By Kim Velsey 4/04 11:31am

Preservation Mania

The cobblestones in question. (animalvegetable, flickr)

Preservation Ridiculousness Peaks In the Great Dumbo Cobblestone Debate

New York is an old city filled with people who want new things. This leads, as one might expect, to endless problems, conflicts, debates, sometimes even altercations. We want to keep old things, but we also want new things, and new things often mean getting rid of old things, or at least changing old things. And when is change not fraught? Change is always fraught. It’s so complicated and fraught and terrifying that totally reasonable people who want totally reasonable things can end up in completely ridiculous debates. For example, the Dumbo cobblestone kerfuffle, a conflict that centers on whether the city should replace, as The New York Times put it, old cobblestones with old-looking cobblestones.

Basically, the city wants to tear out the charming, historic, but kind of hard to traverse cobblestones in Dumbo and Vinegar Hill. Not being totally insensitive to the unique charms of historic cobblestone (and the heightened real estate values that come with the ankle-twisting ground cover)—as well as being somewhat cognizant of the public relations nightmare of replacing historic Belgian cobblestones with common asphalt—the city has offered some more aesthetically replacing road cover: artificially-aged new cobblestones. Read More

By Matt Chaban 12/17/12 1:08pm

on the waterfront

Waterfront wonder. (Bing Maps)

Dumbo Apartments Set Sail: Brooklyn Bridge Park Seeking Developers for Latest Controversial Project

How would you like to wake up to views of the Manhattan Bridge and Lower Manhattan beyond, a lavish waterfront park right outside? That is the vision Brooklyn Bridge Park is hoping will entice developers into the newest private development within the libertarian park. Today, the park released a request for proposals for a development at the nexus of John and Pearl streets in Dumbo. The project calls for no more than 130 residential units in a 101,000-square foot development that can rise no higher than 13 stories.

“The addition of the residential development at the John Street site represents a critical element of our park maintenance plan,” Regina Myer, president of Brooklyn Bridge Park, said in a statement. “This development will not only benefit the DUMBO community, it will further activate the northern end of the park.” Read More

By Jessica Roy 10/30/12 2:30pm

Frankenstorm

26 Photos

The damage on Plymouth street looking out onto Manhattan.

Surveying the Damage in Dumbo

Most of the Dumbo neighborhood, nestled between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges in Brooklyn, is situated in low-lying areas. Its primary artery is Main Street, where shops and restaurants sit at the entrance to Brooklyn Bridge Park. The majority of this area is located in evacuation Zone A, so while most residents had already left their buildings by the time the devastating hurricane hit last night, most of the businesses and apartments located in these low-lying areas flooded pretty badly. Read More

By Jessica Roy 10/29/12 10:39am

Frankenstorm

6 Photos

The East River beginning to overtake some of the land that juts out into it.

Dispatch from Dumbo’s Evacuation Zone: East River Swells, Creeps Up Towards Brooklyn Bridge Park

The Observer decided to take a morning stroll through the streets of Dumbo, the area of Brooklyn between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges that borders the East River. By the time we returned to our apartment we were just grateful we didn’t die from falling debris. The wind propelled us forward, at times so strongly that we wondered if we should maybe just turn back. At the end of Bridge Street, where it dead ends at the river, water was beginning to crest over the barrier, rising higher than we’ve ever seen it. Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/08/12 10:15am

Machers

Fulton Mall

General Brooklyn: Baghdad Big Tucker Reed Tackles Downtown, Giving Businesses Their Marching Orders

When Tucker Reed finally stepped up to the lectern inside the new BAM Fisher Building on a Thursday morning at the end of July, the crowd could barely handle any more news about just how stupendous Downtown Brooklyn was, is and will be.

Karen Brooks Hopkins, entering her fourth decade at BAM, welcomed the crowd into the brightly lit practice space on the third floor of the two-month-old red brick theater, tucked in behind BAM’s original performance hall. This would be the linchpin of the latest, greatest cultural district in the city. Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn borough president and cheerleader-in-chief for 11 years now, warmed up the crowd with his typical act. “Everywhere you look, things are looking up in Downtown Brooklyn,” he barked. This was, is, will be the center of the universe.

Next came State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, whose grandmother grew up on Albany Street in Crown Heights. He had made sure to wear his Brooklyn lapel pin, a gift Mr. Markowitz bestows on everyone he meets. Though he was a Long Island guy, Mr. DiNapoli was an adopted son of this former outer borough, at least for the day, for the good news he was bringing: economic growth in Downtown Brooklyn had outpaced the rest of the city over the past decade, according to a new report prepared by the comptroller’s office. This was, is, will be an economic powerhouse.

On the same streets where Jay-Z had once slung crack (and would soon be headlining the Barclays Center he ostensibly helped build), legitimate businesses had replaced illicit ones, and they were thriving. Thousands of new residents had moved in, filling the striking and unspectacular condo-turned-rental-in-the-downturn towers along Flatbush Avenue. National brands including H&M, Sephora, Target and Shake Shack were replacing the pawn shops and cellphone outlets on the Fulton Mall.

It’s not your bubbe’s Brooklyn anymore. It’s Tucker Reed’s. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/02/12 12:38pm

Machers

When you're smilin'... (BFANY)

Jed Walentas, Champion of New York and Occupy Wall Street

The Sunday Times had a city-straddling profile of Big Real Estate’s prince charming, Jed Walentas and his ascension into the realm of the famous families, Durst, Trump, LeFrak et al.

The delightfully disheveled Mr. Walentas, “whose daily uniform usually consists of a hoodie and jeans,”  speaks on topics ranging from his domains in Dumbo and Hells Kitchen to art and air hockey. The most striking passage, though, is his staunch defense of development as a social good for New York. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/02/11 11:00am

on the waterfront

All aboard.

Ahoy, Brooklyn! Defying Recession, Developers Drop Anchor Along East River

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