Month: May 2021

Acme Smoked Fish Expansion Approved by City Council

Speaking of the Bushwick Inlet IBZ and its rifeness with office space, City Council approved the rezoning of the Acme Fish site on Banker Street. Rubenstein Partners and Gensler architects – the same team that developed/designed 25 Kent Avenue – is behind this proposal. (25 Kent, by the way, is really a quite wonderful experience. Needs more people obviously, but the architecture and (in particular) urban design are quite nice.)

Cayuga Capital selling Williamsburg assemblage for $65M

I will always think of this as the Fast Ashley’s building (on North 10th), or the movie truck building (on Wythe), or Tony’s aquarium loft (on North 11th), which I guess became Beacon’s Closet). Big assemblage – almost 1/3 of the block – in the Bushwick IBZ, which is already rife with hotels and commercial office space.

City Moves Ahead on Two Williamsburg Park Projects

The City has started construction on 50 Kent, part of the Bushwick Inlet Park puzzle, as well as on the second phase of work at La Guardia Playground, located on South 4th Street next to the BQE on ramp.

When completed a year from now, 50 Kent will be the first new parkland created at Bushwick Inlet Park in almost a decade. The $7 million in funding for this 2-acre piece of the park was allocated in 2017, along with funding for the Motiva site at BIP.

Together, these two parcels will add about 3 acres to the existing 6 acres. The big question, though, is when the remaining 2/3 of the park will be finished. To date, no money has been allocated for demolition of the CitiStorage building, nor for remediation and construction on the remaining 16 acres.

District 33 and 34 Candidates’ Forum

05/01/2021 | Comment

The North Brooklyn Open Space Coalition* held as excellent forum with the candidates for the District 33 and 34 City Council seats on Thursday. Some very good questions on parks, open space, development and the waterfront. Diana Reyna and Ron Shiffman did a great job moderating too.

Watch the forum via video link here (via Facebook – if there is a more open-source version out there, I will link to it).

* A coalition of North Brooklyn Neighbors, El Puente, Newtown Creek Alliance and North Brooklyn Parks Alliance. It is great to see these amazing groups working together.