Open Thread Wednesday

NYTimes did a write up on the Decade of Condos

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/realestate/new-york-decade-real-estate.html

Brooklyn Heights/Ft Greene saw the second highest median rent increases in the city from 2010 to 2018. From $1,571 to $2,116, an increase of 35%. I still cant find any information on just our neighborhood.

Brooklyn Heights did not make the top ten neighborhoods for median sale price increase, but Cobble Hill topped the list with $834,115 in 2010 to $2,591,446 in 2018, an increase of 211%. The top ten neighborhoods all had increases above 107%.

I not only never saw any customers in there, I never saw a single worker. Also, dimly lit; store apparently designed by vampires.

Now for something completely different. Courtesy the Municipal Archives, here’s the fountain and pool at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in 1937:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9a1957500dcd03703e04ceae0854d79f8f0dc3b3273d30a5c9c0539b387c3a82.png

it’s still there? i saw it Sunday and my toddler delightedly sailed leaves down it on Monday. putting in a 311 request to DEP now.

Anyone know what’s going into the old Henry’s End space? Door was open this morning and it looks like it’s mostly built out and the kitchen is still there.

While we are discussing vacant restaurant spaces, any news on the old Great Wall/Happy Fin Poke space?

I just noticed it today. At first when I saw the water running at the corner of State and Clinton, I thought it was a construction crew using a water hose. It’s appalling that it’s taking so long for a response. There was yellow tape when I last passed so maybe the DEP was there to assess the situation.

Why should more housing be provided elsewhere? There at least half a dozen buildings that could have gone 80/20 or set aside more affordable units. Look all the Jehovah’s Witness properties and how they are being developed. The one building on Sands Street is being developed as studios and 1BR apartments for the formerly homeless. So they will be truly affordable. That building however is zoned for PS307. Given the size of the units, it is not likely families will live in them. Post re-zoning PS8 is getting less and less diverse because of access to the housing within the zone in Brooklyn Heights. In order to create more opportunity for access to the school-historic districts in my opinion should make room for truly affordable housing. For example, when the library was built, the deal put the affordable housing in Fort Greene. That has to be a discussion the neighborhood is willing to have.

I always use the stairs at Clark st

Please share more about this building on Sands. Are you saying they’re concentrating formerly homeless in one building? In what meaningful way will this be different than any other housing project tower?

I never understood why, instead of building or retrofitting buildings and complexes to concentrate the poor together in one area in “affordable housing”, it wouldn’t make more sense (both socially and economically) to just pay their rents wherever they want to live? This would create socioeconomically more diverse neighborhoods (and schools!), and probably do a heck of a lot more for poor families, who could live in a safer environment with all its other benefits such as amenities and, if we’re being honest, lifestyle modeling. Or if people want to stay in class/ethnic enclaves for whatever reasons, they could too, but not by economic force.

My suspicion is that this would be economically more viable than building housing projects or converting high-rises into housing projects, but that is not done because nobody stands to create any new profit from it. Am I missing something?

Zero seconds. You push that door close button and hold it for dear life. In any other place I’m as considerate as they come, but those elevators are a Survivor situation.

Love the answer. Not sure how sincere it is…. I’m influenced by whether occupancy is 1 or 2 … or more AND by whether all 3 (yes, it must happen at least 30 days a year!) are in operation. … Of course “real elevators” – nor necessarily new, but ones where a modicum of design expertise was involved – do NOT build in 15-second delays when the OPEN button is pressed or someone breaks the “plane.” That would make “being nice” much less self-sacrificing.

I filed a report with 311 and forwarded it to the BHA, which replied to me,

“We are aware of this as a resident on Clinton called us. According to DEP, it is not the main, but rather, a service line from a building and they have issued a violation and order to repair to the building. …it’s been going about 6 days now. We’ll follow up.”

I usually call out to clueless tourists that they should come in quickly.

Right up there with the tourists who’ve never ridden down an escalator, and stand on the ones going down to High Street. I tell them, “make believe it’s a stairway,” which seems to work.

Insane. So it’s the responsibility of the building owner yet the leak is occurring before the water gets to their meter. So the DEP has a massive amount of water literally pouring down the drain — water that costs real money — but the owner has no incentive to fix it beyond some likely minor fine? This is stupid. DEP should fix it ASAP and bill the owner. Like when a homeowner doesn’t fix their sidewalk.

I was talking about the lack of diversity both racial and socio- economically in Brooklyn Heights and that the cost of housing in our historic neighborhood excludes many people from having access to PS8. NYC public schools are THE most segregated in the country and it is because housing costs. I don’t even know how to begin to respond to your comments about “life-style modeling” and “just paying their rents” But here’s the info you asked for on the Sands Street building.
https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2019/11/22/jehovahs-witnesses-hotel-will-become-housing-for-the-formerly-homeless/