My Life In Brooklyn

 

It had been a while since I wandered around Tilden and E. 28th Street.  This area has been fascinating to me because of the amount of new builds.  The landscape of that immediate area has completely changed, now populated with Fedders buildings and driveways.

It appears the owner/developer might be finding some of these places difficult to sell.  108  E. 28th Street, at the corner of Tilden, this building now stands.  From what I can tell on Google maps, it appears this did not involve a tear down, but was a grassy lot with a mature tree.

Initially I had expected it to see it sold as condos, but I see on the developer’s (Daniel Homes Inc.) website, they are being advertised as 3 family homes and offered at $699k.  Daniel Homes did quite a bit of the development in this area from what I can see. It seems a little odd so many of the ground level windows are boarded up.

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.

Now that some of my work commitment has lessened, I’ve been looking forward to hitting to pavement to have a look at some of the progress in lots of buildings that have been mentioned here over the past months.

Yesterday I walked along Ocean Avenue and was looking forward to seeing the building located between 555 and 575.  It appears to be a huge project; I’ve seen the beams towering above the perimeter fence for months now and was actually very surprised yesterday to see little or no progress since last October.

I am actually unsure of the street number, but if you Google 565 Ocean and look at the hybrid map at close range, you will clearly see two very large houses were torn down to build whatever it is that is in progress.  Small version of that image below. Very near to this property is Tennis Court which has some gorgeous buildings.

Anyway, maybe I am totally wrong on this, but seeing nothing happen from October 19 until now, April 26 — well, it has to make you wonder.  I will place the hi-res versions of these pics on my flickr account.

Above: 565 Ocean (Approximately, pic taken just south in front of 575)

Above: construction site via Google.

Below I have two images, taken the same day by my spouse.  Purely by chance he happened to catch the first image on the way to work yesterday morning.  Late last night, I happened to notice the new sign, which is not a surprise really as it can’t easily be missed.  Could it be any more ostentatious?  The full effect of this sign is not represented in this grab shot – it is huge, and all of it is pretty much bright red and white (lower sign says “park with us”) — and there is considerably more light generated than can be seen from this image.  Location Fenimore and Flatbush.

Not that there is too much cause for complaint.  When we first moved to the area, the parking lot was simply a wide driveway with a chain link fence.  The building over the garage driveway is a newly built extension as of this year.  Anyway, at that time (five years ago) they had a loud, irritating high-pitched alarm that was set off by a motion detector — needless to say the sound bounced all the way down Fenimore street and was the topic of more than one block association meeting.  Many people in this neighborhood like loud.

I am assuming this may be the finishing touch on the building.  As far as I know, it is completely devoid of tenants.  The space on the ground floor, to the left of the garage entry was a health center that moved to Clarkson on April 1.  The second floor is newly built, and there is additional retail space on the ground floor to the right of the garage door. I haven’t seen any tenant activity yet.

It’s ugly construction, made worse with the sign.  But, so far it remains quiet.

 

If you walk on East 28th Street between Tilden and Albemarle you will see the following buildings in various phases of construction. It is interesting because pretty much the entire block has been redeveloped. Links are to images on Flickr.

A. Standard Fedders slots, high front steps. Multifamily. No visible green space out front (other than a few trees), but at least makeshift parking has yet to happen.

B. You can see what the rear view of A, above, looks like, on the far left in this image. Again multifamily units with high stoops, A/C slots.  Unfortunately these folks are parking cars off-street in what could have been a front yard.

C. Vacant Lot.  fairly large size, this view shows the structure being constructed between B, above and this lot.  Something will be constructed here without a doubt.

D. Taller builidng between C (Vacant Lot) and B.  Nothing much to say about this.

E. Ugly building. Has many of the same features as F, below.  I didn’t notice if there are parking spaces in the back of this one.  Otherwise boringly similar to F.

F. Looks as though garages will be at the ground level.  Doesn’t say much for pedestrian traffic on this block.  Another ugly and boring design, requisite A/C slots.

G. Small windows, Fedders slots.  Though when you look at this junk after a while some of the efforts to look nice are noticeable, such as the brickwork.  Though really it only looks good because the others are so terribly, terribly ugly.

I have this section within a blue box on the map shown in the prior entry because, to me, it seems like such a sadly wasted opportunity.  One assumes this group of buildings was developed by more than one company, given the mishmash of design.  But just think for a moment about the huge amount of space used on this block and what it could have been if architects, developers, contractors, etc. had been able to work together to create a enclave of attractive homes that would have also offered a people-friendly (rather than car-friendly) neighborhood with green space. Especially in this kind of neighborhood that has the potential to become an interesting place to live.  It could have been a really creative and successful effort.

The results of that type of collaborative project would have had the potential to be a real investment for buyers, not to mention an opportunity for architects, builders, and developers to receive positive attention.  While I have no idea what these places in their current state actually sell for, I just do not see any of them as homes that will appreciate in value.

This construction site has been ongoing for a couple of months now also.  I haven’t managed to grab many pics that decently display the site itself and frankly I more or less forgot to mention it before.  It is boarded up very efficiently to prevent viewing.

The site is located on the south side of Crooke Avenue between St. Paul Place and Parade Place.   This is another large site, and also another site that is in process due to a teardown.  If you look at a map, this site is slightly west of the Caton Ave site on the very next block.

While I was at the site, attempting to grab some images, one of the plywood “doors” to the site opened and I had a chat with a low-level manager, who allowed me to take a couple pics (though he didn’t want the boss to see me).  He told me this would be another six story building, condos, and they are moving along quickly now.  I’ll check on the progress of this one over time.

I haven’t published pics of this construction site before, though I have a few images archived during earlier stages of this build.

It is located on Caton Ave, almost directly facing the intersection of East 18th St.   I am guessing this will turn out to be condos, though with all the press lately about condos becoming rentals (or in some cases hotels or discarded plans) one cannot predict.  Sadly, at this point the slots for the requisite air conditioners are evident, looks like there will be balconies, and I can only guess the roof level will be some sort of penthouse offering.

Now, while this is indeed Caton Ave, there are some elements of this neighborhood I like quite a bit.  It is a short walk to the Parade Ground, Prospect Park, and Q train.  It is just on the outer edge of Victorian Flatbush.  There are some really nice larger buildings in the area as well as limestones, though ultimately I am not able to say what the place is like at night, for example.  But I can’t imagine it to be very bad.  On the down side, on Woodruff, which isn’t too far away there are three buildings I suspect to be SROs: broken windows and shades, graffiti and generally poor shape.

Again I have to remind people to have a look at various online mapping resources, you will note there was a teardown in order for this structure to be built.  I am not saying all teardowns are unjustified, but I plan to continually remind everyone that they are consistently happening.  My own personal opinion is teardowns balance out to be more on the unjustified side in terms of how it ultimately will modify the nature of a neighborhood, but that is how I feel.  It isn’t just the teardowns that are worrisome, but moreso the poorly designed buildings that replace them.  The city needs to establish some serious guidelines.  The following image shows what was torn down for this building (the red “pushpin” is pointing to the intersection of E. 18th and Caton Ave):

Image from Microsoft, Local Live

It couldn’t have been a more perfect day to be outside for a lengthy walk.  Seems like I have been away forever, in blog time at least.  However, Thanksgiving is over, the houseguests have returned to their respective cities and hopefully I will be able to catch up here with comments and a couple of entries.

To begin, today I grabbed another shot in the progress of the commercial building on the northeast corner of Church Avenue and Ocean Ave.  As you can see from the image, new sidewalks have been created, lots of retail space is evident, some with windows and security gates installed, others still boarded up.  It will be interesting to see what stores finally open their doors — and also interesting will be a visual on the completed structure.

The four retail windows on the left in the image appear to be one large space with a partially finished interior.  A number of months ago the New York Times published an article on retail rentals in this area, describing it as nearly 100% and of interest to larger chain stores.  So, we shall soon see what happens here.