Today is a day full of real estate goodies (though not are all quite so good). Here are three more:
First up, Williamsburg, Brooklyn:
Ah, Bedford Avenue between North Third and North Fourth. You aren't such a bad little stretch. Bummer that former Bronx borough president, congressman and Bloomberg campaign manager Herman Badillo and his merry band of real estate developers want to build "Williamsburgh Square" there. What's a Williamsburgh square? It's a full-block retail-residential complex that could range anywhere from six-to-forty stories tall.
Next up, historical landmarks!
Lots of different things go into making Gotham the quirky mish-mash of architectural styles that it is. But for the past forty years the quirky New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has played a large role than most. Brought about in the aftermath of the destruction of Penn Station the commission has recently made some very "interesting" decisions like allowing the city to raze the Purchase Building (above) which sits below the Brooklyn Bridge. An interesting read.
And finally, the Ugly:
That giant building on the Bowery and Third that's been covered in a green sheath for some time now? The one that is supposed to become a "boutique hotel" operated by those crazy guys who run the Maritime? You know the "Tower of Bowery?" Well, then you probably also know that there's more then a few things "funny" with it too. Like it's a bit tall for it's zoning and well, actually, nothing about the building has made any sense really from the git go. So we weren't that surprised when we heard that the building was going up to the City's Board of Appeals. We just figured not that much would come of it. But then we got this in our mailbox: A letter of support of the appeal.
Not only does it go through all the things that the illegal ways in which the 4 East 3rd Street has been developed from a garage with a bunch of scary dogs into an enormous leprechaun, it argues forcefully that "Each of the five DOB [Department of Buildings] final determinations at issue in this Appeal should be overturned for essentially the same reason: Each is directly contrary to the black letter law of the zoning law at issue, and DOB lacks the authority to re-write those laws even if necessary to justify the building it has allowed to be built."
We're not normally haters like this, but, we say tear the whole thing down.
Second photograph detail by Angel Franco for the New York Times.
