Wednesday, August 27, 2008

224 16th Street Stop Work Order


































Some dusty old shit I found while clearing out my photo files. Looks like Ye Olde Stop Work Order is still in place from July 7th.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Troubled Scarano-Designed Building Occupied























"I want my Direct TV"



















Tighten your azimuth bolts folks, looks like 231 16th Street is now occupied. Street Easy says there have been sales.

"Curbed PriceChopper: 231 16th Street Heads South"

The final Certificate of Occupancy was issued on 9/20/2007.

DoB Job Overview

"It’s war over 16th Street condo"

Sunday, August 24, 2008

292 15th Street Mikvah


Future Site: Undeveloped vacant lot along 15th Street in south Park Slope awaits Jewish ritual bathing pool.






Above: The site in context with neighboring buildings.

MEI MENACHEM MIKVAH & SYNAGOGUE PARK SLOPE

New construction of a three-story, 3711 sq.ft. community facility for the Lubavitch community of Park Slope, Brooklyn. The building consists of three floors above ground, (that's 31' tall) and a full cellar space dedicated to ritual bathing for men and women. Seems the plans also indicate a subcellar as well.

The second level is dedicated to religious activities. The third level includes a caretaker’s apartment and a large Sukah terrace for outdoor rituals.

Daniel O'Conner Architects

Sharon Engineering P.C.

DOB Property Profile Overview for 292 15th St.


Renderings lifted from Daniel O'Conner Architects home page















































Niddah Please...

Even if you covered it in aluminum siding, this one's gonna stand out from the crowd. IMBY's hoping for a facade of natural stone, maybe weathered limestone... Even modernist Breton Brut with roughly imprinted concrete would be welcome. Please, no mirror polished granite or salmon colored CMU's. Do you think the curb cut will be used for parking out front? Would love to see a nice tree over some SUV with clergy plates. That section of 15th needs street trees badly. What are the chances of seeing some vertical gardening up along that staircase? GREEN WALLS link



UPDATE: Well everyone out of the pool, DOB may pull the plug.

City may wash hands of Slope bath
By Sarah Portlock
The Brooklyn Paper

Saturday, August 23, 2008

574 Fourth Avenue Erection.





Here's another Henry Radusky=Bricolodged Designs building crawling out of it's hole along Fourth Avenue. Steel is going up. Twelve stories worth=120 feet tall. 80 units in which to dwell are on their way.
DOB profile page for 574 Fourth Avenue

House(s) of the day.
Not much time left for this world edition: Both 100 and 98 Sixteenth Street are currently for sale. Two dominoes ready to fall to the wrecking ball. Developers? Anyone... Anyone?

$739,000

Address: 98 16 Street
Residential Style: 2 1/2 Story Bedrooms: 2 Bathrooms: 2
Basement: Yes, Full "finished"
Lot Type: Rectangular Lot Size: 20ft x 128ft Year Built: 1935 Taxes: $555.00 blah blah blah.

Does the R8A zoning overlay extend this far down 16th?

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

575 Fifth Avenue Trailer Parked

Ironic use of plastic pink flamingos?
Plans have been approved. Waiting for permits to be drawn. In the meantime, the old municipal parking lot on 5th Avenue is now a trailer park. Why not run with this idea? What do you think about scrapping the new affordable housing planned for this site and instead try parking about 20 or so DWR Airstreams on the lot? Do you think the neighbors would object to the upscale hobo/hipsters habitat?



IMBY PAST POST:
Thursday, February 15, 2007
575 5th Avenue ULURP Application


575 FIFTH AVENUE


THE PROJECT DESCRIPTION


DOB PROPERTY PROFILE OVERVIEW

JOB FILINGS

Monday, August 18, 2008

Retirement Home for Well-Loved Stuffies.





































I am ashamed.

There is a lone evergreen tree growing in front of a home on 12th St. in the South Slope where "well loved Stuffies" are stacked into a kind of retirement. A miserable nursing home of sorts for mangy moth-eaten unwanted toy animals. They are all left out, exposed to the elements. Someones idea of a contemptible compost pile for fiber-filled fun fur. Dingy, dirty, down-at-the -heel cartoon characters.
Tattered, wretched menagerie... "Blue, is that you? Elmo? For God's sake Pooh... I'm sorry, I didn't know.

Juliet's bushes: 370 12th Street



































Green, green, brown,
green, green brown,
green, green...

Green, green, green,
brown, green, brown,
green, green.

LINK: NEW BK CONDO CURB APPEAL

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Park Slope Armory View Narrowing

















All that remains of the day.
The background: See the Park Slope Armory women's shelter dormitory with rooftop boiler smokestack.
The foreground: See construction lights left on in one of the Armory Plaza's future apartments.


These are the 6th and 7th floor elevator room bulkheads with standard private viewing platforms.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Bob Dylan Plays Prospect Park Tonight




















I'm In Here.




Tonight @ 7pm Prospect Park Bandshell


Crowd Control

If you were thinking of coppin' a free peek at the legend, think again. They've installed an eight foot tall screened fence surrounding the entire bandshell's perimeter. Then there's another row of metal barricades with wooden snow fence attached, out in front of the big fence.
I expect the blue meanies will be out in full force. Hoboes, bring your tree climbing shoes.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Rainy Sunday in Prospect Park





















































































Swan family flock in the lavishly green Lullwater near Prospect Park's Audubon Center at the Boathouse. Young swans start out gray feathered and are called Cygnets. The male swan is called a Cob, the female a Pen.

Those tiny, free floating, green leafed plants forming velvety blankets on the surface of our sheltered waters are called Duckweed and belong to the family Lemnaceae.

Sorry, no electric boat rides when there's lightening.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

322 12th Street fenced.

























Tear Downs @
$188 per buildable foot
Looks like another wood framed 25 footer is about to meet its maker. New building permits for 322 12th Street are on the books, and the plywood fence is up, signaling that the demo is on the way.
Seems the property changed hands in February of this year for $1.23 million?
Back on November 2007 when 322 was for sale, Brownstoner.com posted a story about a bidding war breaking out at the open house, driving the price up 25% over asking. Here's the link. There are something like 99 comments to look back through. Always interesting to see the different mindsets at work. In the end all the discussion points about the potential renovation costs are moot. Developers are lovin' these 25' wide lots. That extra 5 feet of width is the kiss of death for these old stick built 1 and 2 family homes. They're going quickly all over the R6B zoned South Slope and Green Wood Heights. Another tear down on the block, 314 12th Street, recently sold for $1.35 million and has already "broken" ground.




Architect for this project:
ROBERT PALERMO CORPORATE DESIGN OF AMERICA PC

4 dwelling units

Looks like another 50' tall, 4 story with mezzanines, type of a building is coming your way.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Greenwood Heights garden door.

Pelargonium x hortorum x air stream trailer

Skunk's Misery Road, Millerton NY

















Three glorious days without the tortuous sounds of concrete cinder blocks being cut in half by gasoline powered chop saws...

For the reminder of what an actual unobstructed sky looks like,

Thank You!

Friday, August 01, 2008

561 11th Street rubble.


















ROBERT PALERMO
CORPORATE DESIGN OF AMERICA, PC






















Future site: 561 11th Street
A four family, 4 story, 44 foot tall, building is planned for this R6B zoned lot just down from 8th Avenue. The lot is 25' wide and a little over 84' deep. Community Board 6
DOB Property Profile

This is the same architectural firm that designed 400 15th Street, now celebrating it's fourth year of construction.























For you little pigs who prefer to build your houses from sticks, here's a little yellow wood frame beauty that sits right next door to that pile of broken bricks. I gotta say this restored house just keeps getting better and better looking over time.