Month: December 2008

Evan Thies owes me a new monitor. Mine is covered in coffee after reading this article.

According to the Eagle, DOT is getting ready to add a lot more parking spaces around (but not on) Kent Avenue. In particular, some of the side streets and a lot of Wythe Avenue will pick up parking (much of Wythe from Grand to South 3rd is no parking, unnecessarily so).

The west side of Kent between South 8th and Division (in front of Schaefer and the girl’s school) will get “No Standing”, which will allow residents and parents to stop and make pick ups/drop offs. That should satisfy the Schaefer opposition.

Seriously, though, DOT should consider “No Standing” regulations on the east side of Kent to give businesses a break.

Through a rather circuitous route, I hit up the Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklynology blog. If you pay attention to this site, you’ll understand why I’m jealous – BPL is paying someone to do what I can only do in off hours.

Where the beef is.

Speaking of industrial architecture, the Austin Nichols Warehouse at 184 Kent continues to benefit from its National Register status. In addition to a 20% rehabilitation tax credit, the owners are taking a tax write off for a facade easement donation.

But its still not a landmark.

The Landmarks Commission continues to pay attention to industrial architecture in North Brooklyn – they are getting ready to designate the Ulmer Brewery in Bushwick.

The Northside… has firmly entered the Age of the Condo

The Times gives the Northside the “Living In” treatment.

[Such] a mixed-use development requires a creative massing concept for the overall design.

Creative, I’m sure. We’ll see if its any good. With Duane Reade as an anchor tenant (14,000 sf!), a certain amount of skepticism is warranted. Duane Reade has an uncanny knack for making the shiniest, newest retail space look dumpy and worn out. At least Kellog’s will have a compatible neighbor.

Caroline has lunch at Cono’s.

(So much for optimistic theories.)

Greenpoint-Williamsburg is one of a handful of outer-borough neighborhoods that play host to waste transfer stations. These are the privately-owned places where city sanitation trucks and commercial garbage collectors dump all their loads — 50,000 tons, every day — so that this trash can be placed in long-haul trucks and driven to distant landfills…

When [the City marine transfer stations open], city garbage trucks will no longer trundle through Greenpoint-Williamsburg to drop off their loads at private waste transfer facilities. But commercial garbage haulers, servicing the city’s businesses, will still be making those same runs. The bulk of the city’s garbage — 38,000 tons a day — is commercial waste, primarily from Manhattan. That trash will still be headed for the outer boroughs, before going to landfills… There’s no plan to divert that stuff to the city’s new marine waste transfer stations.