Like its big brother to the north, the Roebling Oil Field keeps getting bigger and bigger. My money is still on the creek as the carrier.

From Modern Guitars, an interview with Fred Gretsch, the fourth generation owner of the Gretsch Guitar Co. Gretsch’s uncle sold the company to Baldwin Pianos in 1967, and apparently the Gretsch marque went downhill fast. So bad that in 1979 Gretsch stopped making guitars. Fred Gretsch was able to buy back the company when Baldwin went bankrupt in 1984 (“the Enron of 1984”). Gretsch operated its Williamsburg factories up until it sold out to Baldwin. Of Williamsburg, Fred Gretsch had this to say:

We were located in the Eastern District of New York as it was called. Williamsburg is what it was also called. Today, it’s called Brooklyn. And that was really a manufacturing Mecca, really much more so than Detroit. But it really came into it’s own in the 1930s and 1940s…

Brooklyn in the 1880s and 1890s was the manufacturing hub and all kinds of innovation was happening there. There were a lot of craftsmen coming over from Europe that we added to our team and to the innovation and manufacturing processes. It was the Silicon Valley of its day! So that’s where we began our guitar making. Probably around 1890. And we were able to use the wealth of all kinds of manufacturing and techniques and new technology in Brooklyn through the ensuing years.

The four (?) Gretsch Buildings still stand on either side of the Williasmburg Bridge. To date, only one is a luxury condo.

This site is mostly about the north Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick (11211, 11249 and 11222), and about issues of development, land use, design and construction ongoing in these neighborhoods and elsewhere. Comments are always on for articles, off for linked items.

Actually, he hates Renzo Piano’s Morgan Library addition, a project I happen to like very much (and yes, had a hand in). I don’t know that it would make a difference to Mr. Cusack, but there are a few key points on which he is mistaken. Beyond that, he is certainly entitled to his opinion.

First off, the view that Mr. Cusack shows of the Phelps mansion with the Polish Consulate beyond still exists. He just conveniently cuts out the Consulate and pans south to include the Piano entry pavilion. Disingenuous to say the least.

Mr. Cusack also shows a view of the original Charles Follen McKim Morgan Library, with the caption “The Morgan Library, how it was originally meant to be entered”. The caption should read: “how it was meant to be entered by J. P. Morgan”. Even in Morgan’s day that entrance was ceremonial, and it was never public. Morgan Sr. lived next door in a brownstone mansion at the corner of 36th and Madison (where the annex building is now), and usually entered the library through the back or through the basement. The public was never meant to see the library – it was Morgan’s private domain, and was only made “public” after his death. As far as I know, the McKim building was never used as the main entry to the Morgan Library in all the time it has been a public institution. The Morgan Library, as a public institution, was always entered through the annex, on 36th just off Madison.

In another photo, Mr. Cusack refers to the “old Morgan house” at the corner of 37th and Madison. This was the Phelps mansion, which later became the home of Morgan, Jr. Morgan, Jr. had his father’s mansion demolished to construct the annex at 36th and Madison.

The “happy garden” that seems to be one of the primary sources of Mr. Cusack’s regret was lost some time ago, when the Landmarks Commission approved a connecting building by Bart Voorsanger. It was this building that was lost in the Piano project. Also lost in the Piano project were a 1950s office building on 37th and a literalist extension to the annex building (which also took away part of the “happy garden”).

The beauty of Piano’s expansion is that it takes a semi-public institution and makes it a truly public destination, while at the same time giving that institution the vault space it needs to store its many treasures.

(As for Mr. Cusack’s lament on the Brooklyn Museum of Art – surely he knows that the entry steps for the Metropolitan Museum of Art are a 1970s Kevin Roche addition?)

With all the recent press on the Greenpoint Oil Spill (its bigger!), this article is a bit out of date, but wonderful nonetheless. Author Julie Leiblach won a much-deserved award from the Society of Environmental Journalists for the article.

We learn from the Sun that David Yassky has joined Melinda Katz, Simcha Felder and David Weprin in the race for New York City Comptroller. Hmm, Yassky, Katz & Felder – where have we heard of these three musketeers before? Oh yeah.

I guess Weprin has the city’s preservation vote pretty well locked up.

Somehow I don’t think $6,000 is a “substantial” fine for Joshua Guttman or many other developers. Probably works out to be a bargain, given the cost of actually disposing of asbestos in a safe and legal manner.

(Thanks, Laura H.)

The Brooklyn Eagle fluffs for Tahoe Development:

Regarding the influx of new people to their buildings, he is noticing that they are from all over the Midwest, but mostly from Manhattan and a majority of them are students whose parents are helping them.

“There’s a lot of diversity,” he said. “They’re all meeting in college and it reminds me of what SoHo was like 20 years ago.”

No comment on the students, but I do think its time we got over this Soho 20 years ago crap. Williamsburg 10 years ago might have been like Soho 20 or 30 years before that. But Soho in 1987 was already overrun with tourists, overpriced, and over for art. Why do you think we moved to Williamsburg?

In terms of quality of life issues, one of the really stupid things about DOB’s BIS system is that IT DOES NOT TRACK WEEKEND PERMITS. There is an assistant commissioner who keeps a spreadsheet of weekend variance applications and permits, but you won’t find the information online. So if you want to know if the building next to you has a permit to wake you up at 8:00 am on Saturday, you can’t. I don’t even know if 311 operators can look up this information.

So we are left with inundating 311 with complaints about off-hour construction, that are then only inspected the following Monday, when the chance of finding illegal weekend construction is pretty much nil. Given the stock the mayor puts into information technology, this is just plain idiotic.