Preserving Preservation in New York City Part III

In the third article in its series on historic preservation in New York City, the Times looks at the fate of New York's historic churches, briefly mentioning the "bucolic yet dignified" Green Church as a local preservation casualty.

The Times cites Vincent Gentile's opposition to LPC Chair Robert Tierney's reappointment last year as evidence of the fact that "feelings on the issue ran high" in Bay Ridge.

Indeed.

According to the Times, a person described only as an LPC "spokeswoman" said that the Green Church was in a state of “advanced deterioration” and had a “severely damaged" roof. According to this woman, the LPC decided not to calendar the church for hearing because of “the cost of repair", and "strong opposition from the congregation”.

I buy the "strong opposition" part.

Although the Times interviewed Robert Emerick, BRUMC pastor and a vigorous supporter of demolition, who crowed that the BRUMC now had a chance to be "a real Christian church" and not have to worry about "fixing the roof", it wasn't evident from the Times article that any Bay Ridge preservationists had been contacted for an opposing point of view.

The LPC, says the Times, is "loath" to take on churches and synagogues that, like the BRUMC, are bent on demolition.

Opponents of landmarking churches argue that it not only imposes an unfair financial burden on shrinking congregations but raises the issue of "church vs. state" or "separation of powers".

Peg Breen of the New York Landmarks Conservancy said, “Nobody wants to be in a fight with a religious institution."

Churches own many of the last prime development parcels in New York City, making failing congregations a prime target for developers.

Many church-owned properties have been sold to developers in the past few years, including St. Ann’s in the East Village, part of Congregation Shearith Israel on the Upper West Side, and West-Park Presbyterian Church on 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

Even with a stalled economy, at-risk churches remain an issue for preservationists.

Stephen F. Byrns, architect and LPC commissioner, believes that churches demand special consideration because they often lack strong advocates. Byrns calls churches "incredibly important" because they represent the city's "finest architecture" and "noblest ambitions."

LPC Chair Tierney defended his agency's record, citing 12 church designations in his 5-year tenure.

Churches, said, Tierney, are a "matter of special concern” to him, as he "struggles" to balance historic preservation with the financial needs of congregations.

Last year, St. Aloysius on West 132nd Street and the Church of All Saints on East 129th Street were landmarked, the first Catholic churches to be landmarked in 28 years.

Preservationists applauded the designations, but said the LPC had bypassed more important churches, like St. Thomas the Apostle Church on West 118th Street near St. Nicholas Avenue.

The LPC has declined, despite the support of Harlem preservationists, to calendar St. Thomas for hearing, citing the fact that the building has been altered and has an inactive congregation.

The LPC and the New York archdiocese have been accused of making a devil's bargain in which All Saints and St. Aloysius were landmarked in exchange for St. Thomas.

LPC Chair Tierney asserts that the determinations were on the merits.

The archdiocese opposed the designation of St. Thomas and did not oppose the landmarking of St. Aloysius or All Saints, but denied that it would "give orders" to the LPC.

St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church on Avenue B at Eighth Street in the East Village was also abandoned by the archdiocese and denied a hearing by the LPC.

In December 2006, a group of prominent city politicians sent a letter asking the LPC to calendar a hearing on St. Brigid’s and challenging the assertion by the archdiocese that the church was "structurally unsound."

Tierney responded that he and his staff found the building to be structurally unsound and that because it had been altered, it could not be landmarked.

Tierney cited St. Brigid's as among the "difficult choices" the LPC must make in carrying out its mission to protect "the best of the city's treasures".

But St. Brigid's was saved -- by an anonymous $20 million gift.

When the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights was designated a city landmark, it persuaded the LPC to omit two parcels on the 11-acre cathedral grounds from the designation.

The City Council overturned the designation of the cathedral in 2003, and a 20-story, 300-unit rental apartment tower is now going up on the southeast corner of the grounds.

Religious corporations have historically opposed landmark designation. In 1982, the Committee of Religious Leaders of the City of New York published a 40-page report calling landmark designation “a threat to religious freedom" and landmarking a diversion of religious resources.

A year later, the group got a bill introduced in both houses of the New York State Legislature that would have exempted all religious corporations from local preservation laws.

The New York Board of Rabbis, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and the Council of Churches of the City of New York all lobbied for the bill, which was fiercely opposed by preservationists.

The bill never came to a vote.

The article, part of a series, from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/arts/design/01landmarks.html?hp

Related Gothamist post:
http://gothamist.com/2008/12/02/everything_you_ever_wanted_to_know.php

Stalled Boom Reprieve for Landmarks

According to Julia Vitullo-Martin, one side benefit of the downturn in the city's housing market, which has halted projects and buildings in mid-construction, is the chance to reassess existing plans and consider other options for the future.

Now is the time to ask the question: can that church on the corner be saved; can that industrial warehouse be rehabbed rather than demolished; can that empty commercial skyscraper be renovated as residential space?

There is no better time to think about about the importance of keeping old buildings as part of the fabric of our city -- and how best to accomplish that goal.

Ever since the demolition of Penn Station in 1964, New Yorkers have been wary of demolitions. But "wonderful buildings", like the Bay Ridge United Methodist Church, still slip through the cracks.

Other landmark-worthy buildings are victims of "demolition by neglect" -- the legal term for which is "constructive demolition".

Vitullo-Martin cites as an example the "glorious" P.S. 64, stripped of its terra cotta and allowed to fall to pieces by its owner, who has been at war with the neighborhood and the LPC since buying the building from the city in 1998.

The article from the New York Post:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11292008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/new_york_on_the_block_141428.htm

Related post on Gotham Gazette Wonkster:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2008/12/01/landmark-problems/

Preserving Preservation in New York City Part II

In its second article on historic preservation in New York City, the Times focuses on the loss, in 2006, of the battle to save the Dakota Stables, an 1894 Romanesque Revival building at Amsterdam and 77th Street in Manhattan.

A demolition crew removed the stables' brick cornices just 4 days before the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission had calendared a public hearing on requests dating back 20 years to landmark the stables.

Once the building’s distinctive features were destroyed, the landmark battle was lost.

The LPC held the hearing and determined that the building had been too "irreparably changed" to warrant landmark designation.

When the LPC told owner Sylgar Properties, which was in contract to sell the site to Related Companies, that the building was under consideration for landmark status, Sylgar rushed to get a DOB permit to strip every distinctive detail from the building, rendering it worthless as a landmark.

City Council Member Gale Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side district where the stables were located, saw the building's cornices being removed at 2:00 a.m. and tried to reach the DOB and the LPC, without success.

Preservation group Landmark West accused the LPC of deliberately dragging its heels on the Dakota Stables.

According to Kate Wood of Landmark West, the LPC "had no intention" of designating the stables, and waited until the building had been torn down and it was too late to do anything meaningful. Wood characterized the sequence of events as "politics" and "theater.”

LPC Chair Robert Tierney countered that he fought to have the stables heard and was unhappy with the owners' behavior.

Developer Related Companies is now building a 16-story luxury condominium on the site.

The signature glass tower of the former Paterson Silks store near Union Square, designed by flamboyant architect Morris Lapidus, was demolished in March 2005 -- just a few hours before the LPC agreed to calendar a hearing to consider the building for landmark status.

Preservationists had been trying to get the building calendared before the LPC for more than 3 years.

On the day the tower was demolished, owner Donald J. Olenick said that building was "not the Plaza Hotel.”

For years, preservationists sought landmark status for a Mid-Century Modern William Lescaze building at 711 Third Avenue near 45th Street that featured a lobby wall mosaic by Hans Hofmann.

Last month, owner SL Green Realty started tearing out the lobby’s blue mosaic ceiling and door surrounds by sculptor José de Rivera.

According to LPC spokesperson Elisabeth de Bourbon, the lobby was under review as a potential interior landmark, and, when the LPC learned of the demolition, it entered “a standstill agreement” with the owner to preserve the Hoffmann mosaic during reconstruction.

The owner denied a formal agreement had been signed.

De Bourbon said that, because of the alterations to the building -- including the current renovation -- it was no longer worthy of landmarking.

Preservationists say that anticipatory demolition is only one indicator of the problems with the city's landmark preservation scheme.

LPC Chair Tierney called end-run alterations and demolitions “a terrible situation" and a "misuse of the process" that the LPC is trying to address by alerting owners to the potential benefits of landmark designation -- in hopes of enlisting their cooperation.

But, as Tierney acknowledges, owner consent is not required.

Once a landmark hearing has been scheduled, the current rules prohibit an owner from seeking permits to alter or demolish the building. But if the owner gets a permit before a hearing is scheduled, as with the Dakota Stables and 711 Third Avenue, there are no penalties.

There is no system that allows the LPC and the DOB to communicate regarding the status of buildings that are under consideration for landmark status, so the LPC is not notified when the DOB issues a permit regarding a potential landmark building.

Likewise, the LPC is not notified when an owner applies for a permit to strip a building of its architectural details.

Some LPC commissioners say that the LPC and the DOB need to have a reliable "alert system" to prevent "end-run" demolitions, citing any application to the DOB for a permit to strip a building as a "red flag".

The commissioners would like to see developers behave more honorably, and the LPC to have greater say over the granting of demolition permits.

City Council Member Tony Avella, who represents northeastern Queens, has introduced a bill that would require the DOB to withhold demolition permits, suspend existing permits, and issue a stop-work order whenever a building is scheduled for hearing before the LPC.

Another bill introduced by Council Member Rosie Mendez, who represents the Lower East Side and the East Village, would require the LPC to notify the DOB whenever it is considering any building for landmark status, whether or not it has scheduled a hearing. The DOB would then be required to alert the LPC of any application for a permit.

Mendez’ bill resulted from what happened to a school in her East Village neighborhood.

In June 2006, the LPC designated PS 64, a French Renaissance Revival building on East 9th Street near Tompkins Square Park, as a landmark, over the owner's objections.

After the landmark designation, owner Greg Singer used an old DOB permit from 2003 to strip the terra-cotta tiles and copper cornices from the building’s exterior.

Although a Manhattan State Supreme Court judge this month upheld the designation of PS 64 as a landmark despite its having been stripped, the damage has been done.

The city council has scheduled neither the Avella nor the Mendez bill for hearing.

The article, one of a series, from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/arts/design/29landmarks.html

More on the landmarks loophole from Downtown Express:
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_293/editorial.html

Greg Singer's latest lawsuit dismissed:
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_294/oldps64.html

Update on P.S. 64 from the Villager:
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_306/itstimetotake.html

Happy Thanksgiving

Due to the holiday, I'll be away until Sunday evening. Please check back then.

Have a great holiday, and thank you for reading my blog.

Preserving Preservation in New York City

Seven years ago, the Citizens Emergency Committee to Preserve Preservation (CECPP) sued the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) over delays in evaluating requests for landmark status, and won a State Supreme Court ruling.

Initially, the LPC's response was encouraging, but now a Manhattan State Supreme Court judge has ruled, in a new lawsuit filed by a coalition of preservationists, that the LPC's delays are “arbitrary and capricious” and that the LPC has to start making timely decisions on every request for evaluation (RFE) filed.

State Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer found that allowing RFEs to "languish" defeats the very purpose of the LPC and leads to the loss of "irreplaceable" landmarks.

The city has said it will appeal the decision.

The ruling is seen as significant victory for those preservationists and politicians in New York who have for years accused the city's "preservation watchdog" of non-responsiveness and non-accountability.

In a recent study done by the Times, the LPC was described -- at a time when historic buildings seem to be more threatened than ever by development" -- as "overtaxed", as having an "opaque" process, and as having "spotty" record-keeping.

City residents who have filed requests to evalute historic buildings or districts say they have been "stonewalled" by the LPC.

Preservation advocates challenge the LPC's lack of "openness and transparency."

LPC Chair Robert B. Tierney, interviewed by the Times, calls the LPC's record "superb", citing the creation of historic districts like the Gansevoort meatpacking district and Sunnyside Gardens in Queens.

To its credit, the LPC, in fiscal 'o7, designated 22 individual landmarks, 3 historic districts and 3 landmark interiors, for a total of 1,158 buildings — the most since 1990.

But critics cite the dozens of of RFEs that seem to have vanished into a black hole during the same period.

The LPC sometimes takes so long to act that the building that is the subject of an RFE has been demolished or modified beyond recognition.

The LPC counters that responding to each RFE would mean neglecting its own priorities and wasting time on "marginal" buildings -- the LPC has only 16 researchers.

But Tierney declined the $750,000 budget increase approved by the City Council in FY '07, accepting just $50,000 of a $300,000 allocation, saying that he didn't want to hire staff he couldn't keep.

Preservationists say there's a bigger issue.

Currently, all RFEs are funneled through Tierney, an attorney with no background in architecture, planning or historic preservation. Tierney and his staff decide which requests will be calendared for hearing by the 11-person commission, which must include 3 architects, 1 historian, 1 city planner or landscape architect, 1 real estate agent and 1 resident of each of the five boroughs.

Tierney is, in other words, the gatekeeper to the Commission.

The CECPP has assailed lawyer Tierney's “absolute power” over landmarking. Critics also cite the fact that the LPC does not document the results of each RFE, or even count how many it tables or rejects.

The LPC could not say exactly how many RFEs it received last year.

About a quarter of RFEs filed never get past Tierney -- as was the case with the RFE filed for the Green Church.

Tierney concedes that the LPC's record-keeping is "inadequate" and says that it is creating a new $1.5 million information database to better track RFEs.

The LPC spends the bulk of its time reviewing -- not RFEs -- but applications to alter existing landmarks, which more than doubled during the period from 1990 to 2008.

Until 2004, a designation committee, made up of a group of commissioners, evaluated RFEs and decided which ones to calender for public hearing. Ironically, that committee was abolished after the Historic Districts Council argued in a lawsuit that it violated the Open Meetings Law.

Now, advocates argue that the commissioners have become too far removed from the evaluation process.

The article, part of a series, from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/arts/design/26landmarks.html?ref=design

New York's Utility Bills Top Nation

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Electric Power Monthly, which provides official energy statistics, reports that, as of July 2008, residential and commercial customers in New York State paid the highest electric rates in the continental United States.

Residential rates were 19.75 cents/kwh and commercial rates hit 19.52 cents/kwh.

How did this happen in a state that has cheap hydropower from Niagara Falls and the Robert Moses St. Lawrence project and a fleet of nuclear power plants that produce 44% of the state's non-natural gas power?

The answer: the "restructuring" (read deregulation) of New York's electric industry turned state-regulated power plants over to owners who can wholesale their power at or close to NYISO spot market prices.

The price for all electricity in the NYISO markets, regardless of the hour and the cost of production, is the price imposed by the market clearing bidder (the one with the lowest successful bid).

The post from the PULP blog:
http://pulpnetwork.blogspot.com/2008/11/excelsior-ny-achieves-highest-electric.html

Beep Wants Own Budget

Marty Markowitz vows to seek a City Charter revision removing control of his budget from the mayor and city council, thus restoring one of the powers the borough presidents traditionally held.

According to Markowitz, it would be better for the city "in certain areas" if the borough presidents had "enhanced roles" again.

Markowitz' critics think he's too powerful already. The nonprofit groups he's set up to fund his pet projects are said to operate as campaign accounts, helping keep him in office.

Mayor Bloomberg has already announced plans to convene a Charter Review Commission, but has declined to comment on Markowitz' proposal.

The article from the New York Post:
https://secure.nypost.com/seven/11262008/news/regionalnews/brooklyn_beep_in_power_play_140973.htm

Buy Nothing Day

Depending on your point of view, the day after Thanksgiving is either the biggest shopping day of the year -- "Black Friday" -- or the internationally-observed holiday from shopping called "Buy Nothing Day".

Backing away from the merchandise for 24 hours on Buy Nothing Day opens many cost-free options: staying home with friends and family; curling up in a warm place with a good book; reflecting on how we want to live and the different choices we'd like to make in the coming year.

There's a free Union Square Dance Your Debt Away party in Manhattan, hosted by the divinely demented Reverend Billy.

More about Buy Nothing Day in New York City, from Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping:
http://www.revbilly.com/campaigns/buy-nothing-day-2008

More about Buy Nothing Day internationally:
http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd
http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/

But it looks like Buy Nothing Day may be redundant this year: according to the Daily News, consumer spending has dropped to its lowest levels since 9/11:
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/11/26/2008-11-26_consumer_spending_drops_to_lowest_levels.html

Diabetes in Brooklyn

According to the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the number of diabetes deaths in Brooklyn has risen by 42% in the past 15 years.

In hard-hit southern Crown Heights, diabetes deaths rose by 141% from 1992 to 2006.

After the Bronx, Brooklyn has the second-highest diabetes rate in the city. In 2006, 487 Brooklynites died of diabetes, compared with 343 in 1992, and diabetes deaths for that period increased citywide by 62%.

The diabetes epidemic is tied to obesity rates. Our lifestyles have changed, but our eating habits haven't. In our sedentary, food-rich environment, obesity is the default.

In poor neighborhoods like southern Crown Heights, Bed Stuy and Bushwick, fast food is everywhere, but according to a city Health Department survey, only 6% of bodegas -- the main food suppliers in these neighborhoods -- sell green vegetables.

Problem is, eating healthy costs more than eating processed food. Poor people can't afford healthy. They eat fast food because it's cheap and available.

Diabetes is a treatable disease, but Brooklynites are dying of it because they lack adequate health care and don't modify their lifestyles once they're diagnosed.

The article from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/11/25/2008-11-25_diabetes_deaths_soaring_in_brooklyn.html

Hungry New Yorkers

According to a recently-released survey by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, there has been a 28% increase in the number of New Yorkers hitting soup kitchens and food pantries since last year, and providers can't keep pace with the growing demand for food.

This year's increase comes on the heels of a 20% increase in the number of people who used soup kitchens and food pantries in 2006-2007.

Next year's survey results are expected to be "even more staggering", according to Joel Berg, Executive Director of the Coalition.

Nearly 90% of food banks surveyed this year said they saw the need for their services growing in the year ahead.

The Coalition is calling for more government funding.

Nearly 70% of soup kitchens and food pantries surveyed were short of food, their funding having been slashed by budget deficits as food prices have soared.

The number of donors is also dwindling, and the New York City Food Bank has put out a call for help during the holiday season.

The biggest increase in food demand has been in the Bronx, with Brooklyn and Staten Island close behind. Queens food providers have been shortest on supplies, mainly due to a lack of storage capacity.

Some short-supplied providers have bought their own food so that they can keep feeding people.

More city money probably won't be forthcoming, but greater efforts are being made by the city to enroll Medicaid-eligible clients in the food stamp program.

Nine thousand Medicaid-eligible Queens residents were enrolled in the food stamp program this summer.

The article from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/25/2008-11-25_losing_battle_to_feed_hungry_in_new_york.html

Cupboards are bare at the Salt and Sea Mission in Coney Island, from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/11/25/2008-11-25_cupboards_are_bare_at_brooklyn_pantry_co.html

More New Yorkers in need of food stamps, from NY 1:
http://www.ny1.com/Default.aspx?ArID=89637

Advocate Joel Berg via Huffington Post on fingerprinting food stamp applicants:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-berg/voter-fraud-and-food-stam_b_139225.html

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum reports food stamp benefits increased under new law: http://www.pubadvocate.nyc.gov/news/09.29.08RELImmigrantFoodStamps.html

Brooklyn Rents Outpace Manhattan

According to StreetEasy.com for October, it costs more to live in many Brooklyn neighborhoods than it does to live in Manhattan.

Median rents in DUMBO, Park Slope and Fort Greene top those in the East Village, Lower East Side, Upper East Side, Midtown East and Murray Hill. And median sales prices in Fulton Ferry and DUMBO are higher than those in Midtown East, the East Village, Murray Hill and the Lower East Side.

Better deals in Manhattan? In many cases, yes. The median rental price for a one-bedroom in Brooklyn Heights is $2,180. The same apartment on the Upper East Side is only $1,950, and on the Lower East Side, it's $2,085.

A two-bedroom Brooklyn Heights rental runs about $4,400, while a comparable apartment on the Upper West Side is about $4,200, and on the Lower East Side, $2,887.

Your pricey rent just proves how hot Brooklyn is now, if that's any comfort.

The article from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/11/24/2008-11-24_rents_and_home_prices_in_some_brooklyn_n.html

Coney Island Remembered

You may remember Democratic District Leader Ralph Perfetto, a Coney Island native, from his rather macabre cameo role as the supervisor of the disinterment of the dead from the Green Church vault.

Many of the disinterred remains had been transferred there from the oldest known burial ground in South Brooklyn. Long abandoned and overgrown, the ancient cemetery was in the way of development.

Perfetto, in this recording from the Coney Island History Project, shares his stories about his Coney Island childhood in the 1930s and 40s:
http://www.coneyislandhistory.org/voices/index.php?g=voices&s=details&object_id=635

I wonder if funeral director Perfetto knows about the Ecopod:
http://www.ecopod.co.uk/

Shifting Political Realities?

Democrats have seized the majority in the New York State Senate for the first time since the 1960s, leaving Senator Martin Golden the lone Republican in the Brooklyn delegation.

Will he still be able to bring home the bacon?

Not according to some political observers, who say that the millions of dollars that Golden funnels into Bay Ridge are going to dry up, while the rest of Brooklyn benefits from the power shift from Republican to Democratic.

Eight of Brooklyn's 9 state senators are now Democrats, and Kevin Parker will likely become majority whip.

Is Golden still unbeatable in this district? Brooklyn Democrats for Change say they'll challenge Golden, who no one has so far dared to oppose, in 2010.

Even if Golden wins in 2010, a Senate Democratic majority would mean redistricting after the 2010 Census, leveling the playing field for Democratic challengers.

In the past, the Republican-dominated State Senate has drawn Republican-dominated districts smaller than Democratic districts.

Our own district is so gerrymandered it seems a prime candidate for redrawing, maybe to include Gravesend, Bath Beach, Dyker Heights, Fort Hamilton, Bay Ridge and Sunset Park.

In any case, redrawing would favor a Democratic majority.

The Republicans think it's too soon to worry. They're waiting to see what happens in 2010.

The article from the Courier:
http://www.yournabe.com/articles/2008/11/20/bay_news/news/bay_news_newsoddmanouti11202008.txt

The state GOP outspent the Democrats by nearly a million dollars on this year's election:
http://www.amny.com/news/local/wire/politics/ny-bc-ny--campaignspending1201dec01,0,7424088.story?track=rss

Shifting Alliances?

Even though Mayor Bloomberg is the presumptive favorite to rule the city for the next 5 years, things at City Hall seem unsettled, according to one observer.

The rift opened by last month's narrow City Council vote to extend term limits is still gaping.

City Councilman Lew Fidler (D-Brooklyn), who supported Bloomberg on term limits and is now fighting him on tax rebates, called the tension at City Hall "palpable".

"Alliances are shifting," said Fidler.

Minute-to-minute, it seems. Recently, a group of council members led by Christine Quinn, once seen as the Mayor's staunchest ally, denounced the Mayor on the steps of City Hall for cutting the tax rebate, then trooped upstairs and approved the Mayor's plan to redevelop Willets Point by a 42 to 2 vote -- despite the fact that 32 council members had threatened three months earlier to block it.

Opponents believe that the Mayor could be more politically vulnerable next year than is conventionally believed. One council member, citing Barack Obama's win, the surge in black voter registration and the term limits backlash, commented that "a lot of people" are starting to think "there's more than one outcome here".

The article from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/16/2008-11-16_team_michael_bloomberg_in_a_bit_of_team_.html

The Mayor's approval rating falls to a 3-year low, from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/11/21/2008-11-21_mayor_michael_bloombergs_approval_rating.html

More on the Mayor's waning popularity, from Crain's:
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081123/FREE/811239995/-1/rss01&rssfeed=rss01

Christine Quinn's numbers are down too, from Gotham Gazette's Wonkster:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2008/11/25/the-numbers-are-in/

World Class Streets

"World Class Streets", a report just released by the city's Department of Transportation, details the findings from a Public Space/Public Life Survey done by the renowned Gehl Architects/Urban Quality Consultants in the Fall of 2007.

Following Gehl’s analysis, the report lays out a wide range of ambitious programs that DOT has already set in motion to change the city’s approach to urban street life.

The report is focused from most basic human point of view -- that of a pedestrian walking down the street.

Until now, the City has had no strategy for cultivating the public realm —the space between buildings—as an important element of public policy. The streetscape of New York City, no matter what else has changed, remains broadly utilitarian, much as it was in the 1970s.

"World Class Streets", which looks at the city through the DOT’s Sustainable Streets strategic plan, will be followed by the New York City Street Design Manual in 2009.

The report from DOT:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/World_Class_Streets_Gehl_08.pdf

A Rough Ride

Yesterday, the MTA released its "gloom-and-doom" 2009 budget, including the proposed drastic cuts and fare hikes we've been expecting.

Bus and subway fares would go up 23% by June. The base fare would be at least $2.50, with an additional increase of 5% in 2011 and increases indexed to inflation every other year after.

Monthly MetroCards could go up by as much as 10%.

Eighty-three percent of the MTA's operating costs would be shouldered by us, the riders, up from 69% this year.

The W and Z trains would be eliminated, the G and M trains would be shortened, and the gap between trains would be 10 minutes longer between 2 and 5 a.m.

Twelve bus lines would be eliminated.

Access-a-Ride fares would go up to $4.

Over 2,500 M.T.A. jobs would be cut.

The proposal comes up for a vote in December.

For more on the MTA proposal, see Transportation Links in the News on Gotham Gazette.

The effect of the MTA budget cuts on Brooklyn commuters, from the Brooklyn Paper:
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/47/31_47_bm_mta_cuts.html?comm=1

The fate of the X28, from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/nyregion/24nobus.html?_r=1

An MTA executive tells riders to protest fare hikes, from the New York Times:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/25/2008-11-25_mta_exec_tells_riders_protest_fare_hike_-1.html

Bay Ridge bus riders outraged, from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=31&id=24809

The Bay Ridge Blog weighs in on the proposed budget cuts:
http://bayridgebrooklyn.blogspot.com/2008/11/subway-and-bus-cuts-to-bay-ridge-good.html

The local pols tell us they feel our pain, from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=31&id=24949

The Grinch Cometh

According to the New York State Dept. of Labor, the city's job market is deteriorating.

Seventy thousand New Yorkers got unemployment benefits in October, up 5% from September.

The October numbers are up by nearly 37% over last year, the biggest increase year-over-year since May 2002.

The city lost 7,000 private sector jobs in October, the biggest one-month loss of the current downturn. The pain felt in the financial sector is shared by health services, retail trade, manufacturing, construction, banking and employment services.

November job losses indicate that we have entered a "recession". As many as 165,000 city jobs could be lost over the next 2 years.

The city still posted an 0.2% growth rate, primarily in education and health services, while jobs were lost elsewhere in the state and nation. But slowing growth rates since September and weakness in key sectors are signs of trouble ahead.

This Christmas is not looking like a big shopping season.

The article from Crain's:
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081120/FREE/811209965/1123

New York could lose as many as 225,000 jobs in the next 2 years, from the New York Times:
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/new-york-may-lose-225000-jobs-in-market-slump/

What it will take to turn things around, from Gotham Gazette:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/economy/20081119/21/2763

Green Church Bulletin

Friday night coming home from the subway there were two kittens under a car on Ovington and Fourth, just across the street from the parsonage demolition site. One of them was crying loudly.

The yowling kitten -- the one I saw -- was orange.

It turned out that several people on the block knew about the kittens and had been trying to rescue them. The kittens would eat the food people put down for them, but wouldn't let anyone touch them.

Trapping didn't work on Friday, the night I first posted this. The kittens had eaten and were staying put.

I thought they were just under the car at first, but it turned out they were up inside the car.

I went back on Saturday night with some other people, and we were able to trap the orange kitten and bring it indoors. It seems to be healthy, about 12 weeks old, and less feral than it acted on the street --probably just terrified.

There was no sign of the second kitten, which is described as a gray tabby with an injured leg, on Saturday night.

I wondered, because of the timing of the kittens' appearance, if the now-demolished parsonage garage may have been their shelter.

Often, when abandoned buildings are demolished, feral cats and other animals that have taken shelter there are left homeless or trapped in the rubble. A feral cat the Kimballs had been feeding for years that vanished when the Green Church was demolished -- could have met such a fate.

Deli Cats

Sadly, there are, based on what I heard tonight, other possibilities.

According to an Ovington neighbor, some merchants in Bay Ridge are too ignorant, too irresponsible or just too downright cheap to spay or neuter the cats they keep in their stores to catch mice, and these cats, when they mature sexually, are allowed to wander off and breed. Their kittens, doomed to a life on the street, add to New York's growing cat population crisis.

The injured kitten we had to leave on the street tonight -- because we couldn't find it -- may have come from a Fourth Avenue store owned by one of these knuckleheads.

No sign of the gray kitten when we went back on Sunday night.

I'd prefer to think that some kind person offered it shelter.

The Problem

As anyone who has ever done animal rescue work has learned, New York City's shelters are overflowing with animals. The probable fate of a rescued cat or dog in the city's Animal Care and Control (CACC) is euthanasia. It's a matter of sheer numbers.

"Trap, Neuter and Release" (TNR), as practiced by Neighborhood Cats, is an effective -- if controversial -- way to manage feral cat populations, and the many local networks of animal rescuers, which have emerged throughout the city as a necessary alternative to the overwhelmed shelter system, help take up the slack.

Since I have lived in Bay Ridge, I have met a dozen or so people quietly doing backyard rescue work because, like me, they can't turn away from the plight of abandoned animals, and I hope to meet many more.

The White Cat

Another --possibly true -- story I heard Saturday night on Ovington was about a white cat that used to belong to an elderly man who was apparently the custodian of the Green Church. The neighbor said she thought the old man lived with the white cat in the parsonage garage.

When the old man died this year around Memorial Day, she said, the white cat was abandoned. The cat wandered the block all summer looking for food and shelter. The neighbors knew about its situation, and a couple of them fed it.

Eventually, one of them took it in and took it to the vet, but by then, the cat was in very poor condition, and, despite extraordinary efforts to save it, it died.

GVSHP Gets Preserve New York Grant

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has received a $13,000 grant for their East Village Preservation Project from Preserve New York, a grant program of the Preservation League of New York State and the New York State Council on the Arts.

The grant allows the GVSHP to complete the research and documentation of the history of approximately 2,400 buildings in a 75-block area between 14th Street and Houston Street, Fourth Avenue/the Bowery and Avenue D.

The results of the research will be used to propose landmark protections for the district and will be made public through the GVSHP website and a report published with grant funds.

Preserve New York has funded the GVSHP's previous efforts to document and advocate for the preservation of Federal-era (1790-1835) houses in Lower Manhattan, the Meatpacking District, and the South Village.

The press release from the Preservation League of New York State:
http://www.gvshp.org/documents/PR-PLNYS-11-19-08.pdf

Green Church Bulletin

The parsonage is gone.

The parsonage garage is gone.

There is nothing left on the lot but a hole filled with rubble.

Soon after the demolition had been completed, a dark blue minivan slid up to the gate and a tall, very portly man in a dark suit and a Yarmulke, believed to be Abe Betesh, emerged to survey the desert created from the once-verdant Green Church corner.

Strike Eight

Abe Betesh's planned 72-condo development on the site of the demolished Green Church, designed by the ubiquitous Bricolage, has been disapproved again by the DOB.

Strike eight, by my count:

http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/JobsQueryByNumberServlet?requestid=1&passjobnumber=310162070&passdocnumber=01

I'm beginning to wonder what's up with this plan.

There are 83 items missing from the plan submission, which doesn't look to have been updated since August:

B-SCAN List of Required Items

There has been no new activity at the Green Church site in weeks.

An interesting glimpse of Abe Betesh's alter-ego Abeco:
http://www.allbusiness.com/personal-finance/real-estate-mortgage-loans/378092-1.html

Battery Maritime Building Development

The free seasonal Governors Island ferry from the Battery Maritime Building at the tip of Manhattan is increasingly popular with both New Yorkers and tourists, but much more is planned for the site.

Developers hope to restore the 1909 "architectural jewel" and build a 135-room hotel and a restaurant on top of it.

Under the plan, the Great Hall on the second floor would become public space and would be devoted to cultural events.

The $150 million project is moving through the city’s ULURP process, with the backing of the city's Economic Development Corporation, but whether developer Dermot Company will have the money to complete it remains to be seen.

Manhattan Community Board 1 has praised the developer's plan to turn the Great Hall into a miniature Winter Garden, with a food court and open space for cultural events.

To underwrite the restoration and public use, the Poulakakos family, Dermot's partner, would rent the space for catered events.

The glassy, modern hotel/restaurant addition, designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, was approved by the city Landmarks Preservation Commission and CB 1 only after the architect shrunk the hotel and promised to restore four historic cupolas facing the water.

The ULURP process is expected to be completed by spring.

The article from Downtown Express:
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_289/batterymaritime.html

Queens Council Member Tony Avella, who is running for mayor, opposes the planned development: http://www.tonyavellaformayor.com/2009/03/06/avella-affirms-opposition-to-landmarked-battery-maritime-building-%e2%80%9chotel-boutique%e2%80%9d-proposal/

Silver Towers Landmarked

The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission has designated Silver Towers, I.M. Pei's 3-tower Greenwich Village complex, a local landmark.

The request for evaluation was filed in 2003 by neighborhood preservationists, who call Silver Towers a watershed design in Pei's career. A second goal was to protect the site from NYU, which plans to build a fourth tower there.

The three 30-story reinforced concrete towers, built as part of an urban renewal project, are two blocks south of Washington Square between Mercer and LaGuardia Place. Two towers house NYU faculty and the third is a co-op built to house local residents displaced by the project.

Also landmarked is a replica of Pablo Picasso’s “Portrait of Sylvette,” fabricated for the site by sculptor Carl Nesjar.

NYU, which originally opposed landmarking, has applauded the designation -- but hasn't abandoned its plans to build a fourth tower.

The article from Crain's:
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081118/FREE/811189976/-1/rss01&rssfeed=rss01

Green Church Bulletin

A workman begins demolishing the stoop of the parsonage with a sledgehammer this morning.

Two backhoes on the site are used to compact the debris and load it into dumpsters or push it into the foundation hole as fill.

The Kimballs, whose house has now become the end house on the row due to the demolition of the parsonage, describe living next door to the site as "hell".

By this evening, the stoop was gone.

Skelos Calls Paterson's Bluff

Governor David Paterson met in an emergency session with 200 state legislative leaders today to address the state's fiscal crisis -- and got nowhere.

For 90 minutes, the Democratic governor and legislative leaders traded accusations and called each other names.

Paterson proposes $5 billion in spending cuts, some of which surfaced for the first time in today's meeting.

Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos got what he wanted out of the meeting: Paterson will suspend any cuts to the current budget until January.

Paterson's new budget will be presented on Dec. 16, a month early due to the fiscal crisis that will create $47 billion in deficits over the next 3 years and what Paterson describes as years of overspending on special interests.

The article from the New York Post:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11182008/news/regionalnews/paterson__legislators_fail_to_cut_budget_139383.htm

The Check Is in the Mail -- Not!

Mayor Bloomberg's recent announcement that the latest round of $400 homeowners’ rebate checks would be canceled was apparently premature.

Council members flooded with calls from angry residents looking for their checks called the mayor's plan “dead on arrival."

City budget director Mark Page admitted under questioning by the council that the mayor lacks the power to cancel the homeowner rebates without council approval.

Page also admitted that the mayor's plan to impose a 6 cent charge on plastic bags required the approval of the State Legislature, which the Bloomberg administration had hoped to bypass by calling the charge a "fee", rather than a "tax".

After researching the issue, Page found the charge would legally be considered a tax and that Albany's approval would be necessary.

But it was the rebate issue that dominated the 3-hour budget hearing at City Hall. Some 600,000 owners of homes, apartments, condos and co-ops get the rebates -- just before Christmas.

David Weprin, chair of the council finance committee, showed Page a city bond prospectus stating that rescinding the $400 property tax rebate requires "city legislative approval".

Page reportedly buried his face in his hands at that point, mumbling “Oh, forget it. Fine.”

Weprin told the press there was "overwhelming opposition" on the Council to rescinding the rebates, and predicted that the checks would go out soon.

Mayor Bloomberg has said that the budget ax will just fall somewhere else.

Cynics wondered if the rebate flap was just posturing by the City Council to ease the pain of coming tax increases and spending cuts, but Weprin saw a simpler explanation: the mayor’s budget aides forgot to talk to their lawyers.

The city is facing a $4 billion deficit over the next 2 years and Mayor Bloomberg has proposed $1.5 billion in budget cuts.

Seven more hearings on the mayor’s plan have been scheduled for this coming week.

The article from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/nyregion/18bloomberg.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Mayor Bloomberg "defiant" on the property tax rebate issue, from the New York Post:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11202008/news/regionalnews/mayor_in_tax_furor_139691.htm

Bloomberg's tone softens, from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/nyregion/21bloomberg.html?_r=1

Bill Thompson says that the city has the money:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11212008/news/regionalnews/rebate_money_is_there__bill_140013.htm

Related coverage of the plastic bag tax from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/nyregion/18plastic.html?ref=nyregion

An update on the status of the rebate from Gotham Gazette:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2008/12/03/the-400-question/

Vincent Gentile sues for the rebate, from the Brooklyn Eagle:
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=4&id=25154

The lawsuit is mooted by an agreement between the mayor and the council, from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=4&id=25358

Green Church Bulletin

The parsonage demolition site this morning, showing the removal of the basement level underway.

By this evening, there was nothing left of the parsonage but the foundation hole.

The outer wall of the Kimballs' house, once insulated by the wall it shared with the parsonage, is now exposed to the icy winter winds, which will raise the Kimballs' heat bills by an estimated 20%.

MTA Overstaffed?

According to state auditors, the MTA could trim hundreds of managers, marketers and public relations staff -- before it slashes our service, hikes our fares and slaps on new bridge tolls.

The MTA is at 70,000 employees and growing, including thousands of redundant and non-essential positions -- with hundreds more new hires in the pipeline, according to the audit findings.

There are 288 NYC Transit employees in "corporate communications," 70 LIRR staffers in "market development and public affairs," and 52 in "corporate and community affairs" at MTA headquarters.

Almost 2/3 of the MTA's $10.9 billion budget is spent on salaries, fringe benefits and pension contributions, according to state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

A report released by DeNapoli in September found that:

• staffing has increased by 6,436 since 2005;
• 568 "managerial, supervisory, professional, technical and clerical" employees have been hired since 2007, with 818 more due by year's end;
  
• 351 maintenance workers -- but only 59 administrators -- are due to be cut.
  

There are "opportunities for efficiencies that have not been realized," said DiNapoli, who wants to see a "wringing out" of administrative overhead at the top-heavy authority.

The MTA has warned of fare hikes as high as 30%.

The article from the New York Post:
https://www.nypost.com/seven/11162008/news/regionalnews/mta_office_bloat_138950.htm

"Doomsday Budget"

According to the Daily News, MTA's "doomsday budget" will cut 1,500 NYC Transit jobs.

Sources report the following cuts:

• eliminating bus and subway routes, including the "W" and "Z" lines;
• axing about 600 station agent positions and about 350 administrative jobs;
• reducing schedules between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.;
• loosening overcrowding rules;
• eliminating late night and weekend bus service on dozens of routes;
• halving service on the "G" and "M".

The MTA is looking to Governor Paterson for a bailout. Its projected 2009 operating budget has jumped from $900 million to $1.2 billion due to the weak economy and shrinking tax revenues.

The article from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/18/2008-11-18_mtas_planned_cuts_include_everything_fro-2.html

Adopt Oscar and Felix

They're roommates, of course.

Their owner, an elderly woman who was a member of my church, passed away last week, and the boys are all by themselves in the co-op.

I had posted a photo here, which seems to have disappeared now. I will try to get a better one.

Oscar, 4 1/2 years old, is white with brown patches on his head and back. He's kind of shy and likes to climb and explore.

Felix, 5 1/2 years old, is an orange tabby. He is friendly and affectionate and loves to watch the birds.

Both are neutered and have always lived indoors.

If you would like to adopt Oscar and Felix, call Doris Hidenheim at 1-732-821-3029. Be sure to leave a message on her answering machine if she doesn't pick up. She will call you back.

Doris wants to find a loving home for Oscar and Felix as soon as possible.

St. Stephen's Church Designated

St. Stephen's, an 1854 Roman Catholic Church at 151 E. 28th Street (between Lexington and Third) in Murray Hill, has been designated a New York City Landmark.

The LPC characterizes the designation as "building on the Commission's record of protecting New York City's houses of worship."

St. Stephen’s was designed by James Renwick Jr., the architect of Grace Church and St. Patrick's Cathedral.

St. Stephen's was once the largest Roman Catholic congregation in Manhattan, with as many as 28,000 parishioners.

The two-story building is designed in a Romanesque Revival style, unusual for a mid-19th century Catholic church.

LPC Chair Robert Tierney praised the "restrained, elegant design" of St. Stephen's, one of 5 houses of worship awarded individual landmark status since 2003.

The LPC, says Tierney, is "actively pursuing" the designation of other New York City churches.

The designation report from the LPC:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/press/10_23_08.pdf

Gotham Gazette wondered, in 2005, if St. Stephen's would ever be designated:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/fea/20050822/202/1514

Will Bloomberg Run as a Democrat?

Queens Crap reports that Mayor Bloomberg, a Democrat turned Republican turned independent, has yet to choose a ballot line for his 2009 re-election bid, but he appears to be courting Democratic county chairs.

This past week, Bloomberg held a meeting with Brooklyn Democratic Chair Vito Lopez in Bushwick and attended the ABNY breakfast at the Regency Hotel where Queens Democratic Chair Joe Crowley spoke.

The mayor needs the approval of 3 of the city's 5 Democratic county chairs to compete in the Democratic primary in 2009.

According to one consultant, the mayor would be "foolish" not to shoot for "Row A", if he can.

The post from Queens Crap:
http://queenscrap.blogspot.com/2008/11/bloomie-kissing-dem-ass.html

Saturday Afternoon in the Neighborhood

Every time I walk by this building at the corner of Ovington and 3rd Avenue, I puzzle over the color of the building's cornice.

Plum, or puce or fuschia? Somewhere around there, but not quite.

Did someone ask for this color at the paint store, or was it just a fluke?

What handier place to leave a menu than inside a wreath on someone's front door.

Those guys are coming back, aren't they?

They laid low for a while after the new lawn litter law was passed, but now they're rebounding, as evidenced by the number of business cards, free newspapers, flyers and menus I've had to toss into the re-cycling lately.

But the police we saw for a few nights about a month ago walking four abreast on Fourth Avenue weren't looking for menu guys.

And now that the one-man crime-wave they call the "Bay Ridge burglar" has been nabbed -- a 911 caller saw him legging it from the scene of a B&E -- I doubt that we'll see a display like that again.

I wish I could have taken this photo about a minute earlier, when a sudden gust of wind showered the intersection with golden Gingko leaves.

This Old House Finally Comes to Brooklyn

After 30 years on PBS, the popular home-improvement show "This Old House" has finally come to brownstone Brooklyn, to renovate a 1904 townhouse in Prospect Heights.

Producer Deborah Hood said that Brooklyn seemed like "the perfect place" for the show.

When This Old House put out the call for homeowners recently, more than a quarter of the applications came from Brooklyn.

Homeowners Kevin Costello and wife Karen Shen, parents of three, are longtime fans of the show who said they "couldn't believe their luck" in being chosen.

The family will rent the garden level and the third floor of its 4,000 square-foot house on Sterling Place to cover the mortgage, keeping the middle two floors.

The renovation will last 10 episodes, premiering Jan. 22, and will be featured in the January/February 2009 issue of This Old House magazine.

If you can't watch the show on TV, you can follow the renovation at thisoldhouse.com/webcam

The Daily News article:
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/11/11/2008-11-11_longtime_pbs_show_this_old_house_finally.htmldailynews.com/money/2008/11/11/2008-11-11_longtime_pbs_show_this_old_house_finally.html

More from This Old House:
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/tv/house-project/overview/0,,20238790,00.html

Update from Gothamist:
http://gothamist.com/2008/12/29/this_old_brooklyn_house.php

Update from Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn:
http://onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.typepad.com/only_the_blog_knows_brook/2009/02/you-may-remember-a-while-back-i-mentioned-that-this-old-house-was-doing-its-first-new-york-city-renovation-project-ever-i-me.html

Green Church Bulletin

What was once the parsonage basement, on a strangely warm, blustery day.

Through the busted-out basement wall, you can see a barred back window and a bit of the door that opens into the overgrown back yard.

Prison Ship Martyrs Monument Centennial

The centennial of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument will be celebrated on Saturday, November 15, 2008 with a full day of activities at Fort Greene Park:

Sign-in, 10:00 AM
Monument eagles unveiled, 11:00 AM
Family Roots Project, Noon – 3:45 PM
Fife and Drum Procession and Parade of Flags, 3:15 PM
Flag-Posting Ceremony, 3:30 – 3:45 PM
Formal Commemoration, 4:15 PM
Re-lighting of Eternal Flame of Prison Ship Martyrs, 5:00 PM.

For more information about tomorrow's event:
http://www.centennial2008.org/celebration.html

Andrew Berman Featured in Daily News

Andrew Berman is executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), an organization the Daily News calls "one of the most vocal and influential special-interest groups in New York City".

The GVSHP impacts local real estate, starts protests, lobbies politicians, rallies Village residents, and strives to keep developers, the City Planning Commission and the Landmarks Preservation Commission in line.

Berman has taken on Donald Trump, New York University, Julian Schnabel, St. Vincent's Hospital, bad architects -- and anyone who would rend the architectural fabric of Greenwich Village.

The local landmark designation of the Gansevoort Market Historic District in 2003, insuring its scale and architectural integrity, is seen as a signal victory for the GVSHP.

The GVSHP now seeks to landmark the unprotected South Village.

If developers had their way, says Berman, all of the South Village would look like the glass residential tower on Sullivan Street, at the site of the demolished theater where "The Fantasticks" ran for 42 years.

Around the corner on Bleecker St., the Circle in the Square Theatre has also been demolished, its marquee the only thing that remains.

Berman calls what happened to these buildings "a travesty".

The South Village corner where Bleecker meets Carmine is believed to have inspired Edward Hopper's painting "Early Sunday Morning".

The buildings on that corner -- dating from the early 19th Century -- lean, which could give a developer a "hardship" claim -- as recently used by St. Vincent's Hospital.

The St. Vincent's case points up the fact that Greenwich Village is not protected forever, says the Bronx-born Berman.

The South Village is characterized by tenement buildings and modest row houses where the city's earliest immigrant populations -- "the poorest of the poor" -- once lived.

Because the district is not landmarked, these buildings can be modified out of all recognition, as happened at 142-144 W. Fourth St., whose owner put up a medieval facade.

The GVSHP has also criticized New York University's development arm for not saving more of the Edgar Allen Poe House.

NYU is now set to demolish the Provincetown Playhouse, theatrical home to Eugene O'Neill and Edna St. Vincent Millay, for a faculty building, saving no more than 6% of the theatre.

Robert Tierney, Chair of the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission, holds Berman in high regard, characterizing the GVSHP as in "the top tier" of advocate groups city-wide and Berman as "knowledgeable and persistent" and a "terrific leader".

Tierney calls the South Village "tremendously important" and an "extremely promising" candidate for landmark protection.

Berman has the following advice for community activists:

• Get organized, form coalitions and make noise.

• Get the support of your elected officials.

• Consider pursuing landmark designation for historic neighborhoods.

• Learn about zoning.

• Seek allies.

• Get media-savvy.

Roger that.

The article from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2008/11/14/2008-11-14_protest_proud_south_village_landmark_mov.html

Brooklyn Preservation Council Meets

The Brooklyn Preservation Council meets on Monday, Nov. 24 at 6 p.m. in the First Floor Conference Room at Borough Hall.

Green Church Bulletin

The basement and front stairs of the Green Church parsonage were still standing this morning, but not for long: by evening, most of this basement wall had been knocked out.

According to the linked document on the DOB BIS database, buyer Abe Betesh plans to pierce the roof of the former Sunday school building on Fourth Avenue and insert supports for the planned "vertical enlargement" to the existing 2-storey brick building.

According to Betesh, the expanded building will be leased to a medical facility.

Link to the DOB BIS database:
http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/BScanJobDocumentServlet?requestid=3&passjobnumber=310214363&passdocnumber=01&allbin=3349046&scancode=SC080127006

Green Screens

Old electronics are a significant part of the waste stream, and we need to do a better job of recycling them.

That's why the city has organized the "Green Screens" electronics recycling drive this weekend from 8:00 AM through 2:00 PM on Saturday November 15th and Sunday November 16th.

The event is run by Electronic Recyclers International (ERI). ERI's "Cradle to Grave" bar code tracking system tracks materials through every stage of the recycling process to ensure compliance with environmental regulations and destruction of personal information.

You can recycle:

• computers
• televisions
• cell phones
• radios
• cameras
• VCRs
• speakers
• telephones
  

and other electronics for free at 6 locations across the city.

All electronic waste collected will be recycled. Valuable materials will be recovered and toxins and other hazardous materials safely and legally disposed of.

These city-wide drop-off points will be open from 8:00 AM through 2:00 PM:

Manhattan

• Saturday only: Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building Plaza (W. 126th St. bet. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. and Malcolm X Blvd.)
• Sunday only: Cooper Square (Cooper Square bet. E. 6th and 7th Sts.)

The Bronx

• Saturday and Sunday: Joyce Kilmer Park (Grand Concourse bet. E. 161st and 163rd Sts.)

Brooklyn

• Saturday and Sunday: McCarren Park (Bedford Ave. near N. 12^th St.)

Staten Island

• Saturday and Sunday: Staten Island Mall (2655 Richmond Ave. at Parking Lot F)

Queens

• Saturday and Sunday: Cunningham Park (Union Turnpike bet. 196th Pl. and 197th St.)

And while you're at it, why not recycle your old TV set ahead of the February 17, 2009 digital transition?

The press release from NYC.Gov:
http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2008b%2Fpr450-08.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1

Green Church Bulletin

The front stairs and the English basement were all that was left of the Green Church parsonage this morning.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle has picked up the story about the DOB rejecting Abe Betesh's plans for a 72-unit building at the Green Church site (although it appears that a Certificate of Occupancy may be forthcoming).

The Kimballs, who own 36o Ovington Avenue, which shares a common wall with the parsonage, recently took Eagle reporter Harold Egeln and photographer Georgine Bienvenuto on a tour of their house, pointing out the cracks in their walls caused by the successive demolitions of the Green Church and the parsonage.

The Kimballs told Egeln how their house shook during the Green Church demolition process. This Flick'r photoset will give you some idea of the kind of impacts the Kimballs were talking about: http://flickr.com/photos/27889493@N02/sets/72157607583944182/

The Kimballs told Egeln that they were not notified by Betesh or the BRUMC of the start date of the demolition, and that neither took any effective steps to protect them or their property from flying debris as a result of the demolition. (Neither did Betesh or the BRUMC do a baseline structural assessment of the Kimball's house before starting to demolish the parsonage.)

According to Egeln, the BRUMC projects 2010 as the completion date for what those who have seen the plans describe as a bunker-like two-story rectangular "church" with a skylight, where the handsome limestone-fronted three-story parsonage once stood.

The article from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=27&id=24515

McMahon Top Earner

The Conflicts of Interest Board, which enforces the city's financial disclosure law, requires city council members to disclose their outside income on an annual basis.

Many city council members moonlight, earning well over their base salary of $112,500.

Committee chairpersons and other council leaders also get a stipend known as a "lulu".

For a list of lulus, click here.

Staten Island Council Member Michael McMahon topped the income list this year: http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/issueoftheweek/20081110/200/2759

This fall, Democrat McMahon was elected to the congressional seat held by Republican Vito Fossella: http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=28&id=24468

Mayor Bloomberg, good friends with McMahon, endorsed him in the congressional race.

McMahon, a lawyer and a partner in the Staten Island law firm O'Leary, McMahon & Spero, is married to Judith McMahon, a Richmond County Civil Court judge and acting Supreme Court Justice, and is the brother-in-law of Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Linda Gibbs, who is married to McMahon's brother, lobbyist Thomas McMahon, also a lawyer.

New York Times calls McMahon "a pragmatist":
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/nyregion/17mcmahon.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=michael%20mcmahon&st=cse

Green Church Bulletin

What was left of the Green Church parsonage this morning.

Coming home this evening, I could see the last window frame in the bay sticking up like a big rotten tooth.

There has been no activity at the Green Church demolition site for several days.

A Veteran's Day Walk

It was a perfect fall day, sunny and crisp.

I took these photos on an afternoon walk through the neighborhood.

I liked the gold grape leaves against the faded blue of the garage doors.

These beautiful, red-brown Arts and Crafts doors graced a Victorian house in the 70's that has been both badly neglected and hacked away at by its owners.

These charming stained glass panels were set in an angular bay window on the second floor of a blue Victorian house on Ridge Avenue.

There was a "For Sale" sign on the front lawn.

This is, in all likelihood, the fate of the charming blue frame house.

The engaging Victorian surfaces and angles will disappear beneath a vaguely Mediterranean quoined stucco facade like this one.

Someone -- someone with a lot of money -- thinks this "renovation" of a Queen Anne house on Ridge Avenue looks really impressive.

I guess that's the point.

That, and never having to paint.

Flowering kale on Ridge Avenue.

This new condo development had a "For Sale" sign on it too.

But I'm not buying.

Why would I want to live in a building that looks like my freshman dorm?

The quaintly-turreted Lowen's Pharmacy building on 3rd Avenue has "For Sale" signs posted at second floor level.

Green Church Bulletin

Veteran's Day was a holiday for me, but just another day of demolition at the Green Church parsonage.

Today, the crew was knocking out the walls of the parlor floor of the house.

Term Limits Challenged in Federal Court

Guiliani's former deputy mayor for operations Randy Mastro and ACLU gadfly Norman Siegel teaming up to sue Mayor Bloomberg?

Former Black Panther (now Council Member) Charles Barron standing side-by-side at a press conference with mild-mannered Comptroller William Thompson Jr.?

Term limits makes strange bedfellows.

As announced this week, a team of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives has filed a lawsuit naming the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn, the Board of Elections and its president, and the 29 council members who voted to extend term limits.

William Thompson characterized the broad coalition as "unique and amazing".

The suit charges that term limits extension violates the first and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution, discourages voting, and discourages political expression.

Siegel and Mastro — who will argue the case together in federal court — call the term limits extension law, signed by the mayor on Nov. 3, a “constitutional evil” that uses legislative power to maintain control of elective office.

The 24 named plaintiffs include politicians and candidates now barred from running for City Council seats that won't be vacant.

The plaintiffs hope, if they succeed, to send the term limits question back to the voters before the 2009 citywide races.

The article from Gotham Gazette:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2008/11/10/term-limits-lawsuit-continues/

Term limits extension spawns another lawsuit:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2008/12/02/challengers-file-suit-against-cfb/

The Greening of Southie at Galapagos

GreenHomeNYC, a not-for-profit green building organization, is sponsoring a screening of The Greening of Southie at Galapagos Art Space at 16 Main Street in DUMBO on Wednesday, November 12, at 7 PM.

Set in blue-collar South Boston, The Greening of Southie tells the story of the building of a revolutionary Green Building and the men and women who built it.

The Macallen Building represents state-of-the-art environmentally friendly design, but its young development team face major challenges trying to bring it in.

The Greening of Southie, described as a "funny and poignant", is a story about the future of the way we live.

The movie features music from Brooklyn-based duo Force Theory.

Read more at: http://www.greeningofsouthie.com

Green Church Bulletin

The demolition of the parsonage continues.

This was the parsonage this morning as I was on my way to Manhattan.


And this is was the parsonage when I returned home this evening.

Strike Seven

Those of you who are anxiously awaiting the arrival in Bay Ridge of more ugly brick condos a la Bricolage are going to have to wait a little longer, I'm afraid.

The Bricolage plans for Abe Betesh's proposed 72-unit condo development at the site of the demolished Green Church have again been rejected by the Department of Buildings.

This is the seventh time the plans have been rejected, by my count.

Wondering why the congregation rushed to demolish the Green Church without an approved plan?

So am I.

Flipping rumors are still flying.

The link to the plan application on the DOB BIS database:
http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/JobsQueryByNumberServlet?requestid=1&passjobnumber=310162070&passdocnumber=01

Timothy 6:10

In a recent Courier post, outspoken columnist Shavanna Abruzzo ripped "short-sighted, money-grubbing, historically-challenged" Pastor Robert Emerick and his "full-of-it" congregation for succeeding, through "hard-boiled greed", in destroying the neighborhood's 'most distinctive building'.

Emerick apparently told Abruzzo in February that there had been no discussion of preserving the church -- because one architect said the building was not worth saving.

Bay Ridge Conservancy founder Victoria Hofmo believes that the Green Church, of solid brick construction, was "basically sound".

Abruzzo pays tribute to the "visionaries" of the Committee to Save the Bay Ridge United Methodist Church who, except for Council Member Vincent Gentile's failed efforts, were ignored by the church leadership and the community.

Abruzzo chides State Senator Marty Golden for doing nothing to save the Green Church, calling it "shameful" that Golden did not see fit to use his "political muscle" to lobby for the church.

The Green Church might have been restored, might have been a place of "calm and reflection" for all generations, says Abruzzo, had Golden spent as much time agonizing over a Bay Ridge "icon" as he did a couple of years ago over the "Bay Ridge Hum".

The Courier column:
http://www.yournabe.com/articles/2008/11/03/williamsburg_courier/news/columnists/williamsburg_courier_news_columnistsabritisher10302008.txt

Saving Tin Pan Alley

A century ago, competing piano music poured out of every window of a row of Manhattan houses where a variety of music companies had their offices.

A journalist said the noise sounded like pounding on tin pans: hence the nickname "Tin Pan Alley".

Songs like "God Bless America", "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" and "Give My Regards to Broadway" came out of these four-story 19th-century row houses on West 28th Street.

From the late 1880s to the mid-1950s, Nos. 45, 47, 49, 51, 53 and 55 launched the careers of songwriters like Irving Berlin, Scott Joplin, Fats Waller and George M. Cohan.

But, like so much of historic New York City, Tin Pan Alley is about to fall to development.

The houses are for sale for $44 million. The plan is to replace them with high-rise development.

The current economic turmoil has slowed things down, but the prospect of losing Tin Pan Alley has added urgency to efforts to landmark the buildings.

The Historic Districts Council is working to secure city landmark status for the buildings in order to prevent their demolition.

The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission says it's reviewing their combined historical, cultural and architectural significance to see if they meet its criteria.

These days, the buildings house clothing, jewelry and fabric wholesalers on street level and apartment dwellers upstairs.

It's still noisy, but the noise now comes from beeping trucks backing up amid street vendors.

Photographer Leland Bobbe, a long-time residential tenant, calls Tin Pan Alley "another symbol of what New York was and...will no longer be."

Nearby brownstone row houses have been replaced by high-rise condos.

The article from AP:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hsFLCOiDEOtP8BEN9MYl1aofKyVwD94B3NDG0

Sign the HDC petition:
http://www.hdc.org/tinpanalley.htm

Original post from Lost New York:
http://lostnewyorkcity.blogspot.com/2008/10/amazing-witmark-brothers.html

More from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7719621.stm

More from USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2008-11-14-tin-pan-alley_N.htm

More from San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/16/MNP5140VA5.DTL

Green Church Bulletin

The parsonage demolition site on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

The stop work order was still posted.

Five Dutch Days

The fourth 5 Dutch Days event, organized by the Department of History at Columbia University, the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum and the St. Mark's Historic Landmark Fund, takes place this month.

Five Dutch Days is a city-wide celebration of Dutch-American Heritage Day and the continuing influence of Dutch arts and culture in NYC.

For more information and a list of events, visit the 5 Dutch Days site.

The celebration begins on Wednesday, November 12th at 3:30 p.m. at Peter Stuyvesant's tomb in the churchyard of St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery.

Dutch baritone Hans Pieter Hoffman will be on hand.

The Markets of New Amsterdam event takes place on Thursday, November 13th at 6:30 p.m.

There will be a walking tour of St. Mark's Church on Sunday, November 16th at 1:30 p.m. and 2 p.m.

On the tour, you will learn about Peter Stuyvesant's bouwerie, or farm, the land on which St. Mark's Church now stands, and the cultural and architectural history of the church.

Tours are offered in both English and Dutch.

The tour meets in front of St. Mark's Church at 131 East 10th Street (between 2nd & 3rd Ave.)

Five Dutch Days is co-sponsored by the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, New Amsterdam Market and the St. Mark's Historic Landmark Fund.

Admission is free.

RSVP required.

For more information: info@smhlf.org or 212-228-2781.

"A Very Spiritual Place"

After more than a century at 100th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church is fighting to save its sanctuary.

The church has fallen into disrepair and has been damaged by nearby construction, and the congregation is struggling to reconcile its desire to keep its building with the fact that it has a tight budget and no endowment.

Church officials have sought expert opinion and input from the congregation in deciding what to do next.

They have gotten wildly different estimates of the costs of repair, with one architect projecting $8 million for repairs, another $2 million, and a third $1 million.

The church has only $335,000 left in its bank account.

Trinity’s situation is sadly familiar in a city where church-owned land has become more valuable than churches.

Trinity Church serves as a shelter for homeless LGBT youths, and an array of community programs are housed in its basement. Losing the church would mean the loss of these services.

In mid-February, Trinity officials will vote to determine the church’s future. Once that decision is made, the church plans a capital campaign to seek support from the congregation and beyond.

The object is to develop as many alternative strategies and resources as possible.

The church council is considering applying for designation to the National Register of Historic Places in order to garner state and federal preservation funding in the form of tax credits and rehabilitation grants.

Local landmark status, which offers greater protection for the building, is elusive.

The congregation has considered moving to a condo or a housing project or new, scaled-back construction, but would miss having "a very spiritual place" as its home.

Congregants are reaching out to the community for help -- including a possible work-study student from Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Trinity's pastor projects that the process of saving the church could take up to 10 years, but she is "cautiously optimistic" about the outcome.

While the building may have fallen on hard times, Trinity's Website reflects an active ministry and a growing congregation -- with 22 new members joining the congregation last February.

The article from the Columbia Spectator:
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/56676

Green Church Bulletin

A hardhat applies a cement-like paste to the exposed party wall -- to comply with one of the conditions of the stop-work order posted at the site.

The Kimballs report that demolition activity resumed today.

In the below photo, taken from Fourth, you can see that the shovels have all but cleared the site of the debris from the demolition of the Green Church, as a full "Guma" dumpster waits to be on-loaded and hauled away.

More Green Church Drama

Robert Emerick, pastor of the Bay Ridge United Methodist Church, is the source of a report, published by the Brooklyn Paper, that part of the cornerstone of the demolished Green Church has been "stolen".

According to Emerick, a "trespasser" entered the Green Church demolition site in search of the time capsule, which was apparently inside the cornerstone.

Emerick told the Brooklyn Paper that the time capsule had been removed from the cornerstone, which had been left at the demolition site.

Emerick reported that a reward is being offered.

According to Emerick, the "trespasser" also Krazy Glued the locks at the site.

As posted here, this report appears to be the same one that the NYPD was investigating on Tuesday.

The Brooklyn Paper item was picked up by Left in Bay Ridge and Bay Ridge Rover.

The article from the Brooklyn Paper:
http://brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/44/31_44_bm_green_church.html

A commenter on the Brooklyn Paper site blamed the alleged break-in on the "preservationists".

The post from Left in Bay Ridge:
http://leftinbayridge.blogspot.com/

More from the Bay Ridge Rover:
http://www.bayridgerover.com/2008/11/stealing-green-church.html

Anonymous commenters on the Bay Ridge Rover site implied that "preservationists" are to blame for the alleged break-in.

There's also a not-nice rumor that the cornerstone got chipped during the demolition and that Emerick exaggerated it to win sympathy.

Hmmm. Felonious preservationists or self-pitying destructionists?

Choices, choices.

"Doomberg"

Mayor Bloomberg said on Wednesday at a budget briefing that he's canceling his popular $400 property tax rebate immediately, and that personal income tax may go up by as much as 15%.

The city faces a budget gap that could reach $4 billion.

The Mayor estimated that canceling the property tax rebates, which he can apparently do without City Council approval, would save $256 million.

Bloomberg warned that the city’s portion of the state sales tax could go up by about 3%.

The Mayor has proposed cutting 3,000 city jobs -- including hundreds of layoffs -- as part of $1.5 billion in budget cuts affecting virtually every city agency, and warned that he may be back in January to propose new budget and job cuts.

Police, fire, education and health care will, in large part, be spared.

The City Council is riled about the Mayor's rebate cancellation and his plan to increase property taxes by 7% -- six months ahead of schedule.

The Mayor's grim statistics:

• $500 billion in losses on Wall Street;
• 147,000 jobs lost in the financial sector;
• a projected $2.6 billion drop in city revenues.
  

The article from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/nyregion/06budget.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Press release from NYC.Gov regarding proposed budget cuts:
http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2008b%2Fpr437-08.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1

The blowback from proposed budget cuts doesn't faze the Mayor, from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/22/2008-11-22_toughlove_mayor_bloomberg_doesnt_mind_ta.html

"Wear a sweater if you're chilly", from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/11/19/2008-11-19_wear_a_sweater_if_youre_chilly__and_you_-2.html

More on the Mayor's proposed budget cuts from Gotham Gazette:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/issueoftheweek/20081201/200/2768

Green Church Bulletin

The Cavalier Construction Company shovels have been at work this week clearing the Green Church demolition site.

Not much of the debris is left now, as the shovels continue working the site.

As I walked home from the subway this evening, I could see that the demolition crew had daubed the exposed wall of the Kimballs' house with cement-colored material.

The demolition was in full swing at around 8:30 a.m., after a wild night of wind and rain.

I think the darker brick at the top of the wall in the above photo indicates the area that was exposed during the rainstorm, and that the lighter brick below indicates the area exposed after the rain ended, but I'm not certain.

A hardhat seemed to be whacking the wall, for some reason.

The stop work work posted at the site of the parsonage demolition this morning.

The Election

Democrat Barack Obama won the presidential election by 52% nationally -- 62% in New York State.

I stayed up last night to hear McCain's and Obama's speeches.

McCain gave a gracious and heartfelt speech, showing a side I wish I had seen during his campaign.

Obama was typically cool and cerebral as he and his family savored the historic moment.

Obama's election -- and the change it embodies -- are deeply felt by many Americans.

I'm cautious, but hopeful, about his presidency. It's been a long time coming.

There were no surprises in Brooklyn.

The U.S. House of Representatives seat in District 13 went to Democrat Michael McMahon.

The State Senate seat in District 22 went to Republican Martin Golden.

The State Assembly seat in District 60 went to Democrat Janele Hyer-Spencer.

Complete results for New York City, from Gotham Gazette:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/Albany/20081104/204/2749

Related coverage from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=27&id=24328

Green Church Bulletin

An anxious Dorcas Kimball talks to the boss of the demolition crew outside the parsonage this morning.

The demolition site, showing the partial removal of the party wall between the parsonage and the Kimballs' house.

After these photos were taken this morning, DOB inspectors visited the demolition site and issued a partial stop work order directing the crew to clean up the site and weatherproof the exposed wall of the Kimballs' house within the next two days

Concurrently, the NYPD is investigating a report of a trespasser jumping the fence at the demolition site.

First Lady Tours LES Museum

First Lady Laura Bush was recently given a private tour of the excellent Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

The first lady, who is interested in historic preservation, decided to tour the Orchard Street museum during an official visit.

With Secret Service agents posted on every floor and the press held at bay, Mrs. Bush and her daughter were escorted through each of the meticulously-restored apartments.

The first lady said that she had wanted to visit the museum for a long time.

The article from Downtown Express:
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_287/firstlady.html

North Brooklyn Down-Zone

The city is proposing to cap building heights in a 175-block down-zone of Greenpoint and Williamsburg that residents have waited years for.

The Department of City Planning has announced plans to impose height limits and bar new buildings over 50 feet on narrow residential streets and 70 feet on wide residential streets.

Under the down-zoning, new buildings will have to stay within the envelope of existing development in the district, bordered on the north and west by a waterfront area up-zoned by the city in 2005.

The re-zoning would eliminate the so-called “height factor” loophole that lets developers build tall on a big lot.

Residential development in certain defined areas can go as high as 80 feet -- if it includes "affordable housing".

A stretch of lots along the BQE will be excluded from the re-zone to encourage development on less desirable land.

Residents are glad about the down-zoning, but wish it had come a lot sooner.

Once the new plan is finalized at the DCP, the lengthy land use review (ULURP) process, including public hearings, community board meetings, borough president approval and a City Council vote, will begin.

Meanwhile, development proceeds apace in Williamsburg and Greenpoint.

The article from the Brooklyn Paper:
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/44/31_44_bm_downzone.html

Green Church Bulletin

The roof comes off the parsonage.

The chute goes into a dumpster called "Guma".

A piece of timber flies out the window.

"Guma's" gaping "mouth" looks ready to devour the stuff flying out of the window onto the driveway.
Looking up through the exposed roof timbers from Ovington Avenue.

Voting

When I went to vote at 11:00 a.m., there was a line of people about a hundred yards long at P.S. 170, my local polling place.

But when I took this photo at around 1:00 p.m., the place was dead.
A charming handmade sign in someone's front window on Bay Ridge Parkway.

The Brooklyn Democratic vote, from NY 1:
http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/88349/brooklyn-could-offer-almost-1-million-democratic-votes/Default.aspx

The BPC Meets

The next meeting of the Brooklyn Preservation Council will be on Monday, November 17 at 6 p.m. in the Borough President's first floor conference room at Brooklyn Borough Hall (location subject to change).

I have found Council meetings to be an excellent source of Brooklyn-specific preservation news, information, ideas and support, and I hope that other former Committee members will join.

The Battle of Brooklyn

I spent Sunday afternoon in Prospect Park visiting the Old Stone House and Battle Pass, major sites in the Battle of Brooklyn.

My guide was historian Bob Furman, from whose book I got the following description.

Our walk started at the Old Stone House re-construction in Byrne Park.

The fieldstone farmhouse was originally built in 1699 by the Vechte family on the Gowanus Road, which wound through a tidal marsh.

Seventy-seven years later, as Brooklyn grew up around the house, it stood just south of the intersection of the Port Road and the Gowanus Road (Garfield and Fifth).

Because of its location at this intersection, the house became a crucial site in the Battle of Brooklyn, the first battle of the American Revolution, on August 27, 1776.

Control of the house became the key to controlling the only escape route the Americans had to flee the British slaughter at Valley Grove Pass.

Here, "the brave two-and-a-half hundred" Marylanders died defending the house against British troops determined to cut off the American retreat.

Once on the Port Road, the fleeing Americans could reach the Flatbush Road, which became the Ferry Road (Fulton Street), and return to their inner line of defense in Brooklyn Heights.

By 1908, the developing city of Brooklyn had literally buried the Old Stone House, but in 1911, community activists submitted a petition to the old Board of Estimate asking for land to build a park between 3rd and 4th Streets in which the Old Stone House would be reconstructed as a museum.

After many years of community advocacy, the Board of Estimate voted to acquire the now-buried Old Stone House.

When Byrne Park was created in 1933, the house was unearthed and reconstructed in the park.

More on Revolutionary War sites in New York City from the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/07/04/2007-07-04_history_is_in_the_streets.html

Green Church Bulletin

The demolition crew was on the roof of the parsonage this morning.

The demolition of the roof is underway.

Tonight on the way home from the subway, I noticed that the crew had rigged up a chute out a window in the rear.

In the dark, it looked like the chute was coming out of a first-floor window -- it is in fact coming out of a third floor window.

Among the e-mails I read when I got home this evening was one from a Committee member who is an architect. He had the following to say about demolishing rowhouses:

"Attached row homes are not typically designed to be demolished. The single party walls in between support both houses, and the last house in a row -- after over 100 years of settling -- may behave as a buttress."

In other words, the last house helps to prop up the entire row.

Another Committee member who is a contractor said almost the same thing.

Post-Script:

The Kimballs brought to the church's attention the fact that there was no chute, and that the debris from the demolition were being thrown out the window.

The chute was installed in a third floor window on Monday morning.

The permit posted on Ovington Avenue is for the demolition of a 2-storey brownstone. The DEP asbestos abatement form describes the house as a 3-storey brownstone -- owned by Abe Betesh.

The house is in fact 3 storeys high, and the community -- and a Kings County Supreme Court judge -- have been told it is owned by the BRUMC -- not Abe Betesh.

In fact, the continued ownership/occupancy by the BRUMC of the parsonage lot was key to the church's application to the Kings County Supreme Court for judicial permission to sell.

When the Kimballs asked the supervisor of the demolition about the discrepancy on Monday, he disclaimed any knowledge of the matter.

The demolition resumed today at 7:03 a.m.

The Kimballs describe their house as "shaking" during the demolition.

Park Slope Pumpkins for Obama

Biking to Work

According to the city's Department of Transportation (DOT) there has been an unprecedented 35% increase in commuter biking in New York City since last year.

Over the past 6 years, city cycling levels have doubled.

DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan says that the city is "well on the way toward our goal of doubling the number of bike commuters."

Cyclist volume on the Williamsburg Bridge has quadrupled during the period 2000-2008 to an average of 4,000 cyclists a day.

The press release from NYC.Gov:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot//html/pr2008/pr08_047.shtml

Budget Cut Crossfire

The state's budget crisis will deeply impact the city, which could face more than $1 billion in budget cuts as the state struggles to close an unprecedented $12.5 billion budget gap in FY '09.

The state cuts are on top of cuts imposed by Mayor Bloomberg to
address the city's own budget deficit. Bloomberg may also seek property and income tax increases.

Statewide, schools, hospitals and nursing homes will likely see funding cuts.

New York City, which has 40% of the state's population and two-thirds of its Medicaid recipients, will be hit hard by state budget cuts: $11.5 billion of the city's $59 billion budget comes from the state.

With upstate hurting worse, Mayor Bloomberg predicts that Albany will shortchange the city “so bad it's going to make your head spin."

A multi-billion dollar federal stimulus package won't close the gap, and Gov. David Paterson has ruled out the old Albany standbys of "creative accounting" and borrowing.

Paterson wants real, recurring cuts.

The state's $12.5 billion deficit -- about a quarter of the general fund for FY '09 -- must be closed by spring.

The Legislature is due back in Albany on Nov. 18 to find ways to plug a $1.5 billion hole in the current budget -- followed by lobbyists, union representatives and other special-interests looking to keep their funding.

Hospitals are looking at across-the-board cuts, layoffs and lost beds.

City schools could be "devastated" by losing funds gained last year after a 13-year legal battle, meaning more crowded classrooms, fewer electives and less tutoring.

The article from Crain's New York Business:
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081102/FREE/311029318/1008

From Reverend Billy

"From around the world and down the city streets you can hear the shouts of Change-a-lujah!

Consumption is down for the first time in 17 years.

The Demon Monoculture is the Wicked Witch of the West, melting into the floor until only the head is left, screaming 'Easy credit! Easy credit!'"

Green Church Bulletin

The Methodist parsonage now being demolished shares a common wall with the row house next-door, which is home to the Kimball family.

I visited the Kimballs today and they kindly allowed me to take these photos.

The patio behind the Kimballs' house. You can see the gutted parsonage next-door and the particleboard barrier that was thrown up around the demolition site, inches from the Kimballs' patio.

Inside, we looked at three different types of cracks in their three-story century-old row house: 1) old cracks that have stayed the same since the demolition of the Green Church; 2) old cracks that have become longer and wider since the demolition of the Green Church; 3) new cracks opened by the demolition of the Green Church.

The photo above shows one of several new cracks opened by the demolition of the Green Church, most noticeably on the third floor, where Mrs. Kimball's elderly parents live.

It isn't hard to imagine that the demolition of the massive stone and brick church next door could cause the kind of structural changes I saw inside the Kimballs' house today.

All the Kimballs can do now, as they wait for the parsonage to come down, is to move all of their valuables away from the wall they share with the parsonage, and keep a daily record of the changes that are happening to their house as a result of the successive demolitions.

This is the Kimballs' back yard. The back yard of the Methodist parsonage is on the other side of the fence on the left.

According to the plans the BRUMC submitted to the Supreme Court, this back yard will become a parking lot, which may be in daily use.

Post-Script

This is interesting.

The DEP asbestos control form for the parsonage lists "Abe Betesh" as the owner.

I thought the BRUMC was keeping the land on which the parsonage sits for a new church building.

Is the form wrong, or has the deal changed?

The asbestos control form from the DOB BIS database:
http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/BScanJobDocumentServlet?requestid=3&passjobnumber=310205131&passdocnumber=01&allbin=3146549&scancode=SC080127005

Will the Farmers Market Stay?

The much anticipated Bay Ridge farmers market, which opened on October 4th at the former Key Food parking lot on 94th Street and 3rd Avenue, may have to close in January due to construction on the new Walgreen's that will replace Key Food.

Greenmarkets' Michael Hurwitz and local residents who want to keep the market open hope to persuade Walgreen's to let it continue.

Local real estate agent and dedicated foodie Daniel Marangio has offered to help find a new location for the farmers market in the neighborhood.

Dyker Heights-born Marangio misses the neighborhood stores that have been replaced by supermarkets and one-stop groceries, and, like many of his friends, has been traveling to Manhattan to shop at the Union Square farmers market.

The article from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/nyregion/thecity/02mark.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=thecity&adxnnlx=1225549387-2Mc6QaJM81m2SVIfSpMNKA

More from Brownstoner:
http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/11/bay_ridge_green.php

More from Best View in Brooklyn:
http://bestviewinbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2008/12/bay-ridge-green-market-is-still-going.html