Hamilton Avenue Marine Transfer Station Update

New York City Department of Sanitation's Hamilton Avenue Marine Waste Transfer Facility along the Gowanus Canal.  An early 2007 artist's rendering.

Wondrous concrete ramp under construction. A place for 10 loaded sanitation trucks to queue-up before hitting the tipping floor.  The facility is designed to accommodate 36 low sulfur burning collection vehicles per hour.

Site map.  That's the Marine Transfer Station wedged between The Home Depot's parking facility and The Department of Transportation's Asphalt Plant .

Past IMBY links:  Demolition of the old Hamilton Avenue Marine Transfer Facility

548 6th Avenue's Plywood Cocoon.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

299 16th Street Wood Revival

Construction blooms
Spring has sprung and Summer is now here. The Southern Slope's air is filled with the pulsing sounds of power miter saws and pneumatic nail guns. 
Let's take a look at two recent real property sales and their nearly complete gut renovations.

The before picture:  This 1,440sf two family, 299 16th Street, sold for $812,000 back on September 13th,  2011.  The new buyers wasted no time in gutting the interior back to the studs.

299 16th Street sporting its new full frontal facade lift. 

Nice fenestration.

The new owners have chosen to keep the humorously mis-designed gate with its molded concrete pillars featuring a backwards "WELCOME" sign and street address number.

Comp.
Another gut renovation just up the hill on 16th Street and Eight Avenue next to the Sud's Laundromat, is reaching fulfillment.  Last sold for $915.000 on November 18th, 2011, it appears they are painting over the brick facade.   What do you think?

A gray, black and red color scheme.  New casement windows.

From the NYC Municipal Archives: Fire Ravaged P.S. 10

Brooklyn's Public School 10 as photographed from the corner of 7th Avenue and 17th Street.  This dates from 3 years after the fire which occurred on January 3rd, 1927.  link

Caption reads,  "From  S.E.  Cor  Room  8 -1st Floor- WHERE FIRE STARTED"  link

ROOM 24 SECOND FLOOR    link

ROOM 42 THIRD FLOOR   link

ATTIC NORTH WING   link

ROOF WITH TEMPORARY COVERING   link

Our P.S. 10 Phoenix
These photos were discovered while browsing through the astonishing NYC Municipal Archives online photography galleries.  The ones above documenting the fire damage are all dated March 18th, 1927,   and are  reproduced from the original 8x10 acetate negatives.  Links to the Archives are provided. 
I had no luck in finding any coverage of this story in the New York Times nor the Brooklyn Eagle despite what looks to be a major fire that climbed all the way through to the roof.  People familiar with today's P.S. 10 will notice the extensive renovations that have occurred over the years.  I don't think much if any original wood work survives. There are built-in closets left for the kids coats in some rooms but most everything looks to have been lost in the name of fire-proofing.  The tin ceilings are gone as well as those gigantic sliding glass paned doors that must have separated the classrooms. 

Anyone know of any nonagenarians in Windsor Terrace who witnessed the fire?

I swear I was only trying to look up an old property tax photo...
This being primarily a South Slope architecturally focused micro-blog, I will tell you right now that we will not be providing any links to the Archives' 299 "Homicide" photos. Especially the ones of the bloated sea captain and the disemboweled body of a schoolboy.  However, to give you an idea of the  spectrum of NYC life captured for eternity in the archives here is a link to a young fireman with dalmatians and one to an image of conjoined infant boys. 

EIFS Dreamscape

 W i n d   s o r t   e r r a c e

WYTHE HOTEL'S VINTAGE TIN

The Wythe Hotel's Brand-Spanking-New Neon Sign, Installation Complete.

Long Island Brush Fire

Spent a lovely Easter weekend in Montauk.  
Our drive back home to Brooklyn was dominated by this foreboding skyline...  Acrid plumes of smoke blotting out the setting sun.

April Fools: Millerton New York

April Fools:  Woke up this morning to snow covered forsythia.

Look at the Plans to Renovate Slope Park

Existing Site Plan

Pretty much everything in the this playground needs to go or be upgraded.  The climbing equipment is old and dangerous.  The broken concrete/granite water feature is a mess.  The actual ground is uneven with numerous trip hazards like the cobble stones and asphalt that has been pushed upwards by tree roots.  There is no fall protection at all under the monkey bars some with platforms over 6 feet high.  There is none of that thick spongy rubber mat used everywhere now days. 

While Slope Parks trees are magnificent, most of the plantings, the shrubs and bushes, are badly beaten up by the kids, I guess when playing hide and seek in them. Shaded from the sun by the tree canopy, the grassy areas never get enough sunlight, and look threadbare at best.  

Some quick observations about this design. 

Separating the play areas into zones based on age is always a good idea. Keep the toddlers fenced in as much as possible away from the general population.  

I like the plan of moving the 18th Street entrance down to the corner of 6th Avenue. Currently when you enter the 18th St. gate you head down a steep ramp straight into this massive tree.  

It's also a good idea to get rid of the overly large, underused concrete seating area.  No one ever actually played there.  Parents and guardians  need to sit close to where their kids are playing with a clean line of sight.  The water coarse runs down the sunny midsection... that's good.   Plenty of benches... Could always use a few more than you think as the nannies claim the shady ones early.  Awesome spinning disk... check. I see there are swings planned. Don't skimp on the swings for the older kids... No one likes to wait in long swing lines. Slides, where are the slides?  Plural. we need multiple slides, especially a curly-cue one. We could use better (height appropriate) drinking water fountains. No sandbox? In my humble opinion, good riddance.  Who needs pin worms anyway.  

Gotta say pretty exciting.  Overall a huge improvement. There is talk that construction will start soon and take a year to finish, but that would seem optimistic.  What do you think about the new design?

Ideas...My kids love the new spinning dish they installed in Vanderbilt Playground in Prospect Park.

"Dear Tree Sweater Person"

S.B.K. responds to the tree sweater hater out there who swiped the block's entire collection last Sunday.

Below Grade

Cellar 548 Sixth Avenue.

Stoop

nonslip

Millerton House A Hudson Valley Home in Search of New Owners.

"We love this house. But here’s the thing: after eleven fantastic years in Millerton, we’re buying a place in Brooklyn..."

Our very good friends are selling their Millerton house and moving down south to Brooklyn.  Bucolic GreenWood Heights to be precise.  If you're interested in making a change,  you can read what they wrote about their place here.

Twist of Fate
Over the last three years we've spent just about every available weekend minute up-state at our Millerton mountain house- my daughter has it nicknamed "KittyCat Hideout".   Summer, that's when we met this-old-house-for-sale family,  riding bikes along the Hudson Valley Rail Trail.  They stopped to inquire about our old dog, Oskar the Dachshund, who rides with us in a wagon we pull from behind.  Of coarse we ended up being invited back to their big blue house, pictured above, for drinks out on that great front porch.

That afternoon we discovered, after an insanely torrid game of Twister, that both our same-age sons would be attending Brooklyn's PS10 in the Fall and that I'm unable to go "left foot blue" no matter how hard I try.

Oh,the serendipitous mysteries of life.

Stoop

Patience, Fortitude, and Drooper.

Got Wood?: New Facade in the Works for 16th Streeter.

January Update: The windows are in. Six-over-one double hung sash, no less.

South Slopers will know this house by its art-is-anal self-cast poured concrete newel posts.  They forgot to reverse the letters and numbers in the mold and so the word "WELCOME" came out backwards.

Ahhh, symmetry!

This Old House Dumpstered

Building is being dumpstered.  548 6th Avenue is leveled.  
Out stair parts.

Newel Composted

Stoop

Ho Ho Ho