Though it starts out well, this story has a bad ending.

In the sea of banality that is new construction in North Brooklyn, there are actually a few buildings that stand out (for the better, that is). These buildings, which are contextual but in a completely modern skin, are an excellent rebuttal to those who think that context means masonry buildings with carelessly applied ornament and a crown molding cornice. There is just such a building going up on South 1st Street for some time now.

The project is located at 207 – 211 South 1st Street, and is actually three buildings (though they look like two). The larger “building”1 in the complex is a 65′-long four-story building with large windows surrounded by a strong stucco enframement and trimmed in wood slats. The smaller building (#211) is also four stories, but only 25′ wide, and has narrow slit windows behind an almost all wood facade. This facade appears to be a frontispiece for a rather large building filling the irregularly-shaped lot behind lot behind. The buildings are on the one hand clearly related to one another, yet on the other hand, each reads as its its own structure and each reflects its own program. The project was designed by Robert Scarano Architects, and are typical of his shop in their aggressive modernity. This is a modernity that, when it works, is highly successful, and such is the case here.

Although they are located in an R6 unlimited-height zone, the shallow lots limit the overall height, yielding a very contextual 4 stories. With mezzanines,2 the buildings rise to 55′ – almost spot on the height of the neighboring early 20th-century tenements (but not slavishly mimicking the height of the adjacent building). Unlike many Scarano projects, these buildings do not celebrate the mezzanine with floor-to-ceiling glass walls. The wood slats that cover every other window horizontally also serve to break up the large areas of glass and afford some built-in privacy to the units. A good thing too, since most people don’t know how to live in buildings with floor-to-ceiling glass walls.

Aside from their height, there is little that is immediately “contextual” about these buildings. The materials are stucco and wood, arranged into large post-post-Modern framing elements. One building appears at first glance to have no windows whatsoever; the other building has long expanses of tall windows anathema to the traditional punched openings of a masonry building. But the facades of both are given a texture and personality by the judicious use of wood, as both a decorative and shading element. The real success, though, is in the simple massing of both buildings. Unlike other projects by the same firm, these buildings have no out-of-context massing to sully the streetscape. In their own way, these buildings are almost throwbacks to the simplicity of the international style, not the busy, overwrought form-shifting practiced by Scarano and others.3

We need only turn our heads next door to 205 South 1st Street to understand the difference that good design makes in a streetscape. There, a brick facade, ill-considered classical ornament and sympathetic building height4 clearly do not make a contextual (or for that matter, good) design. 205 South 1st is a Bricolage special (the firm with no website), completed in 2003, and has absolutely nothing to recommend it. The bright and modern Scarano buildings, which positively celebrate design, are hands down the good neighbors on the block. Contextualism is a very subjective term, but to too many, it simply means matching materials and cornice heights, tossing in a few keystones, and calling it a day. If that is the standard, then Bricolage’s 205 South 1st is, we suppose, contextual (though obviously the developer was too cheap to even spring for the keystones). It is also banal and ugly as sin, and the future of north Brooklyn. Scarano’s 207 – 211 South 1st, on the other hand, uses modern materials and composition to create a pair of buildings that is far more interesting to look at.

The Scarano buildings do a number of other things right. Although the buildings are all constructed by the same developer, they are functionally independent. This independence is muddled somewhat by the placing of two buildings behind one facade, but the different treatment of the facades on the street avoids creating a midblock monolith. Despite their differentiation, the two pieces are clearly the work of a single designer, and they come together visually – a fine thing for a humble street on the Southside. Compare this ensemble to Bayard Street (aka Karl Fischer Row), where Mr. Fischer is designing a row of highrises facing onto McCarren Park, each of which has nothing to do with its neighbor. Scarano took the opportunity of an extended site to create a complete composition (granted for the same developer), whereas Fisher, on a vastly more prominent site, appears to have not been aware that he was his own next-door neighbor. In essence, Scarano has redefined (for the good) the context of this block of South 1st, whereas Fisher, presented with opportunity to define the context of a major public space, has completely dropped the ball.

There are many small details that also make Scarano’s buildings fit in with the block. Like many of his firm’s projects, these buildings do a good job of concealing all the mechanical detritus that usually accumulates on top of today’s “luxury” condos – cooling towers, bulkheads, etc. Another feature that I particularly like in these buildings is the balconies – or rather, the almost complete lack thereof. The only balconies on the project are at 211 South 1st (the easternmost building), and there they face the party wall to the east rather than the street. By facing the balconies in this direction, these glorified bike racks do not detract from the design of the buildings themselves, nor do they clutter up the street for the rest of us.

Among all the hits, there are some misses here. The first floor of the buildings feels too short. This is another common element of Scarano’s buildings, one in which he turns on its head the traditional building facade hierarchy. The result is a feeling that the building above is crushing the first floor beneath its considerable weight. The first-floor apartments also have way too much glass for the average apartment dweller – unless the right kind of exhibitionist moves in, they will be covered by permanent (or worse still, ersatz) shades in no time. And it remains to be seen how the wood panel system will hold up over time. In fact, the same could be said for the whole material palette – these buildings are so sleek and ultra modern that a patina of age may not become them.

So what is the bad ending? Well, it turns out that all three of these buildings have another thing in common with many of Scarano’s projects – they have all been shut down by Stop Work Orders. At 80% complete (according to DOB), and no doubt in further fallout from Scarano’s mezzanine issues, DOB put the projects into audit in October, 2006. Since then, no work has been done. The 207-209 pair of buildings even appear to have taken on new architects.

So, there they sit – two (or three) of the better designed new buildings on the Southside, shut down for over six months now. I don’t know if the problem here is mezzanines – and thus too much floor area – but if so, how ironic that these buildings, which fit so well into the neighborhood (and make a tremendous aesthetic contribution to the block) are in fact non-contextual from a zoning standpoint.

✧ ✧ ✧

1. “Building” in quotation marks because it is actually two separate apartment buildings behind one unified facade. The site is actually three separate buildings on relatively shallow (75′ deep) lots. 207 – 209 contain two buildings behind their wide unified facade. 207 is 25′ wide and contains 5 units on 4 floor (6,900 gsf); 209 is 40′ wide and contains 8 units on 4 floors (10,700 gsf); 211 is an irregular lot with 60′ of street frontage, with 8 units on 4 floors (10,900 gsf).↩

1. The applications have since been amended to withdraw the mezzanines and substitute attics. Either way, mezzanines, attics and even basements are all ways of creating square footage from thin air – in other words, creating square footage without creating floor area that counts against the allowable FAR. The difference appears to be that attics and basements are legal, while mezzanines may or may not be.↩

3. Aside from opening yourself up to lawsuits, isn’t it beyond lame to steal someone else’s made up brand name for your luxury condo development. I know some developers are too cheap to hire namers, but The Lucent has to be lamest condo name of 2007.↩

4. Clearly derived from zoning, not some sense of civic on architect’s (or developer’s) part.↩

176 South 4th Street
Architect: Bricolage (2002 – 2005)
Photo: Gregg Snodgrass for Property Shark

Recognizing that there is an important place for the background building in our street scape – or put another way, that not every building can (or should) be “high” architecture – I will say that this building is not bad for what it is. Sure, its banal, but it is inoffensive (high praise indeed for a Bricolage design). Mr. Radusky has suppressed (if not entirely eliminated) his fetish for the keystone as a contextual element, and the building only has one (randomly placed) string course. The recess at the center of the second and third story has me scratching my head, and the floating lintel there proves once again that it is a fine line indeed between mannerism and ham fistedness.

If the building itself is a good neighbor, the first story is nothing of the sort. I understand the need for garage entries (assuming you have to have a garage, which is certainly debatable from a public policy point of view), but the whole recessed first floor here is a blight. This isn’t Florida – we do not need carports. And we definitely don’t need more dark recesses that make pedestrians want to cross the street.

But back to that whole background building concept. Is it me, or does this building fall a rung or three below the apartment building to the left? Both are essentially the same architectural stylings, about 85 years apart – take a brick facade, apply some ready-made, inexpensive ornament, and call it a day. The difference is that the architect of the tenement probably knew something about the Classical orders (and used a better quality brick). The apartment building next door (180 South 4th) is also a condo, by the way. It has 11 units plus stores and offices on the ground floor, vs. 9 units in 176 South 4th. If you’re keeping score at home, that works out to about 1,500 sf per unit (gross) in the older building and 1,700 sf per unit (gross) in the newer building – we’re still packing them in 85 years later.

Finally, a fun fact about 176 South 4th Street. The property was acquired from the city by Joshua Guttman in 1984, who then sold it to the current developer(Williamsburg Bridge Towers LLC).

Update: A better image of 180 South 4th Street after the jump.

Thanks to Brownstoner for pointing this one out.

Continue…

For years, the intersection of Bedford and Grand has been policed by a local woman by the name of Mary. Mary keeps the garbage cans of the various tenements in order, and generally makes sure that this corner of Williamsburg doesn’t look like a complete dump.

160 Grand Street – the finished product

Then along comes a new luxury condominium, and, well, things have just gotten a little messier on Grand Street. It seems that one amenity that was left out of this gem was a garbage room. But hey, thats another 100 square feet the developer can sell! Of course, they are still left with the problem of what to do with all the garbage cans. Here’s an idea, line them up in front of the building and let them overflow all over the street. Better yet, chain them to the areaways that provide LIGHT AND AIR to the basement duplexes.

That’s somebody’s window below all those
garbage cans – at least in this photo
they’re not overflowing.

That’s right, in order to maximize every sellable square inch, 160 Grand pulls all of the zoning tricks out of its hat: mezzanines (of course), but also attic duplexes (those peaked roofs aren’t just decorative, they also don’t count towards floor area), and the aforementioned basement duplexes. And, the aforementioned garbage cans, that sit on top of somebody’s basement window.

The building was designed by Robert Scarano & Associates, a firm that in our opinion, can design a decent building. In this case, though, the owner appears to have done some value engineering – the as-built structure you’re looking at here does not match the rendering that was (once) up on the Scarano web site.1 Not that the original design was that great (it was not one Scarano’s “decent” ones), but it was a few steps above this faux-traditional monstrosity.

Case Study House #22.
Pierre Koenig, architect (1960).
(Photo: Julius Shulman)

This development also brings up another pet peeve of ours – people who live in glass houses should know how to live in glass houses. Ground-floor apartments with lots of glass, or the large double-height windows of the mezzanines look kind of ridiculous with a hodgepodge of window “treatments”. People living in these apartments should take cue from the Case Study houses (for instance) and embrace the openness – or recognize that they are not exhibitionists and get an apartment with regular windows. And the architects should recognize that most people don’t want to live in terrariums, and either design human-scaled windows or uniform window treatments.2

1. The rendering also did not show the garbage cans.[back]

2. Mies recognized this problem at the Seagram Building, and designed window shades with three positions, so that there would always be some uniformity to the windows. Fat chance getting this developer (or any other in the neighborhood) to spring for blinds, is our bet.[back]

Quadriad controls the vacant lot in the foreground, but not the skeleton beyond.
(Photo: rsguskind)

Quadriad was back at Community Board #1 last night, but that’s about the only news.

When Henry Wollman of Quadriad met with CB1’s Land Use committee in early March, he promised to bring a full presentation to the Board. Last night, Wollman brought a lot of words but very few details.

What we do know from the Land Use meeting in March is this:

Quadriad now only proposes to develop the half block site on North 3rd between Bedford and Berry. Despite past claims that they “controlled” the north half of the block (fronting on North 4th), Quadriad is only developing the south half of the block (“for now”).

Quadriad’s project is now simply an effort to generate affordable housing. Prior community enticements, such as charter schools, fire houses, public “open space” and so on are off the table.

As before, Quadriad proposes to eschew all government subsidies, tax breaks, etc. In other words, they will use the profits from market-rate housing to generate affordable housing. And they will use this project as a model for future projects throughout the city.

Quadriad is proposing to build more or less to the as-of-right envelope on Bedford Avenue (5 to 7 stories), and to develop “townhouses” along North 3rd. At the corner of Berry and North 3rd, Quadriad is proposing a 20-story tower (the not as-of-right part of the project that would require a rezoning).

The numbers – roughly – are 250 units total, with 90 of those set aside for affordable housing (both rental and condo). (A strictly as-of-right project would yield 80 market-rate units, so in order to generate 90 units of affordable housing, they need to more than triple the number of housing units in the project.)

Again with the numbers – as of right, the site would allow an FAR of about 2.4 – Quadriad proposes something on the order of 7.0 FAR. Again, in order to generate 90 units of affordable housing, Quadriad needs to almost triple the density.

So what did we learn last night? Few new details and no plans, despite their promise to give a “full” presentation to the Board. Instead, Quadriad will send board members a glossy-covered book of details “next week”.

Wollman did provide the following new information:

Quadriad has formally partnered with the People’s Firehouse as their local development partner. PF’s members have voiced their support for the project in the past, so this is not entirely a surprise.

Quadriad also relayed a vague statement from Churches United, asking the board to “keep an open mind”.

Quadriad will break ground on an as-of-right project on August 8.

In “late July”, Quadriad will formally apply to the City Planning Commission to rezone their half block on North 3rd. Quadriad was very clear that the rezoning is only for this one parcel – they are not trying to rezone the entire block, nor are they looking to rezone other sites in the neighborhood.

Beyond that, though, we all just have to wait and see.

More background:

Fear of Heights [Village Voice]

Two Sides… [Greenpoint Star]

349 Metropolitan Avenue.

I don’t particularly want to get into the habit of outing questionable construction practices (that’s been keeping plenty of other people busy of late), but couldn’t pass up this little gem. Over at 349 Metropolitan Avenue (between Roebling & Havemeyer), things are looking a little out of plumb. That steel post to the left of the street light is about two-stories tall, and is only attached by two plates at its base. From the looks of it, someone forgot to tighten the bolts before they knocked off work yesterday.

And, yes, this is the same building site that had a crane collapse during a steel delivery a couple of months back.

This type of stuff shouldn’t happen anywhere, but its particularly disturbing on a major thoroughfare like Metropolitan Avenue.

citiMap

Gowanus Lounge has been all over the Roebling Oil field of late1. One thing that intrigued me about the appearance of (purported) toxins ickiness at this site and across the street at the apartment building on the northwest corner or Roebling and North 11th2 was the fact that neither site appeared to have been home to the usual toxic soup of Williamsburg’s past. In fact, both sites seem to have housed pretty benign uses, as the 1929 map below shows.

Map 1: Hyde insurance map, 1929 (NYPL).

So why the oil here? And what of Rob’s contention that the blocks to the southeast might be next? Turns out, he could be on to something; I was just looking at the wrong map.

Once upon a time, Williamsburg and Greenpoint were divided by a rather large creek and surrounding marshland – as seen below in an 1833 map of the Village of Williamsburgh. The creek was originally called Norman Kill, after one Dirck de Noorman, or Dirk the Norseman – the first European settler in this part of Brooklyn. Later renamed Bushwick Creek, this waterway was at one point navigable by boat as far inland as Grand and Rodney. Older maps show much of the area to the east of Union Avenue and throughout McCarren Park as marshes.3 As late as the 1830s, the only direct connection between Williamsburgh and Greenpoint at the waterfront was a long footbridge (seen below) connecting First Street (Kent Avenue) to Franklin Street. It was only in 1838 was a vehicular bridge constructed across Bushwick Creek. Prior to that, Greenpointers who didn’t want to travel far inland had to use boats to travel to Williamsburgh.

Map 2: Base map: Village of Williamsburgh, Kings County, 1833 (from Brooklyn Genealogy).

Bushwick Creek and the original East River shoreline are shown beneath the street grid.

Illustration: Brooklyn11211

Today, the little that’s left of Norman Kill is known as Bushwick inlet (see map #3, below). It is still the dividing line between Greenpoint and Williamsburg, its just not the barrier it once was.

So what does all this ancient history have to do with the discovery of oil on Roebling Street? Maybe nothing, but maybe this: a branch of Norman Kill runs directly beneath the Roebling Oil field site (outlined in red on maps #2 and #3). It also runs beneath the newish apartment building across North 11th Street to the north4, and beneath the block to the southeast that GL identified as another possible oil field site. This tributary, once known as Swede’s Kill, is the part of Bushwick Creek that was navigable as far south as Grand and Rodney Streets.5

Williamsburg, 2007, with old waterways overlaid (base map from DOITT viaCITI).

With all the publicity over the Exxon (really Mobil/Standard Oil) spill in Greenpoint, its tempting to wonder if that is the source of the Roebling Oil field. But the Greenpoint oil spill is centered on Newtown Creek in the far northern section of Greenpoint, where Standard Oil (later Mobil, now ExxonMobil) had a large oil storage facility.

But Standard Oil had other operations in Williamsburgh and Greenpoint (Standard wasn’t a monopoly for nothing). Chief among these – and perhaps most significantly for the discussion at hand – was Charles Pratt’s Astral Oil refinery, which was located at the mouth of the Bushwick Inlet. Today, this is the Bayside Oil site – a site that is slated to become a public park, but which Parks has acknowledged is an environmental nightmare (understandable, considering that the site has been home to some form or another of petroleum processing for close to 150 years).

And, yes, if you look at maps #2 and #3, you will see that the Bayside/Astral site is right downstream from the Roebling Oil field.

But wait – oil can’t flow upstream, can it? Well, just as the East River is not a river (to us in Brooklyn, its not even East). The East River is a tidal strait – water flows in and out from New York Bay and Long Island Sound (and to some extent the Harlem “River”) based on the tides. I suspect that this tidal action was what formed Norman Kill, and could still be affecting the flow of water beneath parts of Williamsburg. I’m no hydrologist, but clearly there was once a network of waterways that to one extent or another could still exist beneath the streets. And that network of waterways could be pushing oil and other ickiness below the former marshlands of north Williamsburg.

If the old creek system is in some way responsible for the appearance of oil at the Roebling/North 11th site, the Bayside/Astral would certainly not be the only potential source for oil itself. There were many other potential sources of historic oiliness, including the Williamsburgh Gas Light Company, which was located west of Kent Avenue between North 11th and North 12th Streets, and a Brooklyn Union Gas facility on Berry between North 12th and North 13th (seen on map #1, above).

So perhaps it is geography that has reared its ugly head on Roebling and North 11th.

1. UPDATE: I see that the NY Times has picked up the story in a small item in today’s City section (in typical fashion, the Times cites “bloggers”, without giving any direct credit to GL, who has done a ton of work on this story over the past months). The article does not add much to the identification of the source of the oil at the Roebling Oil Field, but a geologist is quoted as saying that there might be a contamination source north or northeast of the site. This would be consistent Bushwick Creek hypothesis outlined here.[back]

2. Quite possibly, the ugliest building in Williamsburg.[back]

3. Perhaps this was why much of southern Greenpoint in the area around Banker Street remained undeveloped into the early 20th century.[back]

4. See note 1, above.[back]

5. Jan de Swede was an early settler of Williamsburgh (then known as Bushwick), who built his house at the head of Swede’s Kill, at what today is the intersection of Grand and Rodney.[back]