Kent Avenue, stripped.
In comments, reader JJ has a front-line report on the Kent Avenue repaving, which (as promised) started yesterday evening:
The transformation of Kent Ave. started last night. And kept me up most of the night as DOT crews tore up the asphalt between Broadway and S. 7th. Thank God!
Based on the condition of the street this morning, I can see why JJ didn’t get much sleep. This is more than just repainting the bike lanes – DOT is doing a full-on repaving.
JJ goes on to echo some of my own previous thoughts on the whole Kent Avenue tempest:
I’m glad to see some change, but the coming change is not the answer either. The bike lanes and no parking was a big mistake. It turned Kent Ave. already dangerous because of how people speed down it, into an open freeway… Kent Ave is not the West Side Highway, it’s not going to be the west side highway and the Brooklyn Greenway plan to make it into one was a mistake…
Indeed – the removal of parking on Kent Avenue has made the speeding (and passing) much worse. If you aren’t going at least 40, you have a good chance of being passed (either on the right or the left). DOT’s 2008 bike lane project did turn Kent into the West Side Highway (actually, it was already like that – the bike lane project just made it worse by eliminating all parking). The addition of parking and elimination of one lane of traffic should slow things down considerably.
What about pedestrians? how can the city have rezoned the whole waterfront for housing, on the other side of a truck route and not imagined that thousands of people a day might need to cross that street? The North side is still mostly without traffice lights to allow pedestrian crossing to the high rises and a state park — I mean come on get real.
Spot on – this is something I have been talking about since the bike lanes went in last year. The repaving of Kent Avenue that is going on right now is more than just painting new lines on the street – DOT is ripping up the street (a pretty new one, at that) to lay down new asphalt. They should be using this opportunity to put in an actual greenway, but they are not. But if DOT is not using this opportunity to put in traffic lights at at least three or four intersections between Grand and North 14th, they just don’t get it.
I was going to do a post echoing Aaron Short’s call for the candidates for the 34th Council seat to get together and have a debate already (a plea I made before). This evening, my prayers were answered – Churches United for Fair Housing is putting on a debate on Monday August 31st. Good for them, and good for the candidates for agreeing to participate (I assume there will be no backing out this time).
Town Square Inc. had scheduled a forum for the candidates of the 34th council district fior tomorrow evening. Unfortunately, two of the three candidates refused to appear, so the event was cancelled. So who was the one candidate willing to appear at the only public candidates’ event in the 34th??
UPDATE: As noted in the comments, the answer is Diana Reyna. Maritza Davila and Gerry Esposito could not or would not make it. (I should’ve checked Short before posting that question.)
889 Broadway
Photo: PropertyShark
NY1 reported earlier in the week that DOB had issued a vacate order for an illegal conversion on Broadway in Bushwick, but since they didn’t include an address, it was hard to follow up. Today, BushwickBK reported that the building was 889 Broadway, which led me to this more detailed report on CBS TV.
Its still hard to piece everything together, but it looks as though FDNY filed the complaints that led to the vacate order. According to the DOB records, the owner was in the process of converting the building (its actually at least three interconnected buildings) to 15 apartments. NY 1 and CBS both say there were 20 units in the buildings. BushwickBK claims that the building, like its neighbors, was residential already – that this was not a traditional loft conversion. However, the legal use of the building is not clear – the existing CO [pdf] is for three stories of light manufacturing above a ground-floor store. On the other hand, the Department of Finance classifies the building as a walk-up apartment. If the CO is correct, and the building was being cut up into apartments, that is a pretty big deal for the FDNY, particularly since two firemen died fighting a fire in an illegal apartment in the Bronx in 2005.
The buildings also have a host of violations, including two unsafe building notices (in 1988 and 1992) and 77 DOB violations since 1972. CBS reports
In a statement to CBS 2, the landlord said: “Neither the ownership nor the management had any prior knowledge” of the violations, and pointed out there have been no violations in the past 11 years.
Actually, there have been 28 DOB violations issued in the past 11 years, and 27 of them are still active (and that doesn’t include the four violations issued on Thursday). These recent violations include 2 for work without a permit (in 2003). In that period, there has not been a single application for work – the most recent DOB permit dates to 1997, and tellingly, was to correct prior work that had been done without permits. (The first part of the landlord’s statement is probably technically true, in a weaselly way – the “violations” in this case were issued on the same day as the vacate order. But that should not in any way be construed as a statement of innocence on the owner’s part.)
Of course as usual the real tragedy here is that “dozens” of residents are out on the street with three hours notice. The real kick in the teeth is this closing statement in the CBS report: “Tenants say they believed the apartments were being rented legally”. In this case, that is entirely believable.
There is a little over a month until the Democratic primary, so expect a flurry of appearances, mailers, phone calls and every other type of outreach from your candidates.
The latest is a live podcast (can a podcast be live?) by Doug Biviano. If I understand the press release, you can watch live at Biviano’s campaign headquarters (the BivPod?), or listen live on Brooklyn Heights Blog via blogtalkradio.com. There is also a call in number (718-506-1475) for questions.
What: A live podcast of BHB’s The New Homer Fink Show as part of Biviano’s The Open Door Series.
When: SATURDAY, August 8th, 11:00am
Where: Doug Biviano’s Campaign Office – 89 Montague Street (at the corner of Hicks St.)
Town Square is hosting a forum for the four Comptroller candidates tomorrow evening in East River State Park. So far, three of the four have confirmed (Melinda?).
Date: Thursday, August 6th
Time: 6 p.m.
Location: East River State Park
Clearly I’m catching up with what happened while I was away. Luckily, Aaron Short is catching up after his 10th reunion, so I’m just going to keep linking to him. This time on OSA –
Aaron authored a three part series on OSA in the Courier, which ended up finding a lot of smoke but no fire. The second article in the series included a number of accusations that turned out to be incorrect or unfounded. In his blog post today, Aaron does right by apologizing for those errors, and printing OSA’s letter to the editor in full (something the Courier didn’t do they just issued a terse correction).
(Part three of the series is here. The most important quote in this latest installment came from Phil DePaolo: “Parks will get hit hard… Next year, there won’t be an election year”.)
As for the accusations in part two, which continue to reverberate, clearly OSA needs to do a better job of defining what it is and isn’t. I’ve said before that OSA’s job is to work with the City to improve local parks.
OSA is a private organization, with its own board (and yes, its own bylaws). One of the more inane memes floating about is with regard to the requirements for being on the OSA board. Yes, board members are expected to bring in money (not necessarily contribute their own, but raise money). But most non-profit boards expect this of their board members. Well-run non-profits make the financial expectations explicit to board members. Directors in most non-profits are appointed for their expertise, connections and ability to fundraise – it’s not a democracy, and it shouldn’t be.
On the other hand, anyone can get involved in OSA through their community committees. OSA needs to do a better job (among other things) of making explicit the expectations of what the community committees do and do not do. I’m not involved with OSA, but its pretty clear that there are some people who have certain expectations for the organization – expectations that may or may not be realistic. OSA needs to be clear about what the organization’s role is, and how the community committee’s fit into that role.
Aaron Short has an insightful post recapping last week’s candidate forum for the 33rd Council District (and handicapping the state of the race today).
Aaron also helpfully links to all the other press coverage on the debate. I wasn’t there, but reading those press accounts (including Aaron’s in the Courier), one would think that Doug Biviano went stark raving bonkers. Reading between the lines, it sounds more like an outsider candidate from the Kucinich wing of the Democratic party called out three of his competitors for being too much on the inside of local party politics. Since one of those competitors is a local Democratic district leader, another is a former chief of staff to the incumbent council member and the third is the former (?) chief of staff to the incumbent Democratic county leader, it’s pretty clear that Biviano was playing the cards he was dealt – he would have looked pretty stupid trying to pass himself off as the consummate insider.
And seriously – why are there no debates in the 34th Council race?
The Broadway Triangle Community Coalition has taken the PowerPoint for its Pratt plan (which I linked to before) and set it to music.
I still think the plan itself (and the one or two plans BTCC had before that) suffers from a fatal flaw – its just too damn big. I know in the end they backed away from specific numbers, but if you run the numbers implied in their presentations, BTCC is looking to go significantly higher (double or more) than the density of the neighboring public housing projects. They would exceed the density of the waterfront sites in the 2005 zoning by a fair margin. For all the “comprehensive planning” embodied in this plan, there is no practical accounting for how the neighborhood infrastructure will handle this number of people. Nor is there any accounting for how all this new housing – most of it affordable, yes – will impact displacement outside the Triangle.
Tall buildings are fine, but massively oversized buildings that further strain an already overtaxed infrastructure are not.
What a lot of people forget is that this is a land-use review process. For all its flaws on the process side (and it was a very flawed process), the City’s plan – as land-use policy – is basically good (it could be better, and CB1 made recommendations to make it so). In fact, the zoning – what CB1 voted to approve – is at the high end of the density the Board has been willing to support in recent actions. But it is within reason, and it includes a minimum of 34% affordable housing (49% if you believe the City’s numbers, but those rely on developer-incentivized affordable housing, which is iffy, at best).
Meanwhile, I still say the courts (or the city council) are the proper place to address the process (and apportionment) questions.
UPDATE: I almost forgot – there is a hearing at the Borough President’s office on the Broadway Triangle rezoning tomorrow evening. Details here.
I came back from a week’s vacation to learn that Mary, who has kept the corner of Bedford and Grand clean for as long as I can remember, died on July 24. She was a beloved fixture on the block, and as the photo to the left shows, will be missed.
A collection is being taken at La Villita bakery to pay for Mary’s burial.
