Category: Linked

The Oliver (Photo via GL)

KSQ Architects’ new design for 360 Smith Street (now called “The Oliver”) is certainly very nice. Unlike the previous architect, the Westchester/Tulsa (Tulsa?!)-based firm uses more traditional materials (though in non-traditional ways – it sounds as though they are talking about terra-cotta rain screens, not brick walls).

While the design is a great improvement over the original Scarano designs, the only thing that has really changed is the skin (much for the better) and the massing (also much for the better). If that is all people are concerned about, change the glass tower to brick (or terra cotta, whatever), and call it a day.

If the issue is height and density, this is still a very big building (in relation to its Carroll Gardens context). Pardon Me says that the side pavilions (on Smith Street and Second Place) are only five stories, but that clearly refers to the red-colored terra-cotta portion only. The street walls are six stories including the light-beige attic story. And those six stories are set on a very high base – judging by the doorway on the Smith elevation, that base is at least 7′ tall, probably 8′. So unless the developer has found a way to fit six and a half stories in 50′ of building height, the street wall is really closer to 70′ at the sides and probably just under 80′ at the corner (the glass pavilion). On top of which, there is a set back seventh story at the side pavilions. (A local architect has already noted that mechanical equipment and bulkheads will likely add at least another 15′ to the roofscape).

Finally, is anyone in the community bothered by the fact that the developer is showing no retail on Smith Street? I don’t know the project well enough, but Smith is a commercial thoroughfare, and that 7′ or 8′ high black plinth at the base of the building strikes me as pretty non-contextual.

Given that this is an as-of-right building, at this point all the community can really fight for is aesthetics. At least its not metal.

[Via GL]

The Army is suppressing an unclassified report critical of the execution of the Iraq war.

A review of the lengthy report […] shows that it identified problems with nearly every organization that had a role in planning the war.

They could have saved a lot of paper by just printing a list of Bush administration officials that executed war planning well.

This sounds like a very good idea – not only would it provide greenways and protected bicycle lanes, it would help slow down traffic on the Kent Avenue freeway.

I’m sure the parking freepers will object, but this is something CB1 should support.

John McCain almost lost three primaries on Saturday. Luckily for him, the Republican brass in Washington state decided that it wasn’t necessary to count all of the votes.

A year later, life is still tenuous for the proprietors at Moore Street.

Your fare hike at work:

A new B2 bus route connecting Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and Long Island City, Queens, to midtown Manhattan.

Nice piece in today’s Times about the working artists at 475 Kent and the community they created.

“Ah, irony,” Scott Bullock, a senior attorney with the group that fought eminent domain in the [Kelo] case.

The linked article is a little disingenuous, in that Pfizer was not a party to the Kelo (the Supreme Court case that gave birth to the phrase “Eminent Domain Abuse”). But it was Pfizer’s relocation to New London, Conn. that was the direct impetus for the City’s acquisition of property in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood that resulted in Kelo. So without Pfizer, there would be no Kelo.

Pfizer has announced that it is closing up shop in Williamsburg (where the company was founded, in 1849), putting over 1,000 people out of work. Assemblyman Vito Lopez is looking to having Pfizer’s extensive holdings on either side of Flushing Avenue acquired by eminent domain, in order to create affordable housing and job incubators. Pfizer, of course, would like to sell their property on the open market. As the first step in that process, the company has supposedly issued an RFP to solicit bids. Pfizer says that affordable housing is a “key priority” in its RFP.

We’ll have more on the merits of Lopez’s bid at a later date, but for now, we’ll enjoy the irony.

I have heard that the water taxi dock at Shaefer Landing was removed over the weekend. Apparently, a new and smaller permanent dock will be installed in “a couple of months”. I suppose that quashes any hope of taxi service resuming any sooner than “a couple of months” from now.

Time Out NY has an excellent piece titled It Happened Here, an informative romp through NYC history & geography. Greenpoint’s contribution includes this entry:

The ironclad Union warship the USS Monitor, which battled the Confederacy’s Merrimac to a draw in Chesapeake Bay, was built at the Continental Iron Works shipyard in Greenpoint and launched on January 30, 1862. The shipyard was located on Newtown Creek at Cayler and West Sts, Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

But it didn’t happen there (or rather there is no there there) – Continental was located on Bushwick Creek, not Newtown Creek.