Photo: NAG

We were out of town for the weekend, so missed Saturday’s “Where’s My Park? Day” event (and the relatively nice weather – we were fogged in on Saturday). But as NAG reports, not only was the event was a success, but there is progress to show for it. Stephanie Thayer of Parks (and OSA) emailed NAG prior to Saturday’s event to make the following the promises on behalf of the City:

1. Manhattan Avenue Street end greening is open to the public as of [Saturday].
2. Northside Piers (at North 5th St/Kent Ave.) will be open 7 days per week within the next two weeks.
3. We will break ground on the first phase of Bushwick Inlet Park, a soccer field, between North 9th and North 10th, in June.
[We knew all of this already, but it gets better…]
4. Transmitter Park will be opened for use this summer, with interior fencing that provides as much safe site access as possible.
5. We are working to improve Newton Barge Terminal Park to provide waterfront views this summer.
6. Mayor’s office will proceed with an independent study to further the relocation of the MTA.
7. Parks Dept. will hold regular public listening sessions about the parks commitments of the rezoning [from what I’ve been told, there will be monthly progress updates].

Assemblyman Lentol looks for his park.
Photo: NAG

NAG attributes this progress to “the public attention that was brought to the promises from the 2005 rezoning going unfulfilled”, which has definitely ratcheted up in the past few weeks. Councilmember Yassky’s press conference on the MTA site last week and “Where’s My Park? Day” were the most conspicuous, but there was also a lot of press and a few blog posts to help things along.

Grand Street, Spring 2009
Photo: Grifforama via brooklyn11211 flickr pool

Our inaugural photo pool entry, thanks to Grifforama. I guess if you own a car this fantastic, you get to park it backwards.

Because a blog can never have enough photos of Brooklyn, I’ve created a brooklyn11211 photo pool on flickr. Just click on the link in the masthead portion of this page (or this link here), join the group and upload your photos. Impress me.

Cook Street Housing, LLC is now accepting applications for affordable housing units in this new development on Cook and Varet Streets, between Broadway and Graham Avenue. If this is like other affordable lotteries in the neighborhood, expect there to be pretty long odds to get an apartment – but you gotta be in it to win it.

The project is in part one of the benefits to emerge (slowly) from the 2005 Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning. Some of the units in the projects represent the offsite component of the 20% affordable requirement at Northside Piers (which also has onsite units). The Cook Street developer has also been marketing their units as the offsite affordable units for upland projects receiving inclusionary housing bonuses. Its unclear whether or not any upland developers have taken advantage of this bonus.

South 4th & Wythe, May 1

A week or so ago, I noted that there was activity at the Kedem Winery site on Kent Avenue just south of Broadway. The site has been granted a rezoning to residential use, but based on the sign that went up this week, it doesn’t look like anything is going to be happening soon. (Interesting that it is just the lot that is available, not the development site.)

Ms. Heather has the pictures to prove it.

(What is the official name of this park?)

Great moments in real estate listings – this is not a brownstone, nor is it even a row house. There is an outside chance that the lintels and sills are brownstone, but from the picture I’d put my money on cast iron. Funnier still is that the sign on the building says “Lofts for Rent”. Lofts?, brownstones? – pick a story and stick with it, folks. I’d suggest brick tenement, but that’s just me being honest.

As for the interior, the gut renovation has pretty much sucked the life out of the place, leaving a white box with brick walls (charming!). The countertops might be Caesarstone (and that might be impressive, I honestly don’t know), but from the picture there’s about 1.5 square feet of countertop. I’m not sure what a stone-covered bathroom is, but its fun to contemplate.

Back on the exterior, the shutters are completely out of place (as are the multi-light windows and their fake muntins), but probably not as ridiculous as the air-conditioned shutter on the building to the left. Oh, and to complete the brownstone ambience, there’s a pizzeria downstairs (a long-time favorite, by the way – Tony and Concetto deserve a better broker* than this).

(This broker* seems to specialize in “brownstones” (and using “hot” to describe them) – they have another one listed on Graham Avenue. No exterior shot, but its not a brownstone, trust me. That one has a “new front door” and a “brick pho-fireplace”.)

(*The site seems to be connected to aptsandlofts.com (see comments), but its not actually clear that they are trying to market these apartments.)

Local newspaper Williamsburg Greenpoint News+Arts is (finally) online, with both their offline (paper) content and a blog.

WG is a great paper, and has done some good reporting over the past few years, so its great to see their content online. And the website looks really good.

400 Bedford Avenue
Architect: Bricolage/Henry Radusky

In the latest installment of “What Recession?” Week, our inadvertent look at projects that are (or may be) starting up, moving forward or finishing despite the iffy housing market, we bring you 400 Bedford Avenue. This is the site at the northwest corner of Bedford and South 6th/Broadway, directly across from the King’s County Savings Bank/Williamsburg Art & Historical Center building. At some point in the 1990s a building was constructed on part of the site (in the Taco Bell style), and as recently as 2004 it was still there (somehow it doesn’t surprise us that neither of these events appear in the DOB record).

Plans were filed for a new building in October, 2007 but only approved in February of this year. A permit was pulled for foundation work in March and since then, progress has been quick – the steel is up to one story and higher.

For the record, the building projected for the site will be six stories tall with retail stores on the ground floor (good move) and an “ambulatory health care facility” on the second (community facility bonus); there will be eight residential units on the top four floors. The architect for the project is Henry Radusky of Bricolage, so it is sure to be a worthy complement to its neighbor across the street, one of Williamsburg’s premier landmarks.