Results tagged “garage”

Brownstone Brooklyn, you never cease to amaze us. Long story short: Man buys brownstone in recently landmarked district of Prospect Heights from old woman. Old woman continues to live in the garden apartment. Man decides he wants to put a garage in there. LPC says they have no applications for Landmark approval for the address.

The Bicycle Access Bill requiring commercial landlords to let office workers bring bikes inside office buildings wasn't the only bike-friendly law passed by the City Council last week. Less noticed was Intro. 780, the Bicycle Parking Bill. If signed by Mayor Bloomberg, it will require the operator of every garage and parking lot with a capacity of one-hundred or more cars to provide and maintain parking spaces for bikes. (And in two years, garages and lots with 51 or more spaces will have to provide bike parking.) The law mandates one bike spot for every 10 motor vehicle spots.

Mayor Bloomberg has an unlikely opponent for his plans to build a sanitation garage in SoHo. Lou Reed has now taken his soapbox (previously stationed over at New York magazine) to the people's network: NY1. They report, "The rock star and his musician wife, Laurie Anderson, are among those suing the city over the plan that would build a garage, maintenance facility and salt shed on the corner of Washington and Spring Streets." Reed showed up at the network's studios last night and declared, "Why would anybody in their right mind want to do something so ugly, so irresponsible, so disgusting other than Bloomberg and real estate people, and slither this thing through without anyone having a chance to say about it because no one knew anything about it. You can't keep track of every last thing these thieves do. But having said that, to store that much salt over water, over the apex of two parks is beyond irresponsible and these people ought to be jailed." Fair enough. But one has to wonder if Reed would use his fame power if the facility were further away from his penthouse.

Despite the economic tailspin, developers are still moving forward with luxury residential buildings that – assuming anyone can still afford to occupy them – will result in 170,000 new cars on city streets by 2030, thanks to city regulations requiring new developments to contain a minimum number of built-in parking spots. That estimate comes from public transit advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, who held a press conference at City Hall yesterday urging the city to change the policy, which they say will produce 431,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year.