By William Alden 6/28/10 7:24pm

If the Upper West Side and Red Hook Had a Baby…

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 Read More

By Eliot Brown 4/28/10 2:41am

Operation ‘Project Repo’

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 Read More

By Eliot Brown 3/22/10 3:26pm

Housing-in-the-Park Debate Reopens as Brooklyn Bridge Park Opens

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

By Eliot Brown 12/07/09 9:14pm

Squadron Eyes City Takeover of Brooklyn Bridge Park, with Conditions

For at least two years, the Bloomberg administration has been pushing–first privately, then publicly–to take over the governance of Brooklyn Bridge Park, offering to put more money into the new East River parkland in exchange for more control from the state.

Now, the move has earned the tentative support of the local state senator, Daniel Read More

By Eliot Brown 3/31/09 10:38pm

City to State: Park Off!

In the mid-1990s, park advocates and government officials devised and employed what they thought was an innovative, win-win strategy to build a series of new parks: split the cost and control equally between the city and the state. With equal claims for bragging rights by the mayor and the governor, money would stream in from Read More