Category: Linked

I missed this (luckily Heather is on it): the folks at Greenpoint Reformed Church have added a Friday afternoon flea market to their list of good works.

Good NYT Op Ed on the need for – and barriers to – an expanded ferry system for NYC. Someone is listening to me.

Ferries are a growth opportunity. To add new routes, you don’t need to dig a tunnel or lay a track. You don’t need to reroute traffic, build bridges or add lanes. And in many parts of New York, unlike almost every other city, you wouldn’t need to build big parking lots where riders could leave their cars. What cars?
What you need is a viable pier and a boat. You need a convenient way to get from water’s edge to people’s ultimate destinations. And you need someone to be in charge of it all…
It’s hard to imagine ferry service expanding very far unless it becomes a public initiative, an integrated system with coordinated schedules and MetroCard access. But who would lead such an initiative? The Metropolitan Transportation Authority? The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey? The Department of Transportation? No one seems to know.

How Chuck Schumer saved the Pool Parties – or more specifically, how he saved Jelly’s role in the Pool Parties.

Speaking of Isack Rosenberg, his third Williamsburg development project is also in the news. And also not in a good way.

From troubled condos like One Madison Park, 20 Bayard… iStar has become synonymous with some of city’s biggest flops of the boom

The soap opera at the former Roebling Oil Field Building continues. Closings were put on hold a week or so ago, pending a review of the offering plan by the State Attorney General. The AG was concerned that the offering plan for the recent fire sale didn’t divulge the developer’s numerous foreclosure suits and bankruptcy filings to potential buyers (though 30 seconds on Google would lead even the least curious buyer to scads of disclosure on Curbed and elsewhere). To compensate for the lack of disclosure, buyers will now be able to back out of their contracts without penalty.

There’s also an interesting side note about a mezzanine lender at Warehouse 11 threatening to seize the Rose Plaza site, which is owned by the same developer.

Aaron Short reports on DCP’s sign off of Domino’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). There’s some interesting stuff in the FEIS, which I’ll try to get to in a later post. But it should be noted that the FEIS was prepared by Domino, not the City. DCP needs to sign off that the report addresses all of the environmental impacts, but it is still a report prepared by the developer. (And, yes, I assume that the DCP will use this to recommend some minor changes, but that doesn’t change the authorship of the FEIS.)

That said, after both Marty Markowitz and CB1 objected to the massive overbuilding on the upland parking lot site, why didn’t DCP require an alternative analysis there? Domino analyzed a lower-height option for the portion of the site next to Grand Ferry Park (which only served to prove that Pythagoras knew what he was talking about), but there was nothing on the most out-of-context aspects of the proposal. Kind of arbitrary, no?

I’ve learned through a source at the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement that a fairly big “bust” of sorts is about to break up the Hotel Toshi organization. They [HT] have cut deals with a number of shady developers in North Williamsburg who need to make money on buildings that are mostly complete but have no Certificate of Occupancy.

Clearly I haven’t been paying enough attention to the Toshi hotel saga. I knew they were operating at 808 Driggs. And I knew someone was operating an illegal hotel at 135 Metropolitan (it’s now been slapped with a violation). But I had no idea that it was all part of the same empire. Or that the City might be on the verge of taking action.

Just down the block from Glasslands, at 285 Kent, Marco Ursino is opening a 93-seat small screen theater. The theater will open next week as part of the Brooklyn International Film Festival – Ursino has plans to add a bar and food later in the year.

There’s just one little nagging detail with these expanding parks: There’s not enough money to fund their upkeep, and, for the most part, no one quite knows where it will come from.

On the bright side, at least Brooklyn Bridge Park, Hudson River Park and the High Line were built. North Brooklyn still has over 30 acres of promised parkland that is nothing more than green magic marker on a map.

Nice guide to local shopping on Graham Avenue (although skewed entirely toward the arrivistes – how about some of the long-timers?). Of course my favorite is Siri:

Jewelry and dresses at Treehouse Brooklyn Owner Siri Wilson crochets copper, gold and silver in her edgy collection of necklaces and earrings ($48-$280). We also dig Feral Childe’s silk shift dresses ($200-$280). Mention TONY to receive 15 percent off Sirius Lux jewelry and 10 percent off Feral Childe dresses through May 31.