Yeah, why recreate that experience in Brooklyn?Originally Posted by ablarc
Or you might say whatever you say when you cross the Sheep Meadow.
When similar things happen in different places at different times, the later one's not necessarily a re-creation of the earlier one.
All I meant was I couldn't find much to lament if nice-looking skyscrapers popped up in views from Prospect Park: that's just the substitution of one good experience for another. After all, Central Park was once also skyscraper-free, and no one these days rues that it's not.
Thanks for assuming i dont know what im talking about. If you look earlier in this thread you'll see i lived in Brooklyn over this summer, pretty near williamsburg tower. Maybe the rendering very accurate to what is one block either side but if you were looking from manhattan then that is definetly not the level of the skyline.
I didn't say you didn't know what you were talking about. I had issue with your summary statement that "we all know Brooklyn isn't that small." Besides the Williamsburg Bank Building near where you were staying, what was the average height of ALL buildings in the area? You were in brownstone Brooklyn. I estimated Brooklyn averages 2-3 stories - Aschwarz 3-5 stories - I'll go with his numbers. Compared to this development, that is lowrise.
Proving you entirely miss the point. The concern of Brooklynites is not what impact the development will have on views from Manhattan. It is the height and bulk and denisity being created in the middle of long established neighborhoods, primarily brownstone . It's about as appropriate as building 2 or 3 Verrazano Bridges across Loch Ness - does that help?
Last edited by BrooklynRider; October 6th, 2005 at 10:31 AM.
I also miss the point.
These are mere assertions. I can make the opposite assertion. Here: Brooklyn would benefit from greatly intensified land use in the vicinity of its downtown, particularly around railroad tracks. Recent projects have attempted to address this, but because of their half-hearted, semi-suburban adherence to calls for limited bulk, they have been dismal failures. The developer involved is now attempting to avoid repeating his mistake. Brooklyn deserves something that better befits its status as the most populous borough.
Doesn't Brooklyn (and all of NYC) deserve something that will offer real financial benefits (beware of long term debt!) along with true PUBLIC amenities?
Without getting into it again, the finances have been previously discussed here: http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/sh...&postcount=856
and here: http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/sh...&postcount=890
and here: http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/sh...&postcount=897
and here (funny how the beneficial $ numbers are dropping, eh?): http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/sh...&postcount=922
And the public amenities Bait & Switch here: http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/sh...&postcount=945
Would you agree that if pro-development Bloomberg is reelected this will be built? Bloomberg is fully behind this project and Ferrer continues to say stupid and damaging things, so again, this project will most likely be built.
Absolutely, except the Downtown revitalization and rezoning plan did NOT consider the Atlantic Yards as part of Downtown. Downtown Brooklyn as DEFINED by the city and planning department runs roughly from Tillary Street to Atlantic Ave and Court Street to Flatbush Ave.
Name them. There have not been any large scale projects proposed, other than Metrotech, prior to this rezoning. There's very little opposition to large scale development in Downtown Brooklyn. The issues that were raised and address with regard to the Downtown Plan were: (1) Brownstone lined streets - specifically State Street - and how the huge empty parcels directly across from them between Jay Street and Hoyt Street would be developed in a way that took the nature of these homes into consideration. The resolution, the Townhouses at State Street. A very impressive development of modern townhouses which will have a substantial residential tower built adjacently. (2) Atlantic Avenue Development which residents of Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens and Brooklyn Heights wanted established as a transitional development zone from the commercial Downtown to the Brownstone Brooklyn Neighborhoods. This was accomplished and the 12 story Courthouse Condos by Two Trees is both beautiful and a nice density packed addition to the neighborhood. (3) The transition from Flatbush to Brownstone Fort Greene. Less consideration was given to Fort Greene as the plan follows the Flatbush commercial zoning line. It has hardly had a negative impact as anyone driving across the Manhattan Bridge can clearly see that every piece of property, commercial and residential from the Bridge to Atlantic Avenue is for sale.
Downtown has the majority support of Brooklyn and, most importantly, the adjoining neighborhoods.
The issues we are seeing arose when Ratner released his plan simultaneously with the city releasing their Downtown Rezoning Plan. Local papers were quick to distinguish between what had come out of months of community and city planning (the Rezoning Plan) and what came out of nowhere (the Ratner Plan). Research on the topic will show that community groups initially supported Ratner development, but suggested he shift it within the rezoning plan and build in areas and on parcels now zoned precisely for what he envisioned.
The arena has had supporters and detracters since day one. Most people want to see major league sports return to Brooklyn, but, as you probably know, there was years of planning for a Sportsplex in Coney Island that was scuttled. The city nixed suggestions to buildthe new arena there. There were also suggestions to build the new arena at the Navy Yard. That died hard because mass transportation is non-existent. The Site for the arena as is seems logical to me. The rest is a 24 acre give away.
Avoid repeating his mistake? His first move out of the block was to repeal access to the public park atop the arena that was paraded before the public as a selling point. Ratner should have been given a portion of the property to build a portion of his proposal. The "all or nothing" approach was in his interest - not the public's.
if Bloomberg wins, this will be built if he does no twin, this and many other projects wont be built, case closed
Last edited by kliq6; October 6th, 2005 at 11:58 AM.
Yup, that's the one. Timid, boring, completely inadequate, this kowtows to NIMBY predilections. Big mistake.
This time he's building big and bold.
That's his new big mistake, an unarguable offense. I hope he comes to his senses on this one. Folks should live up to their promises.
Agreed. Increments of development should generally be much smaller than they tend to be. But this should have no effect whatever on building height. On the contrary, there should be height bonuses for building on small parcels, to compensate developers for the resulting less-efficient floorplates, while satisfying the environment's need for fine grained footprints and slender proportions.
Ratner's project's not ideal, but it's not bad enough to oppose, and it's better than: 1. what's there now; 2. the alternative proposal (Extell); 3. 75% of alternative proposals that you could realistically expect to materialize.
Give it a B+.
Last edited by ablarc; October 6th, 2005 at 03:21 PM.
Agreed.
Im going to agree to disagree about the how appropriate it is for the neighborhood and instead say I think its wrong to try and protect every neighborhood in the whole city for moving forward. I think its a good plan on ratners part in moving brooklyn from a kind of back office area like jersey city, to a more front office downtown. More of its own city than part of new york, back office to manhattan. If you want to preserve every single thing in the city nothing new will ever be built.
Brooklyn lost that fight in 1898 when it became part of the consolidated city of New York.
See Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City-County ) :
New York County, New York (Manhattan) (Note that New York County was for many years coextensive with New York City. When the five-borough "City of Greater New York" was created in 1898, New York County became coextensive with the two boroughs of Manhattan and The Bronx, the latter which was separated from New York County, as Bronx County, in 1916. Richmond County was and remains coextensive with Staten Island. The City of Brooklyn, almagamated to New York in 1898 against the will of the citizens of Brooklyn whose vote was ignored by the New York State Legislature, was and remains - as the Borough of Brooklyn - coextensive with Kings County. The Borough of Queens is coextensive with Queens County, which prior to 1898 included what is now Nassau County.)
Where do you come up with this stuff? We're talking about a specific project that abuts two landmarked historic districts, Fort Greene and, the city's largest historic district, Park Slope.
Look, I'm not anti-development, I think they should completely plow under Glasgow and rebuild something nice there.
That brings up a point about what bothers me about some of the opposition to this project. I don't like it as much now that the commercial component is smaller, but the community resistance (excluding Eminent Domain, which I believe is inappropriate here) is focused on size.
In the century since its consolidation into Greater New York, Brooklyn development as a city has been stunted. And a city it was. At one end of Flatbush Ave, you had a great urban park with a grand boulevard, Eastern Parkway, the first 6 lane road in the world. Cultural institutions were being built, such as the Brooklyn Museum, originally designed to be the largest museum in the world.
Along the northern end of Flatbush were the government institutions, and right in the middle was a road/rail transportation hub. If Brooklyn had remained a city, there is little doubt that its own Pennsylvania Station would have been built at this hub, and a business district would have developed around it.
New York feared Brooklyn's advantage - room to grow out out to Queens, and pushed consolidation. Since then, Brooklyn has been subordinated into a Manhattan suburb, its own industries being shipping and manufacturing. This was fine until the latter part of the 20th century, when those industries eroded and jobs were lost. Today, Manhattan, with 10% of the land, provides over 33% of all city jobs.
If New York is to continue to prosper, then we can no longer consider Manhattan as the place we go to work. Other citywide opportunities must be developed. It does not mean that Brooklyn has to become another Manhattan, but projects such as Extell or others that are in scale with the neighborhood will waste a valuable transportation resource.
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