired off a dispatch to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Here’s the full text:

Dear Mr. Mayor,

I’m part of a coalition of outraged citizens protesting the height of the Pierhouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park. While the administration has been looking the other way, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation has allowed Toll Brothers to come in and built a luxury condo/hotel that steals the view of the Bridge from the Promenade, a view that is for the masses regardless of wealth. It is a view of the 8th wonder of the world, the Brooklyn Bridge. If New York is to remain a great city, this kind of unbridled development must be stopped, and the first duty of the city is to bring Toll Brothers into compliance with what they agreed to, an agreement they are ignoring. Such greedy development would never be allowed to happen in London, Rome or Paris; they have a sense of history and respect for accomplishments that your administration has failed to comprehend. In case you think I’m a solitary voice, check out this petition. Your responsible leadership is badly needed and elected officials who have allowed this to happen must be held responsible.

Sincerely,

Ezra Barnes

The Pierhouse is expected to generate $250 million in revenue for Toll Brothers and its partners.

Save the View Now’s online petition stands at close to 3000 signatures. Will this get the mayor’s attention?

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  • bhgradstudent

    While Toll Brother has indeed made a lot of money from PierHouse… This treatment of Toll Brothers … as the sole culprit… “for what they agreed to?” (basis? the ground lease terms?) concerns me… perhaps more due diligence is needed before sending missives… What we need in this community is good, responsible planning, transparency, fact checking… and to plan for today and tomorrow..

  • Martin Hale

    It is important to understand that Brooklyn Bridge Park Corp is the responsible party. To achieve meaningful change will require community groups immediately working together to exert maximum influence since EDCs are statutorily except from typical challenges and the Mayor holds most of the power. Pierhouse is critically important but it is part of a much bigger issue of school overcrowding, dwindling greenspace, and a system that is essentially rigged to ignore the voice of the community (and to reward politically connected developers). The park corporation is exposed in multiple areas. Defeating this leviathan requires multiple harpoons.

    Coordinated effort is required to achieve meaningful positive change for the North and South Brooklyn Heights community and for all the visitors to this precious but teeny park.

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    Having seen how beholden NY State and City politicians are to their real estate donors as opposed to their citizens, e.g., the first degree murder of Long Island College Hospital, I wish the letter writer good luck with de Blasio.

  • gc

    “What we need in this community” is a voice with the determination, creative thinking, and the money to beat back the real estate interests and their political toadies. They have tens of millions of dollars on the line. It will require at least tens of thousands, and a great deal of determination, to mount a credible opposition.
    One thought that comes to my mind:
    Have you ever seen the giant blow up rats that show up every now and then at construction sights. They are about 15 feet tall and make quite a visual statement. One in front of the hotel and one in front of the condo might make a real economic impact. This would need to start now so that there is still time to actually make an impact on the construction. It may already be too late, but two or three months from now it will all be history. If we can’t get neighborhood people to man the rats then we would need to hire workers.
    It’s going to take a lot more than words to win this battle.

  • Heights Correspondent 1

    A neighbor who has long experience
    as a CFO/COO said it right..it’s all the
    Effective legal actions which can be
    brought, especially in FEDERAL
    court (s) True, but it’s ALSO the
    amount of public displays of strong
    discontent.

    AND it’s ALSO what happens to the
    culprits who mounted this outrage…
    Do they end up with much reduced
    assets? Or indicted?

    Do. Your actions really represent
    a deterrent to other types who think
    It’s fine to destroy a long standing
    highly valid way of life?

    Otherwise this is all talk….

  • ujh

    Mr. Hale, I thought you knew that the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation is a subsidiary of the Economic Development Corporation. As such the former operates at the behest of the latter.