Open Thread Wednesday

2 questions re state-of-the-heights…

1) Has the Brooklyn Bridge been lit up like it is now for many years? Could just be a late fall very cold night, but I’m thinking maybe they put in mercury bulbs or something.
2) Has anybody (else) seen the amount of digging now being done in Brooklyn Bridge Park on the stretch near Furman St.? Sure looks like somebody’s starting work on that 6-laner…. Seriously, (if one cares) one can see a hefty portion of where that sucker would go. It gives the lie to “despoilment,” just in case dedicating a half acre for years now to some concretized piers that must have failed quality control doesn’t tell you what poor stewards we have.

I’ll say this for the BHA. In their battle with BBP over the 2 newest towers near the Atlantic end of the park, they made it clear how little the park bigs care about honesty or neighborliness. No, that’s hardly grounds for routing the temporary BQE lanes through it – instead, we’re talking “no good alternative” – but their lack of clean hands will surely come back to haunt them as we near an “up or down” vote!

Does anyone know what is going on in the store at the SE corner of Hicks and Middagh? The new tenant is Alice’s Teacup, a bakery that has several NYC branches.

A peak into the store, above the paper-covered windows, reveals a space almost entirely filled with baking equipment; there’s no apparent room for display/selling. Will this be a retail space or a “kitchen” for the other locations?

Where have you been? This was all discussed extensively here on September 10th:

http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/86982

The pies and cakes at Garden of Eden (or whatever it’s called now) are pretty good, I find. I’ve gone there for birthday cakes and they wrap them up nicely and they taste fresh. I’ll have to try L&H for comparison.

Curiously, MSNBC just ran a story on the Pentagon purchasing and sending 75,000 more pies to send troops overseas for Thanksgiving. Oddly, it’s the same number of troops as last year, but they’re sending over 10 times more pies (6,000 last yr, 81,000 this year)!

“Gaddadavida” sold me a really stale cake once. Love the store for what it does best (gourmet pantry goods & surprisingly affordable quality seafood) but I don’t patronize their baked goods section anymore.

Official Statement from the BHA:

DOT Promises to Assess Alternative BQE Plan

The BHA met Monday morning with DOT Commissioner Trottenberg, the project’s engineers and other DOT officials, as well as with Councilmember Levin, Senator Kavanagh, and Assemblymember Simon and their representatives, and a representative of Borough President Eric Adams, for a two hour discussion concerning the BQE Project.

The BHA requested the meeting to accomplish several objectives:

To challenge the three assumptions on which DOT based its plan for a 6-lane “Promenade” highway, which involve staying within the city’s right-of-way; accommodating the same level of traffic as present; and limiting the project’s planning to only that which is under the City’s control.

To ask our local City and State elected officials how we can work with them to achieve a better solution through a range of actions by the State and other government agencies.

To discuss the imperative of creative techniques to reduce the level of traffic that would otherwise be using the BQE Atlantic-to-Sands corridor during the construction period; and

To discuss alternatives to the Promenade Highway, including a concept first conceived by Marc Wouters Studios, a Heights-based architect-urban planning firm with which the BHA has been working. That concept would move traffic to a temporary 2-level structure west of the existing triple cantilever instead of DOT’s 6-lane highway on the Promenade. The concept would impact the Park’s berms to some extent but would not affect the Park’s useable space, and would involve noise protection features so that the area now occupied by the berms could become useable parkland post-construction.

In addition to avoiding the terrible impacts of DOT’s Promenade Highway on numerous residential buildings along Columbia Heights, as well as on 360 Furman, the concept offers other advantages, such as various construction techniques that could accelerate the project’s completion. No solution is likely to be perfect, however, and this concept would entail more temporary lane closures at certain locations than DOT’s preferred plan, making traffic management techniques an important part of this alternative approach. The BHA advanced this proposal to illustrate solutions that could be achieved if DOT could work with other government agencies to alleviate the narrow constraints it has imposed upon itself.

There were several outcomes of the meeting:

Commissioner Trottenberg agreed to have DOT engineers assess the alternative concept in the coming weeks, though she provided no specific timeframe.

Senator Kavanagh and Assemblymember Simon agreed to work together to initiate a conversation with the Governor’s Office and State transportation agencies to determine the State’s willingness to assist the City with implementing better approaches to the project, including measures to better manage traffic on the BQE.

For its part, the BHA will engage with the community to promote better cooperation by DOT with the State and other government agencies that will be necessary to bring the best possible plan for the BQE to fruition.

On Monday afternoon, the BHA, in conjunction with representatives of A Better Way NYC, met with a roster of major New York civic and preservation organizations to enlist their support in opposing the Promenade Highway. The representatives of these organizations voiced a strong concern for the highway’s impact on the Promenade and the metropolitan community, and offered both valuable ideas on how they can contribute to opposing the DOT plan as well as their support of our efforts to move DOT to adopt a better solution.

It was a wonderful theatre, complete with a flashlight-toting matron.

buy the house.