Domino Sugar Refinery
Photo: Harlan Erskine
Photographer Harlan Erskine has posted some beautiful photos of the Domino Sugar site that he took for the recent L Magazine article, Williamsburg’s Last Domino (a good read itself). My favorite is above, but there are plenty more at Erskine’s site.
The memory issue that was wreaking havoc with the commenting here has been fixed. You should be able to leave comments without getting cryptic error messages.
Aaron Short follows up on the Greenline’s story on the Greenpoint Hospital RFP. Greenline had reported that – in response to community outrage over the award of the project to a Bronx developer – the City had put a hold on the project in order to “reconsider” a neighborhood proposal for the site. Now Short has the City walking back that claim, saying that “the ‘hold’ was merely a rumor”.
It will be interesting to see where this leads. (And I guess that “line of communication” that HPD promised to open with community is still a little backed up.)
[Greenline is published by St. Nicks Alliance, which is a partner in GREC, the local development group fighting for reconsideration of the RFP.]
11 Broadway was originally slated to be a luxury hotel (with lofty ambitions and delusions of waterfront views). Now, L+M Development Partners, with financing from Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group, is developing the site. The project will be mixed use, retail and residential, with 20% of the residential portion set aside as affordable housing (I’m not sure if this is in or out of the inclusionary housing zone – it is definitely not in the height-restricted contextual zone). The architect for the project is Greenberg Farrow (who were also the architects for the most recent hotel scheme).
via The Real Deal
Greenline (which is not online) is reporting that the Department of Housing Preservation and Development has suspended the redevelopment of the Greenpoint Hospital site in order to review its RFP process. In April, the agency had awarded the development rights for the property to TNS Development, a Queens- and Westchester-based affordable housing developer. That award was made despite the fact that two local groups with extensive experience developing affordable housing in North Brooklyn – Greenpoint Renaissance Enterprise Corporation and Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council – had submitted bids.
GREC was particularly upset about getting passed over in the designation process, and for good reason – they had been advocating for development on the site for over 25 years, had already developed 45 units of affordable housing elsewhere on the hospital site, and had the support of Community Board 1. To top it off, TNS’s winning bid was remarkably similar to what GREC had proposed.
The suspension of the development process came after GREC had a joint meeting in July with HPD Commissioner Rafael Cestero, the Mayor’s office, BP Marty Markowitz and Councilmember Diana Reyna. In suspending the development, HPD has agreed to reconsider GREC’s proposal and to “develop a line of communication with the community” (a promise that HPD has made many times before).
Desk space for start-ups and freelancers will be available in the former Hot Potato offices (the Northpoint Lofts on North 11th and Driggs).
Capital New York – a new online magazine – continues to impress on the content side – this time with a look at why Williamsburg is becoming the meat eating capital of NYC. The article covers the history of Peter Luger, including its salvation in the 1950s by Sol Forman, and covers all of the latest entrants into the neighborhood’s meat frenzy – Marlow & Daughters, Pies ‘n’ Thighs (and all their spinoffs) and Fatty ‘Cue.
349 Metropolitan’s courtyard mural
Photo: Curbed
Curbed has photos of the now completed (and now for rent) 349 Metropolitan Avenue (a 11211 favorite over the years). The recladded exterior of the building is a huge improvement, though the building overall is still a mess. But the interior courtyard at least has something worth looking at – a mural by artist R. Nicholas Kuszyk
Curbed also has a bit of revisionist history when it comes to the original facade. The Jerusalem stone was not “defiled” by vandals. It fell off. Whether it was installed improperly or was just not meant for these climes, the installation looked like shit from day one and was failing by day two. It was too long after that the project (under the original development team) went down the path to foreclosure and classic condo blight.
As I speculated recently, the Brooklyn Paper has confirmed that at least one of the RFPs issued recently by the City’s EDC is for the construction of a ferry landing at North 6th Street. Starting sometime around January 2012, residents of the Northside will able to take the ferry to their jobs in Lower Manhattan and to Kips Bay. It’s long overdue, but still great news.
Two new projects on North 8th Street are coming online – an 8-unit rental building at 203 North 8th Street and a 9-unit condo (The Bedford) next door at 205. Both are touted for their proximity to McCarren Park, the L train and “Broulims, a new supermarket, two blocks away”.
This raises two important questions (other than why is “The Bedford” between Driggs and Roebling?):
1. Where exactly is this new supermarket that is not a Khim’s Millennium?
and
2. Why is Broulim’s, an Idaho-based grocery chain, making Brooklyn the location of their first store outside the Mountain time zone? (I see they have a store in Driggs, Idaho – are they making that a theme?)
email:
brooklyn11211 [at]
brooklyn11211 [dot] com
copyright:
© 2001-2023
brooklyn11211.com