Cook Street Affordable Housing Applications

05/06/2009 | 85 Comments

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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.



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No East River Fireworks

Macy’s is moving their East River fireworks display to the Hudson River – for this year. Seems some Englishman sailed up the Hudson 400 years ago. I guess I’ll have to wait until 2010 to see if I still have a view of the fireworks from my roof – the waterfront condos (who won’t have a courtside view this summer) have pretty much cut me off.

Stucco Horror on North 9th

I wonder if there are generations of artificial siding salesmen out there – Ernest Tilley hawking aluminum in the 1950s and 60s, his son vinyl in the 70s and 80s. If so, his grandson has been very busy with “California stucco”. Can we make them stop?

Kedem: Spring Cleaning

05/02/2009 | Comment

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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.)



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‘Ideal Street’ Seeks Eternal Life

Jake Mooney of the Times on Henry Miller and Fillmore Place. On May 12, the Landmarks Commission is expected to formally designated Fillmore Place and Miller’s childhood home (which is on Driggs, not Fillmore as the photo caption in the article says).

Bike Lane Fix: What a Great Idea

Not to toot my own horn, but, well – beep, beep.

To be fair, the rumored solution described by Brooklyn Paper does improve on the idea I put forward five and a half months ago, in that it keeps commercial traffic off of Wythe Avenue (which I thought was the only way out, but what do I know – I’m not a transportation planner). [UPDATE: The discussion of Wythe Avenue comes in the comments, not the article itself. The commenter states that southbound traffic would be routed to Union Avenue, which is already a truck route.] As I said when this latest rumor first surfaced last week, the key to solving the problem was to do some actual planning, not just shift the burden a block to the east. And it seems like actual planning was involved, and that what is proposed might be a comprehensive solution.

Of course, the most important thing is that peace is restored to the kingdom. (Actually, the really important thing is that businesses regain access to their curbsides.)

[Corrected, as above.]

The Religious Dimension of the Torture Debate

Bottom line: white evangelicals and Catholics are far more likely to endorse torture; mainline Protestants and “unaffiliated” (aka godless heathens?) are more likely to oppose it. Godless heathens are the most likely to oppose torture. And going to church generally correlates with support of torture.

Still, just about any way you look at it, a plurality of Americans believe torture can be justified at least some of the time.