That shutter coursing through Brooklyn Heights today? It was the seismic news that the Jehovah's Witnesses had finally sold one of their many coveted properties in the neighborhood. This has been the fate the tony townhouse burg has been waiting decades for, and now that it has begun, things don't seem that bad. The Read More
As The Observer previously reported, Brooklyn Bridge Park had attracted a swell of high-profile development and design attention to the first new development parcel planned alongside the park. Calling for a hotel and luxury apartments, the competition attracted not only the firms we knew—Two Trees, Toll Brothers, Dermot, Extell and Hamlin—but also Starwood Read More
The sun had not quite broken over the rowhouses and warehouses of Greenpoint Monday morning when The Observer arrived at the new concrete pier jutting out into the East River at India Street. The dock seemed barely finished, its concrete planks not entirely even, the sides of the structure lined with chain-link fencing. Whole sections were torn up and surrounded with orange construction netting.
When the ferry pulled up, ghost decals clinging to the foredeck, the passengers filed on, handing over their $4 tickets, joining the nearly 3,000 New Yorkers who have ridden the ferry each weekday since its launch in mid-June, according to the city—more than double the number officials had expected.
After ordering our locally brewed fair-trade coffee and a pain au chocolat, we turned to see a gay couple smiling across a starboard table, sharing a quiche, a floating picnic. On the port side was a pretty biracial pair staring out the window at Long Island City, its gleaming towers pulling into view. The woman held a breastfeeding baby on her lap.
The subway this was not. Read More
At last week's opening of Jane's Carousel, perhaps the only person more excited than the legion of children and Ms. Walentas herself was Adrian Benepe, the city's Parks Department Commissioner. "I guess it comes with the territory of being a conservator of carousels," Mr. Benepe told The Observer, finishing off the last of his bag of popcorn. By Mr. Benepe's count, there are now at least 10, perhaps 12, carousels in the city, depending on how you count them. With the exception of one at Coney Island, all are found in the city's parks. Read More
Even if the city could be headed for further construction slowdowns, developers are still readying themselves for the (eventual?) recovery. The MoMA Tower, Hudson Yards, East Coast Number 4—all are showing signs of life. And they all have something in common, as well: their developers have their sights set on the first site at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Read More
Video
Just yesterday, The Observer reported that a request for proposals for a third development site at Brooklyn Bridge Park, which was not part of a deal announced the day before to reduce the amount of development in the park, was expected "shortly." Turns out shortly meant one day. Read More
Something seemed to be missing from the deal to reduce the number of condos at Brooklyn Bridge Park. The Observer distinctly remembered there being three development sites in the original plan, and only two were discussed in yesterday's announcement. We almost made the mistake of reporting that one had been out-and-out banished from the project, but no. Read More
If they can reach a compromise on Capital Hill, why not on the Brooklyn waterfront? Read More
Those effete, entitled Brooklynites are at it again. Now they want tour buses all but banned from Brooklyn Bridge Park.
The issue, according to The Brooklyn Paper, is not the tourists themselves--never!--but the fact that the streets surrounding the waterfront have gotten clogged with tour buses, double- and triple-parked ever since the brand-new, Read More
What good is a brand-new waterfront park if you can't enjoy it in peace? That is the complaint surrounding Brooklyn Bridge Park, which opened last year and was one of the best projects of 2010.
According to the Daily News, the city convinced those tourist-thronged helicopter tours not to hover over the park and Read More
Oh, those entitled Brooklyn Heightsies. They decry the thought of condos lining Brooklyn Bridge Park -- thus supporting the new greensward's ongoing maintenance -- because it would block their harbor views. Yet they also do not want to pay new taxes to help fund the park, even though the proposal helped State Senator Read More
One of the biggest debates surrounding the recently opened Brooklyn Bridge Park -- besides whether it or the High Line is the city's nicest new park -- is deciding if condos should be built within its boundaries or not. The idea is that the new development will help fund the parks maintenance. Neighbors in Read More
A sign near the entrance of a $1.075 million three-bedroom apartment on 96 Schermerhorn Street politely asks visitors to remove their shoes.
"Eighty percent of contaminants come into the apartment on your shoes from the street," broker Cara Sadownick said on Sunday, in stocking feet.
The apartment, like many others in Brooklyn Heights, has been designed to Read More
In late 2006, as a set of projects calling for hundreds of millions in funds languished in their planning stages, Dan Doctoroff, then deputy mayor, became frustrated.
Operating under the code name “Project Repo,” aides to Mayor Bloomberg’s right-hand man for development drew up a clandestine list of where the city could seize control of major Read More
For the past half-decade, the plan to build Brooklyn Bridge Park has been a hornet's nest. A finance plan largely based on developing housing within the new waterfront park, set up by the Pataki and Bloomberg administrations, incensed a vocal set of Brooklyn Heights neighbors, who have been unrelenting in their criticism more than three Read More
