Developer Offers 75 Henry Residents Big Payout to Raze Pineapple Walk Stores and Build 40 Story Condo

75 Henry was an M-L co-op until it went private a few years ago. 101 Clark and 140 Henry are still in the program (Cadman Towers was denied its bid to privatize by the NYS Attorney General’s office). These complexes were part of the ’60s-’70s mandate to provide middle-income New Yorkers with light-filled, airy, safe and affordable co-op apartments. A boon to decaying neighborhoods. Now that everyone wants to live in Brooklyn it’s bye-bye to rational land use, open space, reasonable housing costs, neighborhood merchants. Hello, greed heads.

I do not agree that this is
progress. Have you considered the impact on the local infrastructure including
schools, vehicular and pedestrian traffic? Have you considered the years of
construction and the disturbance this will cause? Have you considered that
those who will face this enormous building (both in 101 and 75 Henry) do not
wish to have their views/light diminished?

The proposed building will be a
high end condo with no other benefit to the public. I know you tout quality
retail. I am curious as to what retail you believe is so lacking, and what will
come to Pineapple Walk (and pushing out the businesses and employees who have
been there for years) that is the justification for your argument that this is
beneficial.

It is also curious that you tout
the financial benefit to the 75 Henry cooperators as another argument as to why
this is beneficial yet say you have nothing to gain. If that is actually the
case, then you are not a resident of 75 Henry.

Well, I can tell you I am a
resident of 75 Henry (so not the “jealous” type I presume you are referencing
below) and am fully against this as are many of the residents I have spoken
with. You say this is not part of the historic district. Technically, you are
right. However, many of us chose this neighborhood because it is NOT like every
other overbuilt neighborhood in the city. Where there was still a sense of
community and even a bit of a small town feel. We can “live in NYC” and still
not have to build upon every single square inch in the name of “progress”.

Perhaps you’re the one who is greedy – you want the views, you want light filled, airy place to live – how about others, who were not as LUCKY (you have NOT EARNED that ML coop, it was SUBSIDISED by the taxpayers). This is NYC and not some rarified preserve or a nursing home. Things change, and people who pay taxes that KEEPS the place where you live safe, might want to buy, but there is not enough space, so development is needed and the city will have no choice but to adjust the infrastructure.

My photography aside, I love how you glommed over the part where I talk about the LONG LASTING impact on infrastructure. That’s really convenient. For the record I am also a resident of 75 Henry. I am against this project. There is no amount of money that would make it worth it for me to destroy the neighborhood by green lighting this project.

SHOW? This is not Broadway. LOL.

If you want to leave in a sea of towers, move elsewhere. Across the bridge you will find them.
This is not about age, Brooklyn heights does not need a 40 story building.

I am curious, you want to use someone else building facilities? How about your own building? Isn;t this place amenities not enough for you? We are in the process of getting a small gym, a new party room, new lobby. What do you expect the new building to have?

Do you think your maintenance will go down if you reduce the mortgage on the building?

Brooklyn heights is a hot place not because it tries to look and feel like Manhattan, it is what it is because some people (any age) like the way it is now. We have enough new condos popping up everywhere.

I like development, how about new high schools, libraries, surface trains in Red Hook, safer bike lanes, etc. We can barely share the Cadman Plaza area with the grown up soccer teams, having 400 more units filled with people and extra SUVs driving around is not my idea of progress.

THIS IS BROOKLYN, The lights, tranquility and parks must go on.

We all pay property taxes, my dear. The rates are determined by when purchased, what it’s worth, and whether it’s shelter rent or market rate. We have fought to keep these apartments affordable for current and future cooperators. I’m sorry that you can’t see the intrinsic social value of this.

True. Discussed at Squadron event.

Can only imagine the infighting in that building. It would be funny if the pineapple side didn’t get the votes to prevent development and then got revenge on the middagh side by voting for development there. Maybe the owner of the apartment they put up across from you can hang a picture of the brooklyn bridge that you’ll be able to look at. Sorry.

I have no interest in it either way and am just passing along the details. Didn’t mean to be incendiary. The discussion I heard in the audience was about how residents would have the potential opportunity to get paid twice. If it’s not true, then they would only get paid once.

I actually heard this too, but not the same terms Peter A is reporting.

I was at the Squadron meeting as well and did not hear anything about selling the air rights to the townhouses. The memo received by 75 Henry residents only pertained to Pineapple Walk. Of course, NOW I’m going to ask our board if there’s another offer floating around. But seriously, please don’t spread something you heard discussed by audience members as fact. This situation is difficult enough as it is.

The new building should fit in with the style of 75 Henry and 101 Clark. In other other words, a design that would make Paul Rudolph proud and Jane Jacobs furious.

Let us all remember that these low-lying buildings and Pineapple Walk were added as community amenities, open sky, light and air as the best alternative to the original Moses plan. What you see today at 101 Clark St. is the result of unified pressure from the Heights including the BHA. That plan, which was also subsidized by tax dollars under Urban Renewal, gave us the wonderful opening in the buildings lining Henry St. Now, the people of 75 Henry, the fortuitous inheritors of this blessing, are being offered, against common sense and possibly the underlying agreements from the early 1960’s, to sell out the hard-won trade off of light and air for a few bucks. This should not happen. We must organize once again and protect the community’s rightful inheritance of blue skies, open air, sunlight.

Progress? You’re very witty.

I spoke with both our on-site property manager and our Super. I trust them implicitly. There is nothing on the table for the Middagh side of the Whitman property.