Soft Shell Crabs at Marlow & Sons and Diner
Kerik Tries to Get Back in New With New Indictment
being indicted for lying to folks in the Bush White House Counsel’s office does seem a bit rich
No one has been indicted for lying for the folks in the Bush White House. Therein lies Kerik’s mistake.
Driggs Avenue Insta-Building
506 Driggs Avenue
This new building at 506 Driggs (at North 9th Street) sprouted like a weed over the past few months. It had been an empty lot for ages, but since construction started in January, its quickly turned into this pile of CMU. Per DOB, the four-story building is designed by Frank S. Smith Architect (website coming soon!)of Maspeth, and is slated to have 6 units of housing, with ground-floor retail and a 3-car garage. I have no idea what all those pieces of wood are for.
Odds on it being an aesthetic contribution to the neighborhood? Pretty slim, I’d say. I hope I’m wrong.
Stop The Rezoning
Heather found these fliers posted on a telephone pole on Dupont Street. The flyer is right – these zoning changes should have happened three to four years ago. But since there are still a lot of horses in the barn, better than never closing the barn door now.
City Planning will indeed be holding a public hearing on June 3rd to discuss the Greenpoint/Williamsburg contextual zoning. That follows a public hearing this month at the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office (he approved it), three public hearings last month at Community Board 1 (they approved it), and two public information sessions last November (to which all property owners received a written invitation). The process as a whole is approaching its third anniversary this Summer, and has been the subject of at least half a dozen other public hearings in the community. So yeah, property owners have been provided a pretty “limited time to protest these changes”.
444 Graham – The Race is On?
The main impetus for the contextual zoning application that is wending its way through the public review process (Marty approved it – next up City Planning Commission) is the proliferation of grossly acontextual buildings all over North Brooklyn. No other part of the community has suffered worse than that corner of East Williamsburg just south of the BQE and east of Graham Avenue (dubbed the Luminous Condo Corner). Now, the owner of 444 Graham Avenue is hoping to give the neighborhood one last finger before the contextual rezoning becomes law.
The project is a 14-story, 69 unit residential development on Graham between Frost and Richardson (the former Marino Tile building). Designed by local architect Philip Toscano (still no website for him), the project has been approved by DOB but no permits have been pulled. The site itself is truly wacked – the main frontage is on Graham Avenue, and from there the lot runs some 300′ feet or so down the center of the block, with small pieces facing onto Frost and Richardson.
City Planning is holding a hearing on the contextual rezoning on June 3rd – from there it moves on to the Council and the Mayor to become law. Optimistically, that process will take another four to six weeks – a lot of time to demolish buildings and pour something resembling a foundation. So the race is on.
Zoning Without Planning
Tom Agnotti takes City Planning to task for, well, not doing planning. A lot of good points in there, though much to take issue with as well (for one, his Waterfront Access Scam conflates developer-built esplanades and upland connectors with City-promised waterfront parks – they are not the same, and the fact that the City hasn’t followed through on its promise doesn’t mean that esplanades too are a scam).
Hipster History
The hipster rebellion – a sham? (But they’re not talking about you. I think.)
Bike won’t start after using NOS fuel additive
Guy puts fuel additive into his motorcycle, hilarity ensures.
(Read at least through page 2, if you don’t get it, I’ll be back to the regular programming shortly; if you do get it, put aside some time to read – the thread is 96 pages long.)
Photo of the Day: Pancake Dance
May 23: North 9th & Berry
Photo: me
33rd Debate: Zombie Post
Aaron Short was otherwise engaged, so he gave Juliet Linderman the keys to the blog. Nice summation of last Tuesday’s 33rd council district debate – though no mention of the Abbott and Costello snowball (or did I hallucinate that?). But seriously, the entire evening can be summed up thusly:
Baer: can’t wrap his head around a yes or no question
And don’t forget, we do it all over again next Tuesday evening, 7:00 at the John Ericsson School (MS 126), 434 Leonard Avenue.