Park Slope development is nothing new. But Fourth Ave. as a foodie destination? Now that’s news. The NY Sun has the write-up, marking the trend with the recent arrival of Sheep Station, an Australian pub with no sign (no sign that we’ve seen at least), following Cherry Tree and Mule.
Sheep Station owner Martine Lafond of Smith Street Kitchen fame says, "There'll be more — everybody's looking. Look around at what's going up, building-wise, and it makes sense. So we wanted to get in on the ground floor. And the people love it. They've been waiting for something like this."
And, with some 2,000 new units slated over the next decade or so (including a boutique hotel), it looks like the halal Chinese food place will face some stiff competition.
Meanwhile, just a dozen or so blocks south of the busy Fourth Ave. corridor, development has driven a Park Slope couple to set up a web site detailing their harrowing account of living next door to a condo construction site. Christopher Grimaldi and his wife Mimi Chung live at 229 16th St. Next door at 231 16th St. is the Scarano condo. Mayhem’s ensued, with damage to 229’s roof and foundation, to name a few. The site features a timeline of the chaos (and includes a damning portrayal of 72nd precinct), and plenty of documents (legal and otherwise).
In true Park Slope fashion, the couple has been handing out flyers to prospective buyers and condo lawyers are crying defamation. Chung tells the NY Post: “I’m not against development. I’m against what they’ve done because it’s irresponsible.”
The first sign that things weren’t quite right was when the contractor asked permission to install a construction wall four feet onto the couple’s property, the couple said no and the contractor one Sunday without a permit tore down their fence and started building the construction wall anyway. That was in December of 2004 and it’s only been downhill from there. Grimaldi and Chung, whose house now has thousands of dollars in damage, are filing a second lawsuit after the first one failed to resolve the dispute.
Read more on Curbed here, here and here.
Photograph by e-liz on Flickr who wrote, "i consider the divider between park slope and gowanus to be fourth avenue, with residences on the east (mine included) in "park slope" and everything to the west in "gowanus."
all signs point to the edging out of gowanus as we know it, and to the spreading of park slope all the way out to the canal and beyond; carroll slope anyone?"
