Category: Linked

Forgotten NY takes a look around North 4th and Driggs.

I’m going off topic to highlight Greg Hanlon’s Slate debut.

[via Short]

Aaron Short digs deeper, and the results aren’t pretty.

So says Brooklyn Vegan. The commenters blame “whiny neighbors”, but truth to be told, I’ve heard no whining since the place “reopened” in February. Is it possible the place just plain failed?

Given recent news, this is probably a good idea. Though it seems to me that developers need to get past the gimmicks and just start pricing their product for the 2009 market.

Depending on how you define “free”, this gimmick is up to 7.5% off the price of a unit. That’s a back of the envelope calculation based on this penthouse unit and the StreetEasy’s mortgage calculator. If “free” doesn’t include common charges, taxes, PMI and the like, the “discount” drops to around 5%.

If you’re in the market for a fabulous three-bedroom waterfront penthouse, I’d suggest offering 10% or 20% below ask and foregoing the “free” year.

A big increase in graduation rates at El Puente Academy, and more students going on to higher degrees.

The Brooklyn Paper nicely recaps the Broadway Triangle controversy and reports on Tuesday land use meeting. (HuffPo picked up the story.)

Aaron Short is first up with a recap of last night’s CB1 Land Use Committee meeting on the Broadway Triangle rezoning.

The Committee’s recommendation was to approve the various rezoning and disposition actions with a series of caveats (among them, significant funding for business relocation, maintaining or increasing the area’s open space ratio, creating a transparent process for the disposition of city-owned property in the Triangle). The main discussion among Committee members was whether to approve with conditions or reject with the same conditions noted as objections. Interestingly, no one from the Coalition bothered to make a motion to reject the application outright. Nor was there a motion to go for the higher-density alternative, which is in scope.

As always, these votes are recommendations – the Board itself has the final say. On July 14.

CB1’s land use committee will take up the Broadway Triangle rezoning tonight. For those who couldn’t hear the City’s proposal at the last Board meeting, you can see it here [warning: pdf].

And for those who are wondering what the Broadway Triangle Coalition (the opposition to the City’s plan) would like to happen in the Triangle, you can see that here (click on “June 2- BTCC PLAN FOR THE BROADWAY TRIANGLE -PRESENTATION.PPS” to download a rather large PowerPoint presentation – as far as I know, there is no pdf available).

What: CB1 ULURP Committee meeting
Where: Swingin’ Sixties Senior Center, 211 Ainslie Street (cor. Manhattan Ave.), Williamsburg
Date: 23 June 2009
Time: 6:30 (Broadway Triangle portion of the meeting won’t start until 7:30 at the earliest)

Via Curbed, news that Duane Reade will be bringing its instant blight to Williamsburg. At least King’s lower their prices now.