As reported by Mary Frost in The Eagle, all Queens bound lanes of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway from Atlantic Avenue to Sands Street will be closed Saturday, June 1 through Monday, June 3. The bulk of the work will be done in two locations: near the foot of Grace Court and near the foot of Clark Street. The Queens bound on ramp from Atlantic Avenue will be closed, as will four other ramps further south. Left turns from Atlantic to Hicks and to Clinton will not be allowed. Planned detour routes are shown here.

We have been advised by the NYC Department of Transportation that a single lane of the Queens bound portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway from Atalantic Avenue to Sands Street will be closed from midnight to 5:00 AM starting today and continuing each night through Friday, May 10. The Queens bound entrance ramp from Atlantic Avenue to the BQE will also be closed during these times.

War in the Middle East made an unscheduled and unexpected incursion of the sanctuary of the First Unitarian Congregational Society, Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Heights Association’s Annual Meeting. What prompted this was that a speech by U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was on the agenda. Before the meeting started a woman climbed up to the pulpit and began an impassioned speech decrying U.S. support for Israel and the horrors that war had inflicted on civilians in Gaza. In the photo, Lara Birnback, the BHA’s executive director, is standing behind her, imploring her to let the meeting proceed. Eventually, police officers escorted her from the pulpit, handcuffed her, and led her away.

The meeting proceeded through its agenda of local concerns, about which more in a later post, uninterrupted until Senator Gillibrand was introduced and began to talk. She managed a few sentences until another protestor (photo above) stood up from the audience and accused her of being complicit in atrocities in Gaza.

The Senator tried to respond, saying she supported a cease-fire and wanted to see a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but was repeatedly interrupted by protestors scattered throughout the audience. Some were answered by other audience members shouting, “Free the hostages!” Each protestor, after a minute or so, was escorted from the audience by police. None resisted, but all shouted “Free Palestine Now!” as they were being led out. Senator Gillibrand invited the protestors to dialogue with her after the meeting.

The Rev. Meagan Henry, First Unitarian’s Assistant Minister, Religious Education and Pastoral Care (photo above), took the lectern, said she was deeply saddened by the war in Gaza and sympathized with the protestors’ concerns, but hoped they would respond to the Senator’s invitation to dialogue.

Senator Gillibrand and Ms. Birnback went to a table and two chairs under the pulpit for a dialogue on matters of local concern. The Senator had just begun to speak about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway issue when another protestor began shouting. It was then apparent that Senator Gillibrand would not be allowed to speak on any subject, so she had no choice other than to leave the meeting, which then turned to the more pleasant matter of civic awards, about which more later.

Photos: C.Scales for BHB

Our friends at the Brooklyn Heights Association let us know that tomorrow, Wednesday, November 16, starting at 5:30 PM, “DOT will hold an online meeting for the Brooklyn Heights Community to outline their plans for repairs [to the BQE] and explain the anticipated impact on the neighborhood.” The discussion will concern the “repair” phase of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway project, not the longer range plans for the BQE’s future (or non-future). If you want to participate, just copy and go to this link at 5:30 PM: https://zoom.us/j/91458445893?pwd=RnYzb0thVGlpSFhpSEN4ekUxZk1lUT09 — the meeting ID is 914 5844 5893 and the passcode is 035948. The DOT’s prepared presentation is here.

There will be two meetings in December on the long range plans for the BQE. There will be an in-person meeting, location to be announced, on Tuesday, December 13 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM, and an on line meeting during the same hours on Thursday, December 15. We will give you more information on these meetings when it is available.

As reported by Kirstyn Brendlen in the Brooklyn Paper, Governor Kathy Hochul has signed into law a bill, sponsored by State Senator Brian Kavanagh and Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon, that authorizes

the city’s Department of Transportation to install up to 16 weigh stations on the BQE between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street. The technology will flag trucks exceeding the roadway’s 80,000-pound limit and allow authorities to issue violations to the vehicle’s owners.

According to the Brooklyn Paper story, limiting the weight of trucks using the cantilevered portion of the BQE should, along with reduction of traffic to two lanes, extend the useful life of the cantilevered portion by twenty years. This is outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan. As we’ve noted here, others, including Carlo Scissura, who headed the panel appointed by the Mayor to study the BQE, believe more drastic action is necessary and desirable.

As Streetsblog reports, that’s what Carlo Scissura, former head of the Mayor’s panel that considered options for repairing or replacing the crumbling Brooklyn Queens Expressway and that, to the relief of many Brooklyn Heights residents, killed the Department of Transportation’s proposal to repair the cantilevered portion below the Heights while replacing it with a “temporary” six lane highway occupying the site of the Promenade, has now suggested. According to Streetsblog:

“This highway stinks; it’s decrepit, and it has destroyed many communities,” Scissura told business leaders at a Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce breakfast. “I am saying, get rid of it, start from scratch!”

What options might be available? A tunnel has, as we’ve noted here before, serious engineering problems, including the difficulty of providing access for traffic to and from the Brooklyn Bridge. Also, tunnel construction could have serious adverse affects on quality of life in the Heights and other nearby neighborhoods. Another suggestion is to replace it with a boulevard – a surface level multi lane street with traffic lights at intersections, as was done when the elevated West Side Highway in Manhattan was demolished. This raises the question of where such a boulevard could be sited, and the answer to that, wherever it may be, is likely to arouse much community opposition based on pedestrian safety and emissions issues arising from increased traffic.

The question of demolishing the existing cantilevered portion of the BQE also raises questions. From a Heights perspective, how will it affect the Promenade, which is part of the cantilevered structure? Because that structure as a whole is deteriorating, it will be necessary to shore up the Promenade by one means or another. One possibility is to go ahead with repairing the whole cantilevered structure, but to replace the existing roadways with something else, like gardens.

Despite all these issues, I’m glad that the availability of funds for infrastructure has opened the possibility of “rethinking” the BQE.

Here’s a photo I took at about 8:20 this morning from the southern edge of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, showing traffic as it merges into two lanes from three where the lane restriction begins. The flow continued normally – I looked over the side of the Promenade at the traffic heading north, and it continued to flow.

Here’s another photo, from about 7:20 this evening. Traffic is heavier, but it continues to flow smoothly.

I didn’t do an exhaustive survey, but didn’t notice any abnormal traffic increase on any of the streets in the Heights. Please let us know if you had, or are having, any such experience.

CBS Local reports that “Mayor Bill de Blasio and officials” have announced the long awaited plan for the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. The plan would shrink the highway from three to two lanes in each direction, which is projected to reduce traffic volume by eleven percent. Resurfacing and waterproofing of the cantilever structure would make it safe for another twenty years. The Mayor also said there is an “overarching plan” that “involves limiting oversize trucks, using waterways to transport freight, and more.”

Update: Thanks to reader Andrew Porter, here’s a link to the Mayor’s press release, which gives more detail.

Second Update: Here’s the Brooklyn Heights Association’s statement on the BQE plan:

“Across the nation, the destructive effects of urban highways are being recognized and addressed. The transformation of the BQE, one of New York City’s most decrepit and polluting transportation corridors, is of critical importance to the future of our city. The Coalition for the BQE Transformation (BQET) applauds the immediate measures which DOT is taking to ensure the safety of the Triple Cantilever because this plan buys New Yorkers time to develop a truly visionary solution to what has been a political hot potato for more than twenty years. But the planning to reverse the negative environmental, economic, and public health impacts of the BQE must begin now, and we will hold the city to its commitment to move forward immediately with structured and substantive engagement with all the communities along the BQE corridor. The BQET looks forward to working closely with DOT during this interim repair process to accommodate a host of near-term pollution, environmental, safety, and connectivity improvements. Today’s announcement is an important step in the right direction.”

Our friends at Montague Street BID have advised us that, starting this coming Monday, March 29, and continuing until August, the Cadman Plaza exit from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, which serves northbound traffic, will be closed while the Hicks Street wall that borders the ramp is repaired. This may also lead to some construction noise in the North Heights. Those coming from the south on the BQE who would normally exit at Cadman Plaza are advised to take the Atlantic Avenue exit, then turn left onto Furman Street and follow it to Old Fulton.

Photo: Jim Henderson via Wikimedia Commons. Used with permission.

The Brooklyn Heights Association has announced that the Mayor’s panel to study the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway has finished its report and recommendations, and will brief the BHA and other interested community groups this Thursday evening, January 30. This is not a public event. According to the BHA:

We look forward to learning firsthand what conclusions the Panel has come to after these many months and are hopeful that the report will offer thousands of people all along the BQE corridor a forward-looking and transformative vision. You will hear from us again soon after we’ve met with the Panel and have assessed the report.

We will share with you the BHA’s report on the briefing, and the Panel’s conclusions and recommendations, as soon as they are available.

In case you missed it, the BQE rehab was the topic of the day on ALL OF IT with Alison Stewart on WNYC on October 4th.  A new show, ALL OF IT “is a live daily conversation about culture and the culture in and around New York City.” Transportation reporter Stephen Nessen gave a breakdown of the DOT’s BQE Project Update Meeting held on September 27th. Council Member Stephen Levin joined the candid discussion and took calls from constituents.  Have a listen:

Claude’s recap laid out the gist of the contentious gathering. Both DOT plans called for the closing of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.  The “innovative plan” proposed a six lane highway to run in place of the 1.5 mile stretch. Many called for the DOT to swing the highway over Brooklyn Bridge Park citing that the BQE rehab should have been considered during the construction of the park. Others were in favor of a tunnel option. The take-away is an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) will be conducted and the conversation will continue over the next two years. Within a few days, The BHA issued a statement directing the DOT to “Go Back to the Drawing Board.”

Watch the DOT meeting in it’s entirety HERE:

EDIT: The post was revised to reflect the DOT’s “innovative plan” would replace the promenade with a six lane highway, not run adjacent to it.

According to the BHA, Thursday’s meeting has been moved  to the Ingersoll Houses Community Center at 177 Myrtle Avenue at the corner of Prince Street.  The meeting will begin at 6:30 and doors open at 5:30 PM.

The plan would close the Promenade for up to six years.

Other options include diverting traffic through the neighborhood or rehabbing the BQE lane-by-lane, extending the project’s completion date to 2029.

Politico‘s story asserts that diverting traffic into the neighborhood could result in 12,000 more cars on local roads every day, something that BHA’s Peter Bray seems to consider a non-starter.

“I think putting tens of thousands, in excess of 100,000 vehicles, in local streets in Brooklyn is simply not a feasible alternative,” Peter Bray, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, told The Post.

“We need emergency responders to have access to our community. We need to keep our businesses functioning . . . this is a very difficult trade-off that the community is going to have to make in some fashion.”

The Post also includes commentary from an unnamed local:

“It would be a huge detriment to the neighborhood and it would devalue all of our property,” huffed one woman who lives at Columbia Heights and Pineapple Street but refused to give her name.

Construction is slated to begin in 2020 or 2021.

Have an opinion? The DOT is holding a public project update meeting on Thursday, September 27 at the National Grid Auditorium at 1 MetroTech Center, second floor. Doors open at 5:30 pm; a presentation and Q&A is scheduled from 6:30 – 8:30.

Photo: Teresa Genaro

Sandy Ikeda is a professor of economics at SUNY Purchase, and a resident of Brooklyn Heights. He’s also a very personable and bright guy, as your correspondent can attest, having gone on two Jane’s Walks through the Heights that he led, one several years ago and one this April. On each occasion he showed extensive knowledge of the neighborhood, including information that I, a resident of thirty years, didn’t know.

For example, I learned that the townhouse on Clinton Street in the photo above served, in the time just after the conclusion of World War II, as a halfway house for Japanese-Americans who had been interned in camps during the war.

Then there’s this plaque on the townhouse at the corner of Clinton and Livingston, that identifies it as having been the clubhouse of the Brooklyn Excelsiors, baseball champions in 1850, and one of whose pitchers may have invented the curve ball. The Excelsiors were lineal ancestors of the Brooklyn Dodgers, my first love in baseball, even though I lived nowhere near Brooklyn at the time.

Despite his knowledge of, and obvious love for, Brooklyn Heights, Sandy has argued here that the designation of Brooklyn Heights as a landmarked historic district was a mistake. He says he and others have benefited from it; they “enjoy the quiet and charm of a place nearly frozen in time – we basically live in a museum with restaurants.” The problem, he says, is that the restrictions imposed by landmarking have constrained how owners may use or dispose of their property and, for a more far-reaching effect, have limited the supply of housing over the whole local market, making it less affordable for all.

These were “Jane’s Walks,” and Sandy is an admirer of Jane Jacobs, whose The Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Economy of Cities examined the question, “What makes cities work?” She championed the idea of the “neighborhood,” an area incorporating a mix of uses: residential, commercial, and public (schools, libraries, police and fire, parks) and a mix of old and new buildings housing people of diverse economic means. She opposed attempts to impose order or rationality through “urban renewal” schemes that were popular in the 1950s and ’60s. Neighborhoods, she thought, should be allowed to develop organically.

Jacobs also fought against the construction of highways through urban neighborhoods, which destroyed large parts of them and created divisions where none had existed before. Sandy noted with approval the efforts by Brooklyn Heights residents to keep Robert Moses from routing the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway through Brooklyn Heights, an effort that caused Moses to re-route the highway to the edge of the bluff atop which the Heights sits, and to create the Promenade above it. Like Jacobs, Sandy saw Moses’ original plan to route the highway through the Heights as a heavy handed government intrusion into a neighborhood; one that would alter its character for the worse.

How, then, did landmark designation, which was brought about by local residents (though no doubt some were opposed) violate Jacobs’ principles? She believed neighborhoods should develop organically, but also (according to this brief bio) was “[a] firm believer in the importance of local residents having input on how their neighborhoods develop.” I didn’t put this question directly to Sandy during our Jane’s walk, but I think his answer would have been twofold: first, by tying their own hands with regard to the disposition of their properties, owners at the time of landmarking were also tying the hands of future generations of owners who had no voice in the matter; and second, that the wishes of the neighborhood’s residents in this respect were outweighed by the city’s need for greater density (which Jacobs also advocated) and the affordable housing this would make possible.

I haven’t found any indication that Jacobs took a position, pro or con, concerning the landmarking of Brooklyn Heights, which occurred a few years before she left New York for Toronto. I have learned, though, that Brooklyn Heights was her first home in New York City. She and her sister Betty lived on a block of Orange Street that, some time after they moved out, was demolished to make way for Moses’ Cadman Plaza housing development.

As Sandy and I walked along the Promenade, I asked him if, had Brooklyn Heights developed “organically,” we would be seeing a phalanx of high rises to our right instead of the backs of townhouses and their gardens. His first response was, “Yes,” but then he quickly added, “Well, you can’t really tell.” That’s true; real estate markets have their ups and downs, as do cities as preferred places to live. It’s also possible that the owners of townhouses along Columbia Heights might have made a pact not to sell to any developer. How enforceable that would be, and how long it could be effective, are relevant questions. It’s not unknown, though, for property owners to refuse a deal that would be lucrative in the short run in order to preserve a pleasant ambiance and the prospect of long term appreciation in value. This is just what happened when the owners at 75 Henry Street, part of the Cadman Plaza high rise complex, voted to say “no” to a developer’s offer that would have resulted in the construction of a new high rise on the location of the Pineapple Walk shops.

For better or worse, New York, and Brooklyn in particular, is now considered very desirable. My guess is that the Heights, without landmarking, would today have the phalanx facing the water and many, though not all (some still survive in Midtown East), stretches of attractive row houses (as in the photo above) demolished and replaced by tall buildings, casting many shadows over the neighborhood. The Columbia Heights phalanx would make the Promenade a less attractive place to visit. I think the Heights would still be largely a “residential monoculture,” as that seems, in economic terms, the “highest and best use” as determined by market demand. We’d still have restaurants, probably more of them, and perhaps more high end retail.

What Jane Jacobs may not have foreseen when she wrote her first two great books was that her beloved West Village would be overrun by, well, people like me: people who could afford $350 a month (in 1973) for a one bedroom in a gut rehabbed tenement; people with jobs in law firms (like me), ad agencies, or banks, but who harbored artistic pretensions and were looking for authenticity, instead of the sterility of the Upper East Side or, heaven forbid, the suburbs. This began a trend of gentrification that led to what my friend David Coles describes here. Much of the West Village, like the Heights, became a landmarked district. It also became devoid of what Jacobs praised: a mixture of uses and of people of differing economic circumstances.

The Heights went through a similar process of gentrification, well described with respect to Brooklyn generally by Suleiman Osman in his The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn. The early gentrifiers were in the vanguard of those seeking designation of the Heights as a historic district. Today it is a much less economically diverse community than it was in the 1960s and before, and commercial rents have risen considerably, forcing out some locally beloved stores, the latest being Housing Works. I believe, though, that these changes would have happened with or without landmarking. Any new high rises built in the Heights, because of its proximity to water and its pre-existing charm. would have commanded very high rentals or asking prices. Their combined effect would have been to make the neighborhood less attractive, but not enough to make it affordable for those of moderate means.

Jane Jacobs may not have foreseen gentrification, nor the ability of private developers to disrupt neighborhoods by (sometimes surreptitiously) acquiring assemblages of land and purchasing air rights in order to put up massive structures. I asked Sandy if he believed that private, as well as government, entities could impose on neighborhoods in ways that frustrated Jacobs’ notion of organic development. He unhesitatingly replied, “Yes.”

The question is, was the landmarking of the Heights worth it on a cost versus benefit basis? I would say it was. To Sandy’s first objection, that it puts a burden on property owners in the district, I would say: should the burden become too great for a majority of them, they may petition the city to remove it. To the objection that it constrains the supply of available housing, I would say that the constraint, in the case of the Heights, is minor. My further answer would go to less economic than, dare I say, historic and romantic considerations. I think it’s important to save some neighborhoods, like the Heights and the West Village, as reminders, imperfect as they may be, of what the city once was like, and of the history that played out in them; not only, as in the case of the Heights, that Washington’s army camped here in August of 1776 and that he planned his troops’ escape from Long Island here, or that many great artists, writers, and political figures have made homes here, but also in the more impressionistic words of Truman Capote in his A House on the Heights:

These houses bespeak an age of able servants and solid fireside ease, invoke specters of bearded seafaring father and bonneted stay-at-home wives: devoted parents to great broods of future bankers and fashionable brides.

Landmarking couldn’t save residential or commercial diversity in the Heights or the West Village, but lack of landmarking wouldn’t have, either. Indeed, it would likely, in my opinion, have made things worse.

Photos: C. Scales for BHB.

We noted earlier that the New York State Legislature, which has an unfortunate stranglehold on many matters affecting New York City alone, in its recent session failed to pass the legislation required to expedite the urgently needed work to repair the cantilevered portion of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway that runs below Brooklyn Heights and the Promenade. We now have word, thanks to the Brooklyn Heights Association, that the New York City Department of Transportation has invited members of the public to comment or offer suggestions concerning the project during the approximately eighteen months that DOT will undertake a public planning process for the BQE repairs. Comments, questions, or suggestions may be sent to BQEAtlantictoSands@dot.nyc.gov or by phone to 212-839-6304.

The possibility remains open that the “Design/Build” option, which would greatly expedite and reduce the cost of the project, will be approved in the next legislative session.

The cantilevered portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, below Brooklyn Heights and the Promenade, is in need of critical repairs. Concrete has eroded, exposing rusting metal reinforcements. The job will take years, and will require closure of at least parts of the BQE for long periods. Last year a City Department of Transportation Official told a community meeting that the work could be done without diverting significant amounts of traffic to Brooklyn Heights streets. Still, there may be other disruptions, including closing of portions of the Promenade.

The duration of the project could be shortened, and its onset brought forward, by a technique called “Design/Build” in which joint bids are solicited from designers and construction firms, who must collaborate on their bids and, if successful, proceed on agreed upon terms. When design and construction bids are made and awarded separately, it often results in misunderstandings between designer and builder or repairer, leading to delays and sometimes litigation. Since the BQE repair is under New York State jurisdiction, approval to use Design/Build must come from the State.

Unfortunately, the State Legislature adjourned without approving Design/Build for the BQE. As State Senator Daniel Squadron noted in his newsletter: “The budget failed to allow design-build for the BQE reconstruction, a failure that could add years to this difficult project.”

The Brooklyn Heights Association has made a strong statement on this issue, concluding:

Despite the failure to get the bill passed during the recent session, the BHA will continue to prominently advocate for this legislation when the legislature reconvenes. The stakes are too high for Brooklyn Heights and the entire borough to not press our case. NYCDOT estimates that design build will shorten the projected 5 year construction period of the BQE Rehabilitation Project, thereby reducing the duration of environmental impacts on the Heights community, and save city taxpayers $113.4 million. These savings can then be used on other critical infrastructure projects in New York City to further improve the quality of our lives.

DNAinfo reports that parts of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade might well need to be closed when re-construction of the BQE begins…whenever it will actually begin.

“We would like to keep as much of it open as we can,” Bob Collyer, the city’s chief bridge engineer, said at a Tuesday night meeting. “If we need to replace pieces of the promenade, they’ll need to be closed.”

The design for the project isn’t due until 2019, so displacement for those who enjoy the Promenade isn’t imminent, but it’s another element of the project that seems certain to disrupt the neighborhood, even if the highway isn’t completely shut down during the work.

Read the full story at DNAinfo.

(1965 photo of the Promenade by Roger W, licensed through Creative Commons)

The Brooklyn Paper reports that City Department of Transportation project manager Tanvi Pandya told local residents at Monday evening’s community meeting on BQE reconstruction that testing by DOT shows that the cantilevered stretch of the highway that parallels Brooklyn Heights and sits partially below the Promenade can last another ten years before repairs would demand the BQE’s complete closure over that portion in order to do vital repairs. The Brooklyn Paper story quotes Bob Collyer, Deputy Commissioner of Bridges for the City, as saying there is no plan to completely close the BQE or Furman Street during the repairs, which would cause diversion of traffic to local streets. Instead, he said, three lanes of the highway would be kept open at all times.

The repairs are scheduled to start in 2024 and end in 2029, unless Albany, the millstone around New York City’s neck, approves the use of the same contractor for design and construction, in which case it could start in 2021 and be done by 2026.

The Brooklyn Heights Association notifies us that, next Tuesday evening, November 1, from 6:00 to 8:00, at the NYU Poly Tandon Auditorium on the ground floor of 5 MetroTech Center, the City Department of Transportation will hold a public information session on the planned rehabilitation of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, particularly the cantilevered portion that runs beneath the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and the foot of Grace Court.

The project is slated to begin construction in the early 2020s, but project design and its environmental analysis will be initiated soon. DOT will present an update and provide the public with an opportunity to ask questions.

Of particular concern to Heights residents will be the effect of the work on houses near the Promenade as well as the Promenade itself, and the increased traffic likely to to result from closure of the BQE, with Hicks, Henry, and Clinton streets all likely to bear the brunt of traffic diversion.

Further to our earlier post concerning repair and resurfacing work on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway from July 19 to 30, we’ve now been advised by the Brooklyn Heights Association that the BQE between the Atlantic Avenue and Tillary Street exits will be closed in both directions from 1:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. this Sunday, July 24 and the following, July 31.

Vehicles on the BQE will be rerouted with the help of traffic agents and electronic signs onto Atlantic Avenue, Court Street, Cadman Plaza West and Tillary Street. If possible, please avoid driving in these areas during those times.

Traffic during those hours isn’t likely to be anything like that in the photo (C. Scales for BHB).

Robert Furman’s (with contributions of photographs of historic Brooklyn Heights buildings by Brian Merlis) Brooklyn Heights: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of America’s First Suburb is a massive–471 pages–attempt to encompass all that is significant in the history of our neighborhood. The subtitle provides a narrative arc, though an inverted one. It begins with a geological rise: the deposition of glacial till by the retreating Wisconsonian ice sheet that made Brooklyn Heights high, and led to the name given by its first inhabitants, Ihpetonga, or “high, sandy bank.” The Dutch arrived in the 1600s and found it good for farming; names of some Dutch settlers are memorialized as streets: Joralemon, Middagh, Remsen, Schermerhorn. The British, who arrived later, also farmed and had country houses and contributed some street names: Clark, Hicks, Montague, Pierrepont (whenever a person whose family name has been given to a street is mentioned in the book, Furman helpfully appends a “+” after the name).

The real “rise” to the status of “America’s First Suburb” began with the opening of Robert Fulton’s steam ferry and the rapid development of what is now the North Heights as a residential neighborhood for people working across the East River. Furman is keen on the importance of changes in modes of transportation in shaping the Heights. The opening of the Brooklyn Bridge was something of a negative, as it made access to areas further into Brooklyn easier. The subways were a mixed blessing; the concentration of lines with stations in or around the Heights made commutation easier but, like the bridge, the subways also improved access to areas further afield. Moreover, Furman notes, subways and elevated lines “ended the Heights’ physical isolation and thereby its exclusivity, causing many wealthy people to leave.” The automobile almost killed the Heights in two ways: it, along with the building of express highways, enabled middle class families to leave the Heights and other city neighborhoods for the suburbs. In a more direct way, Robert Moses’ plan to run the BQE through the Heights would have effectively destroyed the neighborhood. Furman describes how local residents, especially Underwood typewriter heiress Gladys Darwin James, widow of the man who had given Moses his first job, persuaded him to relocate the highway along the bluff below the Heights, and to build the Promenade atop it.

In a section headed “The Power Broker”, at pages 417 to 419, Furman argues that in his book with that title Robert Caro “got it mostly wrong” about Moses and his effect on New York City. The highways Moses built, Furman says, were essential for the city’s survival in an age of autos and trucks. Furman does, however, take Moses to task for the Cadman Plaza urban renewal project, which removed a whole eastern section of the Heights that included several architecturally and some historically distinguished buildings, including the building that had housed the shop where Walt Whitman printed Leaves of Grass. One appealing feature of Furman’s book is the wealth of photos of Heights buildings that have been lost, many from the collection of his contributor, Brian Merlis. There are also many photos of existing structures, and a whole chapter devoted to the range of architectural styles found here.

As a 32 year Heights resident, I thought I had attained a fairly comprehensive knowledge of local history, but Furman’s book is full of nuggets of which I was unaware:

1. The first Congress to convene after ratification of the Constitution, which met in lower Manhattan, briefly considered the Heights as the site for a national capital. Southerners quickly put paid to this, which led to its being located on the Potomac not the East River (which Furman correctly points out is a tidal estuary, not a river).

2. Although the Heights later became known as a hotbed of abolitionism, led by Henry Ward Beecher, in the first U.S. census (1790) of Brooklyn’s population (much of which was in the Heights or nearby) of 4,500, there were 1,500 slaves, a higher portion (one third) of the population than that of Charleston, South Carolina at the same time.

3. In 1825 the Apprentices’ Library at the southwest corner of Henry and Cranberry streets (now the location of the Cranlyn apartment building with Bevacco on the ground floor) was dedicated in a ceremony attended by the Marquis de Lafayette and by a little boy named Walt Whitman. Lafayette lifted little Walt and kissed his cheek.

4. The Brooklyn and Long Island Sanitary Fair of 1864 “was the most important event ever held in Brooklyn Heights.”

5. Irish poet and Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats gave his first speech in America in Brooklyn Heights, to Mrs. Fields’ Literary Club.

6. In an instance of history almost repeating itself, in 1931 there was a proposal to demolish the Mercantile Library on Montague Street, predecessor to the Brooklyn Heights Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and replace it with a high rise office building with a library on its lower floors. The collapse of the real estate market in the Depression ended this plan, and the library, which had been condemned by the Fire Department, was renovated and continued to serve until it was replaced in 1961 by the present library, now slated for demolition and replacement by a new library in the lower floors of a high rise building.

The book has one glaring defect: it lacks an index. I caught a few minor errors. Furman calls Frank Freeman “the great practitioner” of the Romanesque Revival style of architecture without mentioning that Freeman was a disciple of Henry Hobson Richardson, who was responsible for originating and popularizing the style. Freeman was, though, its principal advocate locally. Hans Isbrandtsen, the crusty Danish born shipping magnate who lived at 87 Remsen Street, was not a founder of American Export Lines; he had nothing to do with it until his son bought it after his death and changed its name to American Export-Isbrandtsen Lines. As a maritime buff, I’m grateful for Furman’s emphasis on the importance of the shipping industry to the growth and development of the Heights. For a description of the tension between the then still active freight docks below the Heights and the neighborhood’s residents in the early 1950s, see Elizabeth Gaffney’s fine novel When the World Was Young.

Furman’s Brooklyn Heights is available for purchase at the Brooklyn Women’s Exchange. It is published by History Press.

Update: Copies signed by the author may be purchased through this website, using PayPal, or contact Mr. Furman at bobfurman1@hotmail.com

This weekend the Heights Players premiere their production of Terry Johnson’s stage adaptation of the classic 1960s movie and novel The Graduate. Performances are Friday, January 9 and Saturday, January 10 at 8:00 p.m., and a Sunday matinee, January 11 at 2:00 p.m., at the Playhouse, 26 Willow Place. The play will continue through the succeeding two weekends on the same schedule. You may make reservations here.

It’s a big weekend for theater. Don’t forget Theater 2020’s free reading of Lynn Marie Macy’s Jane Austen based play Innocent Diversions Saturday afternoon at 3:00, at the Brooklyn Heights Branch, Brooklyn Public Library.

After a New Year’s weekend showcasing the works of contemporary composers, Bargemusic returns to the classical canon this weekend. The concert on Friday evening at 8:00 features works by Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms performed by Adam Barnett-Hart on violin, Na-Young Baek on cello, and Gilles Vonsattel on piano. On Saturday evening at 8:00 and Sunday afternoon at 4:00, violinist Johnny Gandelsman will play works by J.S. Bach. There’s more information and buy tickets here. Saturday afternoon at 4:00 there will be a free, family oriented “Music in Motion” concert, co-sponsored by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy. Doors open at 3:45; first come, first seated.

On Saturday afternoon at 3:00, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy will present “Brooklyn Bridge Park: A Prehistory”:

Join architectural historian Matt Postal for a richly-illustrated talk and discover the park’s often-overlooked pre-history, from the arrival of the Dutch West India Company in the first decades of the 17th century to the mid-20th century when commercial activity declined and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway was inserted between Brooklyn Heights and warehouses owned by the New York Dock Company.

This event takes place at the Conservancy’s headquarters, 334 Furman Street (at the foot of Joralemon, just past the BQE underpass). It’s free, but please RSVP here.

According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle the Brooklyn Heights Association has urged the City Department of Transportation, which is responsible for routine maintenance of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, to mill the roadway and replace asphalt and concrete, as necessary, on the cantilevered portion of the BQE that runs below Brooklyn Heights. A letter to DOT Commissioner Joseph Palmieri, signed by BHA President Alexandra Bowie and Executive Director Judy Stanton, is quoted from in the Eagle as follows:

Residents who live close to the BQE are jolted out of their beds throughout the night and early morning. Dishes clatter. Cracks appear on interior walls…What were once rumbles and tremors are now shocks and jolts. No wonder people fear for the stability of their homes and for their own safety.

The BHA also urges residents to contact City Council Member Stephen Levin about this issue.

Late Wednesday afternoon I took a walk north along the Promenade, across the pedestrian bridge to Pier 1, south along the Brooklyn Bridge Park walkway to Pier 5, then up Joralemon to home on Montague. Cherry blossoms provided a splash of color at the Promenade’s north end.

Brilliant green ferns on the Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park uplands.

A starling bathes in the watercourse that runs along the landward side of Pier 1.

Clipper City is seen from Pier 1 heading out from South Street Seaport for an early evening cruise.

The top of the Thurgood Marshall Federal Courthouse, at 40 Foley Square in Manhattan, is seen from Pier 1 projecting over a 1960s vintage apartment building that has more recently been fitted with an impressive array of rooftop solar energy collectors. The Courthouse was one of the last buildings designed by Cass Gilbert, perhaps best known for the Woolworth Building.

Another architectural superimposition. In the foreground is the West (Manhattan side) Tower of the Brooklyn Bridge (John A. Roebling, 1883). Behind it looms Confucius Plaza (Horowitz & Chun, 1976), a 44 story apartment building. To the left of that, in the distance, is the Empire State Building (William F. Lamb; Shreve, Lamb & Harmon; 1931). To its left, in the far distance and topped by a slender spire, is 4 Times Square, the Conde Nast Building (Fox & Fowle, 2000).

There’s soccer action on the Pier 5 playing fields, and heavy evening traffic on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

King said that it was likely that the current project area, which currently covers the BQE from Sands Street to Atlantic Avenue, would be extended further south to Hamilton Avenue to better connect the project to the Gowanus Expressway and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

The alternate ideas to maintaining the existing structure are varied, and could include a tunnel that runs the current path of the BQE, or even one that ran under Downtown Brooklyn. A tunnel, however,  would be particularly difficult because five subway tunnels run under the triple cantilever section of the expressway.

Another proposal would be a non-expressway replacement, similar to what was done to the West Side Highway in Manhattan. During the question section, it was maintained that the Brooklyn Heights Promenade would not be at risk, as it is included as part of the historic district. Additionally, committee members reiterated the importance that the project not be staged in the developing Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The next full meeting will be a Stakeholder’s Advisory Committee meeting on December 2, at St. Francis College.

Today, the New York State Department of Transportation held two project scoping sessions about the two-decade rehabilitation of the 1.5 mile stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway from Atlantic Avenue to Sands Street, and local community members turned up to express their desires and concerns. 

The meetings began with a brief introduction regarding the need for the reconstruction work, and explaining the timeline and process the project will follow. Here’s the PowerPoint presentation: [PDF]

Today’s meetings are the first step in completing the environmental impact statement process. The developers have spilt the project’s review process into what they call two “tiers.” The first tier, which is expected to last until August 2012, will focus on developing the final project design and alternatives.

Following the presentation, community members stepped up to the microphone to express issues and ideas they would like to be considered by the developers. Suggestions after the jump.

Community suggestions:

• Vertical clearances need to be heightened so that trucks don’t have to exit on Atlantic Avenue.
• Many suggested that tolls be placed on the East River bridges and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in order to decrease the traffic flow into Brooklyn.
• The Atlantic Avenue on and off ramps are in dire need of redesign said Sandy Balboza, the president of the Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association (AABA). Balboza added that measures need to be taken to avoid additional traffic on Atlantic Avenue during construction.
• Brooklyn Bridge Park should not be used as a staging site for the construction, said Jane McGroarty, vice president of the Brooklyn Heights Association. The park is scheduled to be complete by the time the review process for the BQE rehabilitation ends in 2015. 
• The roadway should be repaired and resurfaced to reduce axle noise, ending the need for the 30-foot berm planned for Brooklyn Bridge Park, said Judy Francis, the president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund.  Additionally, the absence of a berm would allow for greater flexibility for construction, she said.
• A pedestrian bridge should be built from the Promenade down to Brooklyn Bridge Park, said John Dew, chair of Community Board 2.

If you couldn’t make the meeting, information will be available at the project website: www.nysdot.gov/BQEdowntownbrooklyn. You can also submit your comments and concerns until the initial project scoping ends on July 22^nd.

Once the feedback period ends in July, work will begin on a final scoping document that will outline the vision and limitations for the reconstruction.  That document will be released for public review early next year.

The two public project scoping sessions, as they are called, will be held in the Pfizer Auditorium of the Dibner Building at 5 MetroTech Center. The afternoon session will run from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. and the evening session from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m.

Both meetings will provide the same information, and attendees will have the chance to address members of the NYSDOT and HDR, the engineering and consulting firm in charge of the project.

If you  are not able to make either of the meetings , you can find all the information presented at the meeting and submit your own comments at the project website,  https://www.nysdot.gov/bqedowntownbrooklyn. The public comment period will continue until July 22^nd.

Monday’s meeting comes at the beginning of the public outreach timeline. Under federal law, the project must first submit to public scoping before proceeding with an environmental impact statement. Developers have spilt the project’s review process into what they call two “tiers.”  The first tier, which is expected to last until August 2012, will focus on developing the final project design and alternatives. The second tier, which is projected to last until 2015, will focus more on the details of development.

We’ll have more details after Monday’s meetings. What comments, concerns or questions do you have about the project?

(BHB/Sarah Portlock)

The next two weeks are busy for community meetings — there’s the usual Community Board business, as well as updates on the BQE triple cantilever reconstruction project and city Department of Transportation’s ongoing project to rework Tillary Street and surface transit in Downtown. Here’s the calendar:

(1) Tonight, Monday, at 6 pm, is Community Board 2’s parks committee meeting. But district manager Rob Perris said there’s nothing slated for the agenda. Regardless, the meeting is at Brooklyn Hospital, dining rooms A and B (DeKalb Avenue, at St. Felix Street).

(2) Tomorrow, Tuesday night, is CB2’s transportation committee meeting, at 6 pm at St. Francis College’s first-floor boardroom (180 Remsen St., between Clinton and Court streets). On the agenda is an application for a new sidewalk café at the Brooklyn Heights Wine Bar. And, the committee will review the environmental impact statement for the BQE’s triple cantilever reconstruction project. (For more information about a separate BQE meeting, see below.)

(3) Also on Tuesday night is the 84th Precinct Community Council meeting, at 7 pm at 45 Main St., in DUMBO (between Water and Front streets). On the agenda is a crime update from the precinct’s commanding officer, Captain Mark DiPaolo.

(4) On Wednesday night, June 17, the CB2 land use committee will meet at 6 pm at Polytech’s Silleck Lounge in the Rogers/Jacobs buildings (327 Jay St., between Myrtle Avenue Promenade and Johnson Street). There are four landmark items up for discussion, but they are for home improvements at private homes on Columbia Heights, Bergen Street, and two in Fort Greene.

(5) Also due on Wednesday is an RSVP to participate in next week’s Tillary Street reconstruction project workshop. The Department of Transportation wants to hear your thoughts about the street and how it can be improved and reconceptualized. The city is completely reconstructing the street in 2012. For more information about the meeting, here’s a link to the project’s Web site. RSVP by June 17 to or call (718) 222-7259. The meeting itself is next Tuesday (6/23/09).

There are two big transportation meetings next week — here’s a heads’ up of what’s to come.

(6) On Monday (6/22/09) evening, the state Department of Transportation will host its latest public meeting about the major reconstruction project along the triple cantilevered portion of the BQE from Sands Street to Atlantic Avenue, and directly underneath the Promenade. Project managers will present the draft Environmental Impact Statement and draft Scoping Document, which provide descriptions of the project’s purpose and need, range of alternatives proposed, proposed process to involve the public, and methodologies and related study areas proposed for evaluating alternative environmental impact statements, according to the site.

You can download the DEIS PDF here or on the Web site, where project managers are posting important public documents and relevant background information. If you’re interested in the project, definitely check it out — it’s all information that sometimes tends to be obscured.

There will be two meetings on Monday, June 22 — one from 3-6 pm and again from 7-10 pm — at Polytech’s Pfizer Auditorium (5 Metrotech, along Myrtle Avenue Promenade between Jay Street and Flatbush Avenue Extension).

(7) The aforementioned city DOT Tillary Street public comment meeting is on Tuesday (6/23/09), from 6:30-8 pm, at Borough Hall (209 Joralemon St., between Adams and Court streets).

(8) And, lastly, on Thursday (6/25/09), the city Department of Transportation meeting  will present the initial results from a DOT/MTA investigation into the existing surface transit conditions in Downtown Brooklyn, and the public can comment about what works, what doesn’t, and what improvements you’d like to see. Here’s a pdf flyer for the meeting, which is on Thursday, June 25 from 5:30-8 pm at Polytech’s Dibner Library (5 Metrotech, between Jay Street and Flatbush Avenue Extension). There will be two presentations of the study, at 6:15 pm and 7 pm.

On Tuesday night, state Transportation Department engineers officially kicked off the two-decade reconstruction project of a 1.5-mile stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that stretches from Sands Street to Atlantic Avenue and underneath our own Promenade.

The project will cost $295 million, with 80 percent of funding largely coming from the federal government and 20 percent from the state, said DOT spokesman Adam Levine.

Shovels won’t go into the ground until 2020 — yes, 2020, and not 2018 like engineers estimated last October — but project planning starts now, project manager Peter King told the 50 or so stakeholders who attended the meeting at Polytechnic University. Loosely quoting Churchill, he said, “We are nearing the end of the beginning.” (The timeline is available here.)

We’re getting a copy of the full Power Point presentation and will post it for you on Wednesday, but in the meantime, here are some highlights:

Update! Here’s the PowerPoint presentation: [pdf]

• The current structure is “safe,” despite having outlived its 50-year lifespan, King said, and engineers may do immediate repairs on necessary elements, even as the overall reconstruction project is underway.
• The actual work will be done in two phases. Engineers hope to have their final project design (known as the “Record of Decision”) for Tier 1 established by August 2012, and Tier 2 by mid-2015.
• As for Brooklyn Bridge Park, King said: “We’ve met with the Brooklyn Bridge Park planners and we continue to meet with them because we recognize the importance of that project to the community and to the city at large.” How the reconstruction work can coexist next to the park remains one of the project’s main challenges.
• The timeline is so extensive because of the specific and complicated nature of the project, and because it will take so many years to sort through the full environmental impact statement, interim projects, and analysis of alternative plans, King said. “Our commitment is to do this as quickly as we can, but as responsibly as we can,” he added.
• And, lastly, engineers are still sorting out the exact dimensions of the project, like if it will include the entrance/exit ramps at Columbia Street and Atlantic Avenue. Those details will be ironed out as planning gets underway.

The agency set up a project Web site, where they will post “comprehensive minutes” form each meeting and regular updates at https://www.nysdot.gov/bqedowntownbrooklyn. The next public meeting will be on June 22 at Polytech in Downtown Brooklyn.

Stay tuned!