Category: Linked

City Sues Gutman Over Street-Blocking Fence

The City is suing Joshua Gutman, owner of the former Greenpoint Terminal Market site, over the construction of fences blocking city streets that are supposed to provide access to the waterfront.

the site’s owner, Joshua Guttman, […] built two fences in 2009, even though he knew they were on a public street, ignoring the city’s repeated requests to remove them… [Councilman Steve] Levin had asked Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan to have workers tear the fence down — but the city chose to fight in court in order to keep the street open in perpetuity.

This is the same part of the same property that has multiple unresolved fines and violations over the owner’s failure to maintain the bulkheads along the waterfront. And part of the same property that partially burned down in a massive fire in April, 2006. And part of the same property that caused the closing of American Playground on Noble Street earlier this year when parts of a building started falling onto the playground.

Clearly we are dealing with a very civic-minded ownership here.

Mable’s Smokehouse

brisket.jpg

Mmmm, brisket
Photo: Village Voice


An Oklahoma-style barbecue restaurant has opened at 44 Berry (the old NY Quinine Co. building). Bob Sietsema is impressed:

If someone had told me five years ago that Williamsburg would become the city’s foremost barbecue destination, I would have guffawed. After all, most of the BBQ joints in town then—which numbered about a dozen—were located in Manhattan, whining that they couldn’t do the job properly because of city regulations against airborne emissions. The “smoke scrubbers” required to meet environmental guidelines were prohibitively expensive, the owners maintained. Turns out they were full of crap, saving themselves money by brushing baked meats with cloying sauces and calling it ‘cue, figuring nobody in New York could tell the difference. They were wrong.

(He was so impressed that he also posted pictures.)

Rogue Construction on North 7th Street

Residents of N. Seventh Street in Williamsburg are fuming over a new condo being built so close to its neighbors that its scaffolding juts into their terraces and bits of building debris fall onto their property. … The four-story concrete structure developed by Greenpoint contractor Michael Siwiec is [next to] a four-story stone building constructed before World War II.

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Not a stone building.

Permastone, that is. Odds are it is wood frame underneath. And from well before World War II.

Yeah, it sucks to have a sidewalk bridge installed in front of your house. Sucks more to have a brick fall on your head, though. Seems to me the owner should embrace the sidewalk bridge (it might even be their legal responsibility to allow it), particularly if the builder is the nightmare that they claim he is.


Bike Lane Slowed by Boats

The problem with the bike lanes on Greenpoint Avenue? It’s all the damn boats:

“The traffic situation on Greenpoint Avenue has become worse and worse,” said [Broadway Stages owner Tony] Argento. “And when those bridges open, everything gets back up over half an hour — for boats.”

Boathouse Plan Moves Ahead in Greenpoint

The City Parks Foundation has released its recommendations for projects related to the Newtown Creek sewage plant settlement. Tops on the list is the Greenpoint Boathouse, a boathouse and community facility that is proposed for the ground floor of the GMDC building at the top of Manhattan Avenue (technically, I think the $3 million for this project would go to bulkhead repairs, not the boathouse itself). Topping the second tier of projects is a study for renovating the Pulaski Bridge. Further down the list is a proposal for improvements to pedestrians paths in McCarren Park (something that is certainly needed, but probably not something that money for Newtown Creek mitigation should be paying for).

CPF has been charged with making recommendations for the disbursement of a pool of $7 million set aside as part of the settlement for the City’s pollution of Newtown Creek that occurred during the construction of the new sewage treatment plant.

Williamsburg Waterfront Projects Reborn

Interesting (as in reality-challenged) take on the state of the Williamsburg waterfront by Crain’s:

The seven-block stretch of Kent Avenue running from North Third Street up to North 10th along the waterfront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is making a comeback. Activity on the strip—which became one of the borough’s hottest areas for residential development during the boom years, and something of a ghost town during the recession—is picking up again.

With the exception of 111 Kent (the zig-zag condo at North 7th and Kent), there wasn’t a single stalled project on the Williamsburg waterfront. 175 Kent started post-boom, and has been progressing steadily; same with 157 Kent, the skinny condo next door to the north. For the record, 80 Metropolitan, 56 Metropolitan, 175 Kent, 184 Kent, 157 Kent, Northside Piers 2, Edge South and Edge North were all constructed during the recession; Northside 1 and North 8 were finished before the recession (and 184 Kent was a condo-cum-rental well before the bust).

Four years after the opening of the Northside Piers luxury high-rise—the first of Toll Brothers Inc.’s planned three-building complex—55% of the 180 units are sold or in contract. Sales also are perking up next door at The Edge, where deals on 160 of the 565 units have closed and 100 are in contract.

I had to check the dateline on the article, but it really is April, 2011 (and not April 1). Clearly the numbers they are running for Northside Piers are for tower #2, which opened in 2010; tower #1 (was it really finished four years ago?) sold out long ago.

(At the Edge, the innumeracy seems to run in the opposite direction – according to their math (swallowed whole by the Eagle):

160 / 565 = .5

(OK, they did say “almost” 50% – I guess 28%, rounded up, is closer to 50% than 0%).)

Things are looking up on the waterfront in other ways too:

other pieces of the new residential strip are also coming together—including a soccer field in Bushwick Inlet Park along the waterfront, which is expected to be available to the public shortly.

Who were all those people playing on the field all last summer??

To reach trendy restaurants and hip bars, however, the new crowd still must walk over to Bedford Avenue or North Sixth Street and mingle with the old crowd.

OK – you didn’t really go to Williamsburg, did you? Maybe this really is an April 1 dateline after all.

RIP Brooklyn Night Bazaar

The organizer behind this Brooklyn Night Bazaar concept has decided not to go forward with the project this year. I was actually supposed to meet with him yesterday morning, but got a call that the whole thing was being put off until next year. Hopefully next time around he’ll have a better organized (and communicated) plan in place – after hearing from opponents and supporters and reading through everything that the organizer published, I still have no idea whether or not this was a serious endeavor, what it really was (a market? a concert venue? an open-air night club?), and what the impact on/benefit for the neighborhood was.

I guess we’ll see.