Month: December 2012

Lights, Cameras, Williamsburg!

Williamsburg Cinemas will be one of the first places in the neighborhood that people can go to catch a blockbuster flick, filling the void left by the closure of the Commodore Theater in 2002.

I’m not sure the Commodore ever really filled that void, but first-run movies (sans alcohol) are back in Williamsburg.

Monster Island Going Down – What’s Next?

12/19/2012 | Comment

Monster Island, RIP

Monster Island, prepped for demolition.

The block-sized property on Kent Avenue between Metropolitan and North 1st is finally getting demolished. Sidewalk sheds and permits went up early this week, and demolition of one of the River Street buildings was in progress as of yesterday.

What the future holds for this site is unclear. The property – once home to Monster Island, Duff’s, Mollusk and other Williamsburg 2.0 establishments – is still zoned for manufacturing use. That zoning designation was always tenuous at best, but since the rezoning of Domino seems to make little sense. Con Ed has already cleared its site across River Street (also with no plans for redevelopment), and despite the earlier rumors, it seems unlikely that Chetrit, who owns this site, will be putting a Whole Foods here. There are no permits on DOB for this site, so it’s anyone’s guess what is in store. Perhaps a rezoning (it would make a lot of sense to rezone all of the remaining manufacturing blocks along Kent between South 3rd and North 3rd), perhaps a new hotel (which seems to be the new highest and best use for M-zoned lots in Williamsburg 3.0).

Lost Streets of Greenpoint

Kevin Walsh takes a close look at long-gone streets in Greenpoint. A bunch of these streets never existed other than on a map (certainly the little streets northwest of Commercial, and probably the streets between Manhattan Avenue and Whale Creek).

No explanation for the two Meseroles, though.

Condo Tenants Ticketed After Developer Left No Room for Trash

Condo owners at 59, 61 and 63 Conselyea St. said they have been fined for placing trash enclosures on the sidewalk without a permit since they have no other spot to place their garbage… “[We] have no common area to put trash … The city has no code requiring developers to actually build a garbage room.”

The amount of garbage (literal and figural) that litters the sidewalks in front of new developments is ridiculous. In an effort to squeeze out every square inch of sellable floor area, developers are putting trash cages and mailboxes in the public way, or worse, just not providing any accommodation for trash, and the city seems just fine with it.

[The headline of the DNA article blames the architect, but this is driven by developer greed, facilitated by the architects.]

More on the Sweater Factory Lofts

12/05/2012 | Comment

I linked briefly to the New York Times article on the ongoing Sweater Factory saga. Herewith, some more thoughts:

“It’s not crime and disinvestment that’s the enemy of the working-class jobs here anymore,” said Leah Archibald, the director of the East Williamsburg Valley Industrial Development Corporation, a nonprofit entity that administers the Industrial Business Zone. “It’s gentrification that’s become the enemy.”

Leah is absolutely right, but what did we expect when the city carved out the Bushwick Inlet industrial zone in 2005? This small enclave of manufacturing is surrounded by new residential zones targeted for luxury housing, so is it really surprising to anyone that manufacturing is not really viable there? Despite calls from many in the community to provide better industrial retention policies, more truly mixed-use zoning and lower densities, this was simply not a priority for City Planning or the loudest voices on the community side. So now this 17-block area now sits isolated and vulnerable amid a sea of new housing. I had a lengthy interview with the Times reporter about the Sweater Factory (alas, no quote!), and made this very point to her. With residential uses unavailable (legally, at least), the highest and best use in this tiny triangle has shifted to bars, bowling alleys and hotels. All as-of-right, but uses that necessarily erode the viability of manufacturing.

When the City set up the Industrial Business Zones in 2005, they made a commitment to slow the flow of variances and rezonings in M zones. That approach has largely worked in East Williamsburg, where there is enough critical mass and enough distance from residential districts (though all bets are off when Bloomberg leaves office). Yes, there are plenty of loft conversions there, but percentage-wise, manufacturing remains the dominant use. Not so in Bushwick Inlet, where the gentrification is not the Sweater Factory lofts but the host of new as-of-right uses that command rents many times higher than manufacturing. About the only bright lining in this area is the rise of tech jobs.

“We take all this stuff very seriously. That’s why we’ve been out there numerous times,” said Ryan FitzGibbon, a department spokeswoman. If the owners of 239 Banker continued to flout the law, she said, it would be possible to take them to court. But with the application pending, she said, “The agency will work with the loft board on this situation to try to legalize the conditions.”

While the DOB tries to defend its embarrassing lack of enforcement, the fact is that they may have been out there numerous times, but they never did much to actually enforce their stop work orders. The DOB has been the prime enabler in this saga, and hiding behind the loft law (which I understand probably doesn’t even apply at this property), is insane.