Author: linked

Is Williamsburg about to get expanded subway service??

Maybe, according to the Times:

The V train, which now ends at Second Avenue and Houston Street, would replace the M train and travel east to Metropolitan Avenue in Queens.

And the MTA confirms it in their latest description of the proposed service cuts [warning – links to very large PDF]:

Subway Reductions/Discontinuations Being Considered for the First Time: …Extending V to Metropolitan Avenue to replace M service north of Essex Street and discontinuing M service south of Essex Street. V no longer stops at 2nd Avenue.

If this happens, the V would provide direct service on the Broadway elevated line from Bushwick and Williamsburg to Soho, Greenwich Village and Midtown. Without having to switch trains at Essex/Delancey. (I believe the elimination of the Second Avenue stop is because the switch from the BMT (brown) tracks to the IND (orange) tracks is located west of Essex Street – the train will actually be picking up the tracks that the B and D run on up to Broadway/Lafayette.)

On top of which, the latest austerity plan by the MTA no longer eliminates the Z train. (The proposed cuts still include the elimination of the B39 bus across the Williamsburg Bridge, but this route is truly redundant.)

The RFP for the Greenpoint Hospital redevelopment project has been out for close to three years now – that HPD hasn’t awarded it to anyone yet is a crime. Remember, this site is one of the (many) publicly-owned sites that was supposed to supplement the developer-provided affordable housing on the waterfront. Cook Street aside, has any new affordable housing been constructed on City-owned sites since May, 2007?

Ick.

[via Laura]

Believe High School Networks, an organization that operates various charter schools in the city, is taking a big lease at 33 Nassau Avenue (which is across the street from McCarren Park, back behind Automotive High). It looks as the organization has leased the entire 16,800-square-foot second floor of the building, and will put its offices and a charter high school in there. (Locally, Believe operates the Believe Northside Charter High School, the Believe Southside Charter High School and the Williamsburg Charter High School – BNCHS opened this year across McCarren Park at Ericsson JHS.)

Nate Kensinger nails it.

[During the Bloomberg era], many historic structures were demolished along the industrial waterfront to make way for developers. Neighborhood icons vanished, like the smokestacks of the Long Island City Powerhouse, erased from the skyline in 2005 by luxury condominiums. In Brooklyn, the rapid pace of development claimed so many historic structures that by 2007, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed Brooklyn’s entire industrial waterfront at the top of their list of “America’s 11 Most Endangered Places,” stating “historic dockyards and factories are being demolished by developers anxious to cash in on the area’s newly hip status.” Some of the industrial structures lost included the Greenpoint Terminal Market – a potential landmark which was burned to the ground in 2006; the Todd Shipyard – a working shipyard demolished in 2006 by Ikea; the Revere Sugar Refinery – a neighborhood icon which guided ships into the Eerie Basin until being demolished in 2007, and the Kent Avenue Powerhouse – a grand structure completely demolished by 2009. Many of the industrial buildings destroyed throughout the decade were functional, stable, useful structures that could have been redeveloped and given a second life.

A private foundation has donated $500,000 to further GREC/St. Nick’s application to redevelop the Greenpoint Hospital site. GREC/St. Nick’s are one of four applicants who have been waiting for almost two years for the City to decide what to do with the site.

In case you missed it, the EPA is considering Super Fund designation for Newtown Creek. Greenpoint Gazette has the details.

“Due to landlord issues.”

Do those landlord issues have anything to do with the massive addition being slowly built on top of the restaurant?

[via Real Deal]

DuaneReade is its bringing new, non-insta-blight, retail look to Bedford Avenue. To the Quadriad building to be specific. Like right across the street from King’s Pharmacy.

In a truly uninformative piece of reporting, the Post tells us that someone named “Torres” was arrested squatting in a $2,500-a-month apartment in “Williamsburg”. And he wasn’t happy about the lack of heat or the cops who took him away.

But it makes for good headlines, no? (And while they have clearly let their copy editors go, at least Post still pays the headline writers.)