Brooklyn Heights resident and real estate broker Donald Brennan files this guest post:
After reading the ‘Real Deal on Watchtower Properties’ post here last week I got to thinking – a billion dollars, for 25 properties, where did that number come from? While I am aware of the impeccable condition of these properties, inside and out, my initial reaction was – that’s crazy! Isn’t it? Maybe not. (more…)
The Real Deal looks at the Watchtower’s Brooklyn Heights real estate holdings and speculates how much the organization could make once it decides to put its remaining properties here on the market:
The Real Deal: Over the next decades, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, as it is officially known, bought up some incredibly valuable real estate as its operation expanded. Today, the organization’s portfolio totals 25 Brooklyn properties — brownstones, Beaux Arts multifamilies, modern high-rises and parking lots — that are said to be worth at least $1 billion.
But the Heights’ largest landlord may soon be its biggest property seller. Continuing a trend that started in 2004, when the Witnesses sold a warehouse that became the condo One Brooklyn Bridge Park, the group has been steadily downsizing in order to relocate upstate.
Indeed, the Witnesses have built a new printing plant in Wallkill in upstate New York, and an educational center across the river in Patterson. It’s also planning an $11.5 million facility in Warwick. If that proposal gets a green light and market conditions improve, a slew of properties in Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn and Dumbo could soon change hands.
A nice spread detailing the properties after the jump: (more…)
A former Jehovah’s Witness, now a convert to Orthodox Catholicism, recounts his days as a “Bethelite” in the Witnesses’ Brooklyn Heights headquarters, here.
Although the first lighting of the giant Chanukah menorah outside the Brooklyn Supreme Court will be tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m., the official inauguration celebration will be held on Monday night at 5:30 p.m. The ceremony will be led by Rabbi Aaron Raskin and Borough President Marty Markowitz, and will feature a live band and holiday treats. (more…)
This photograph sent to us by someone called “Dark Lord” shows last night’s “Occult Gathering” touted by fliers posted around Brooklyn Heights this week. The mysterious Mr. Lord did not elaborate on the rituals conducted during the midnight ceremony.
Are there nouveau Aleister Crowleys or Anton LeVeys amongst us? Nabe blogger Acknowledged Classic notes a sign at Peas n Pickles on Henry Street touting an “Occult Gathering” tonight (12/2) during the full moon by the Zodiac Sculpture on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Maybe The Sentinel wasn’t totally fiction after all!
Now the question is – who will be brave enough to get us some photos tonight?
Sure the folks over at the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society aka Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t “celebrate” Halloween but they took to the streets of the North Heights this morning to “Trick or Tract”.
We’ve discussed the unneighborliness of Watchtower knocking in the Heights before and this morning’s doorbell ringing was no exception. While it was amusing to hear a woman on the intercom who sounded like Cloris Leachman in Young Frankenstein it was still an unnecessary violation of my personal space. So, Watchtower folks we’re sorry you’re bummed the world is ending soon but next time just Tweet us your “good news”.
A new summer music series outside the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn on Henry Street has at least one neighbor upset.
Reader Azaro Mendoza writes: (more…)
Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, a Reform congregation located at 131 Remsen Street (between Clinton and Henry) and Grace Church (Episcopal), at 254 Hicks Street (corner of Grace Court, between Joralemon and Remsen) will present their twelfth annual Interfaith Scholar-in-Residence Weekend Friday, May 15 through Sunday, May 17. This year’s resident scholar and speaker will be Dr. Lawrence A. Hoffman, Barbara and Stephen Friedman Professor of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion.
The Weekend will begin on Friday, May 15 with the 6:30 P.M. Shabbat service at the Synagogue, (more…)
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