Meet Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, Andrew Rinaldi. I wonder if has hired Aleksey Vayner as his manservant.
Were you aware that the last time income inequality in the United States was this great was just before the stock market crash of 1929? I wonder what will be the modern day equivalent of "Let them eat cake".
Friday, May 25, 2007
A Scarano Building At Smith and 2nd Place?
Photo illustration borrowed from Curbed.
At the Carroll Garden Neighborhood Association (CGNA) meeting on May 14th, someone announced that a building was proposed to straddle the Carroll Street subway entrance at Smith and 2nd Place. Ominous statements were made that the developer was seeking a building out of scale with the height of surrounding structures, and worse, sought to build over the public space in front of the subway entrance. Even more ominously, the architect was none other than Scarano, of Gowanus Thumb and Gowanus Bunker infamy. An architect who is synonymous with abuse of self-certification.
The fenced parking lot behind the subway entrance is of course, perfect for residential development. And the proposed design for the site is perfectly awful. In a perfect world, a limestone and brick building with a concave, curving base and an improved plaza out front would be proposed for the site, with some ground floor retail (at least, space for the news stand) and a bicycle rack. I'd settle for a design that preserves the open plaza and fits in the scale and character of the neighborhood.
I expect neighborhood opposition to the current design to be high, and I don't think it has a prayer of an approval in its current form. Contact Community Board 6 and let them know what you think of this naked grab for the Carroll Street subway plaza.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
F'ed until 2012?!
Uh oh.
This is in response to your recent e-mail to MTA New York City Transit offering
transit-related suggestions regarding F and V service.We appreciate your
interest in improving mass transit, and thank you for your suggestion. We
have forwarded your e-mail to supervision in the appropriate operating
department for review. However, please note that express service on the F or V
line and extending V line service into Brooklyn will not be possible until
completion of the Culver Viaduct Rehabilitation project in 2012. MTA New
York City Transit intends to examine F express service and V line options for
possible implementation after the completion of the viaduct rehabilitation.If
you have any further transit-related questions, concerns or suggestions, please
contact Customer Services at (718) 330-3322, Monday through Friday, from 9:00
a.m. to 5:00 p.m., or write to Customer Services at 2 Broadway, Room A11.146,
New York, NY 10004.We take the concerns of our customers very seriously
and thank you for your interest in our transportation system
The F line has a Wikipedia entry that is informative. Apparently not only the rehabilitation project but also damage from a signal fire at Bergen Street are our obstacles to restoring express service.
KensingtonBrooklyn has posted extensively on the F line's shortcomings. I enjoyed the comment thread attached to this post.
Congestion Pricing Polls Out
Azi Paybarah has the latest congestion pricing poll results over at The Politicker.
Not surprisingly, the plan is much more popular in Manhattan than the outer boroughs, but taken as a whole, the city is split roughly evenly, 46-45 on the plan. This, for a plan that was considered laughable only months ago, is significant in my book.
Expect support to rise as specific service enhancements to the transit system are offered. (F line express, cough cough).
UPDATE:
Scratch some of that. I don't know how to strikethrough yet or I would, but it seems current opinion is actually stacked more against the plan . . . the 46-45 split was over whether congestion was a serious problem. Streetsblog has a more in-depth treatment of the poll . . . and Streetsblog commenter Glenn has an excellent critique of the poll's many flaws.
Not surprisingly, the plan is much more popular in Manhattan than the outer boroughs, but taken as a whole, the city is split roughly evenly, 46-45 on the plan. This, for a plan that was considered laughable only months ago, is significant in my book.
Expect support to rise as specific service enhancements to the transit system are offered. (F line express, cough cough).
UPDATE:
Scratch some of that. I don't know how to strikethrough yet or I would, but it seems current opinion is actually stacked more against the plan . . . the 46-45 split was over whether congestion was a serious problem. Streetsblog has a more in-depth treatment of the poll . . . and Streetsblog commenter Glenn has an excellent critique of the poll's many flaws.
Gore/Obama '08!
Jim Sleeper at TPM Cafe ponders a Gore-Obama ticket for the Dems in '08. As I've already stated, this is my dream ticket for the party next year.
Bond. Carroll and Bond.
Yesterday I took a walk from the Bergen Street 2 stop back to Brooklyn Streets HQ at 1st and Court. I was drawn over to Bond Street and Carroll to take a peek at two ongoing construction projects, this one and this one, documented on Brownstoner.
The second I was drawn to see, because it is so out of scale when looking from several vantage points that it sticks out like a sore thumb. Carroll Gardens answer to the Williamsburg Finger buildings: the Gowanus Thumb. At least from the street, where the original facade has been maintained, it doesn't look too bad from close up.
The first . . . I realized quickly that I had seen this . . . thing at the Gowanus Lounge. Up close, the "Gowanus Bunker" appears to be shoddily constructed. It resembles a nightmare Stalinist cinder block version of Broken Angel. To be fair, there is no facade up yet, so who knows what the finished product will look like. But under that eventual facade will be steel I-beams bashed through cinder block, weirdly uneven mortar work, and a structure that looks like it was thrown together piecemeal from whatever was on sale at Home Depot each week.
Now, I'm no building inspector, engineer, or architect, but that's what it looks like to the untrained eye. Needless to say, it is a Scarano building.
The second I was drawn to see, because it is so out of scale when looking from several vantage points that it sticks out like a sore thumb. Carroll Gardens answer to the Williamsburg Finger buildings: the Gowanus Thumb. At least from the street, where the original facade has been maintained, it doesn't look too bad from close up.
The first . . . I realized quickly that I had seen this . . . thing at the Gowanus Lounge. Up close, the "Gowanus Bunker" appears to be shoddily constructed. It resembles a nightmare Stalinist cinder block version of Broken Angel. To be fair, there is no facade up yet, so who knows what the finished product will look like. But under that eventual facade will be steel I-beams bashed through cinder block, weirdly uneven mortar work, and a structure that looks like it was thrown together piecemeal from whatever was on sale at Home Depot each week.
Now, I'm no building inspector, engineer, or architect, but that's what it looks like to the untrained eye. Needless to say, it is a Scarano building.
Glenn Greenwald Hammers Bearded Turd Flat
Nothing gets under my skin like bad journalism. I wrote a book's worth of angry crank letters to the NYT in the run-up to the Iraq war and thereafter, enraged by shoddy reporting by Judy Miller, Michael Gordon, and others (what are you looking at, Elisabeth Bumiller?).
In the beginning, there was no Greenwald. But a couple of years ago he appeared in the blogosphere, an almost overnight sensation. I could easily link to the guy every day, he's that good.
Back today for another stint as punching bag is Time magazine's execrable Joe Klein, fake liberal and serial Bush administration fellatrix.
Greenwald's main point, which is maddeningly ignored by the news media:
In the beginning, there was no Greenwald. But a couple of years ago he appeared in the blogosphere, an almost overnight sensation. I could easily link to the guy every day, he's that good.
Back today for another stint as punching bag is Time magazine's execrable Joe Klein, fake liberal and serial Bush administration fellatrix.
Greenwald's main point, which is maddeningly ignored by the news media:
That was one of the principal though-still-unlearned lessons of the Judy Miller Saga: when a journalist does nothing but mindlessly repeat the claims of government sources which are completely consistent with -- or designed to bolster -- the claims being made by the administration itself out in the open, the journalist is doing nothing more than turning himself into a willing propaganda tool. Again, what conceivable journalistic justification is there for granting anonymity to government sources to recite the Government Line?
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