Gothamist: Really Bad Ideas in Architecture, Brooklyn Edition

kid_quick

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 11:23:51 -0500

yeah, I fondly look back at the good ol' days of how this facility is manhandled. Back in 2004, the House of Detention was planned to be used to house all those feisty, unwieldy protesters at the RNC. And fitting enough, never done.

zach

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 08:45:33 -0500

The nifty gifty idea is horrible. All it does is let some corporations profit off of the families of prisoners. Given the socioeconomic demographics of who goes to prison in New York City, I see a problem with this. But the alternative, turning the jail's lower floors into an upscale mall to assuage its impact on the gentirfication of the neighborhood, doesn't seem like any kind of real solution to the problem either.

Toby

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 22:14:58 -0500

According to channel 11, one of the possible things they could be putting there is a "upscale supermarket".

shoebox

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 16:30:24 -0500

The jail cells will probably still be larger than my bedroom.

M

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 13:40:09 -0500

I live right next to this "collassally ugly" structure and actually don't think it's that ugly. That said, what we definitely don’t need in this neighborhood is any shop that remotely resembles an "upscale airport gift shop". Initial impressions of the admittedly strange juxtaposition of retail and detention aside, is the mixed use idea really all that bad? And if you think a jail-mail idea is a bad idea, how about a jail-bank? I don't know if it's still operational, but in Litchfield, Conn. there used to be a town lock-up which shared a common brick wall with a bank. There's a silent film script in that situation somewhere...

Scott

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 12:02:24 -0500

Call it a detention center in Bk. and it's "colosally ugly". Put it at 2 Columbus Circle and it deserves to be protected as a landmark. Go figure.