My Life In Brooklyn

Originally I wanted a snappier title for this post. 

Last year, along the north side of Empire, near Bedford Ave was a row of one-story buildings. Actually now that I think about it, it could have been one building only with a row of storefront spaces.  Most were covered with a combination of graffiti and art on the security gates and walls and I had never seen them occupied.  See here and here for some examples.  There had been signs indicating the building was destined to become a storage area, and sometime, when I was in Italy perhaps, or just not paying attention, everything was demolished.

Now, I don’t particularly object to these buildings going, though perhaps something could have been done with them.  It really wasn’t the best use of that space, though I am not pleased with seeing the industrial side of Empire being exclusively nurtured either.  It seems a real shame to waste such a large space on a storage business, especially a space so close to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. But that is another post.

Today, when I was walking by, the plywood gate was wide open and I watched the construction crew working on the site.  It is clearly going to be a large building.

On the wall of the building next door were some old painted ads on the brick.  I hadn’t ever seen this before, mostly likely because building blocked it.  Considering the age (there is a four-digit phone number in the ad) it is in remarkably good condition. 

And so for now, a building goes, a new one is about to be constructed, and an artifact from the past is momentarily visible.  In a relatively short time it will be rendered invisible once more.

Oh, I would have liked it to be a more interesting ad to be sure.  But the image shows what is there; indicative of strong car culture from days past.  You can see a high res version of this pic (and a couple more) on my flickr account.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 10:19 am and is filed under Brooklyn, Construction. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.