Looks a lot better to me than your pics of Old Briarwood, that's for sure!
Old Briarwood looks like anonymous middle America. It could be suburban Cleveland.
New Briarwood, while not the prettiest, looks like NYC. Dense, pedestrian-friendly, transit-friendly, and apartment buildings (which admittedly could look better)instead of suburban crap with lawns.
If you want that kind of garbage, why not move to Kansas City. I'm in NYC because I love the urban form and density, and I want much more of this, especially in the Outer Boroughs.
Old Briarwood looks like anonymous middle America. It could be suburban Cleveland. --------------
Yes, or suburban Pasadena for that matter. There was a time where those images were eteched into the mind of the world as the mid-century American ideal.
They were conceived at a time when smarter than you people riled against the evils of 'pack em in', and did a lot of thinking on how a modern family could live comfortably with style.
Look at the crap being built now, and fast forward them to the age of the buildings you sneer.
They will be stained dirty tired and worn out. Pieces of their fascade will be missing, every door mis-matched.
In short, it would look like the cheap crap built in third world slums world wide.
First commenter makes a lot of sense. Old Briarwood looks like how most of Queens used to look! Modern Briarwood looks like urban Cleveland. Or Detroit. In other words, gettin' slummy with paved over lawns (eco-unfriendly), graffiti and bland architecture.
The reason ulgy building are being built is as follows: Zoning code regulations explained. 1. Easy way Design a box and you complied with all regulations. 2. Hard & Long way Design a beautiful edifice like the Guggenheim museum and even Frank Lloyd Wright himself barely got it approved.
The NYC City Planing-Zoning Study Group, are the only people in the entire city responsible for all the crap being built in Queens and elsewhere since 1974, when they wrote the utilitarian regulations.
Paved over front and rear yards only came about starting in the early 90's when the floor area deduction for indoor parking garages was eliminated.
The fight for attractive building design doesn't begin by shooting the deliver, but the planner. The City Planner.
"New Briarwood, while not the prettiest, looks like NYC. Dense, pedestrian-friendly, transit-friendly, and apartment buildings (which admittedly could look better)instead of suburban crap with lawns."
Please refer us to the new transportation infrastructure installed as a result of the increased housing in Briarwood which has made the neighborhood more transit and pedestrian friendly.
Anonymous #1 here. It sounds like none of the commentators have ever left their house! What odd comments!
Missing foundation, I used to live in the Third World. The poor live in self-built housing, so no, nothing in these pics is remotely related to the Third World.
And the Mid-Central American "ideal" was a nightmare. Only on Queens Crap do people defend sprawl, autocentrism, low density, segregation and crap Levitttown-style housing. Yes, the developers should build better (and higher and denser) but wackos like you are trying to stop them at every turn.
Poster #3, you have obviously NEVER been to Detroit. Detroit is 100% detached housing and has NO immigrants. They haven't had housing construction in 50 years, which is what you want (no immigrants, no development, no density). The New Briarwood has no relationship whatsoever with the Rustbelt.
Poster #4 is correct, that the zoning code needs to be improved, BUT everyone here would make it even worse with even more downzoning and developer restrictions. The only way you will get better design is with higher densities and fewer height limits (which of course, everyone here for some reason opposes, as if they lived in Mayberry instead of one of the three largest cities on earth).
Jason in Kew Gardens, can you read? The post is on development, not transit improvements. I do not see any MTA photos. If you are asking why increased density improves transit and pedestrian usage, and decreases automotive use, I think you need to take City Planning 101, or, better yet, take a train to Manhattan and then another to Plainview and observe the differences.
If you think that density doesn't create transit and pedestrian use, and sprawl doesn't encourage automotive use, then I'm not sure what to say...
Missing foundation, I used to live in the Third World. The poor live in self-built housing, so no, nothing in these pics is remotely related to the Third World.
---------
Yea, I lived there too. Were all those three and five-story apartment buildings self built?
Take pictures of Baghdad or Rio or Belgrade and you know what I mean.
And yes, we may poke fun at Leave It To Beaver and the conformity of America and the Grey Flannel Suit, but those homes and the planning that went into them have not been surpassed by today's carp.
"And the Mid-Central American "ideal" was a nightmare. Only on Queens Crap do people defend sprawl, autocentrism, low density, segregation and crap Levitttown-style housing."
Uh...The Mid-Central American "ideal" was what most of NYC was outside of Manhattan. Sprawl? We have already passed that point. Autocentrism? That was pre-determined for us when the subways were stopped at a certain point. BTW, Briarwood has great subway access so I am not sure why you chose this post to bring that up. Low density - Have you not heard that our antiquated infrastructure can barely handle the number of people we have now? Why would we choose to build more at this point before upgrading it? NYC has been a multiethnic city almost since its founding. It's the newest immigrants who come here and refuse to mingle. Levittown? Queens was never Levittown and I don't know where you are pulling this nonsense out of. Sounds like maybe it's your ass.
Hey let's not forget to mention that so-called "sprawl" is stopped in eastern Queens by private property abutting parkland being bought by the city and made part of the park. In western Queens, "sprawl" is stopped by building luxury condos.
Photo #4 - that building opened a few years ago, but note the building going up in the background... both of these are right across the street from PS 117 where my kids go to school... 4th grader says they hear construction noise all day long and there are days they can barely work. The day of the all-important city-wide reading test, they had to be moved to another classroom on the other side of the building so they could focus.
12 comments:
Looks a lot better to me than your pics of Old Briarwood, that's for sure!
Old Briarwood looks like anonymous middle America. It could be suburban Cleveland.
New Briarwood, while not the prettiest, looks like NYC. Dense, pedestrian-friendly, transit-friendly, and apartment buildings (which admittedly could look better)instead of suburban crap with lawns.
If you want that kind of garbage, why not move to Kansas City. I'm in NYC because I love the urban form and density, and I want much more of this, especially in the Outer Boroughs.
Old Briarwood looks like anonymous middle America. It could be suburban Cleveland.
--------------
Yes, or suburban Pasadena for that matter. There was a time where those images were eteched into the mind of the world as the mid-century American ideal.
They were conceived at a time when smarter than you people riled against the evils of 'pack em in', and did a lot of thinking on how a modern family could live comfortably with style.
Look at the crap being built now, and fast forward them to the age of the buildings you sneer.
They will be stained dirty tired and worn out. Pieces of their fascade will be missing, every door mis-matched.
In short, it would look like the cheap crap built in third world slums world wide.
First commenter makes a lot of sense. Old Briarwood looks like how most of Queens used to look! Modern Briarwood looks like urban Cleveland. Or Detroit. In other words, gettin' slummy with paved over lawns (eco-unfriendly), graffiti and bland architecture.
The reason ulgy building are being built is as follows:
Zoning code regulations explained.
1. Easy way
Design a box and you complied with all regulations.
2. Hard & Long way
Design a beautiful edifice like the Guggenheim museum and even Frank Lloyd Wright himself barely got it approved.
The NYC City Planing-Zoning Study Group, are the only people in the entire city responsible for all the crap being built in Queens and elsewhere since 1974, when they wrote the utilitarian regulations.
Paved over front and rear yards only came about starting in the early 90's when the floor area deduction for indoor parking garages was eliminated.
The fight for attractive building design doesn't begin by shooting the deliver, but the planner. The City Planner.
"New Briarwood, while not the prettiest, looks like NYC. Dense, pedestrian-friendly, transit-friendly, and apartment buildings (which admittedly could look better)instead of suburban crap with lawns."
Please refer us to the new transportation infrastructure installed as a result of the increased housing in Briarwood which has made the neighborhood more transit and pedestrian friendly.
Anonymous #1 here. It sounds like none of the commentators have ever left their house! What odd comments!
Missing foundation, I used to live in the Third World. The poor live in self-built housing, so no, nothing in these pics is remotely related to the Third World.
And the Mid-Central American "ideal" was a nightmare. Only on Queens Crap do people defend sprawl, autocentrism, low density, segregation and crap Levitttown-style housing. Yes, the developers should build better (and higher and denser) but wackos like you are trying to stop them at every turn.
Poster #3, you have obviously NEVER been to Detroit. Detroit is 100% detached housing and has NO immigrants. They haven't had housing construction in 50 years, which is what you want (no immigrants, no development, no density). The New Briarwood has no relationship whatsoever with the Rustbelt.
Poster #4 is correct, that the zoning code needs to be improved, BUT everyone here would make it even worse with even more downzoning and developer restrictions. The only way you will get better design is with higher densities and fewer height limits (which of course, everyone here for some reason opposes, as if they lived in Mayberry instead of one of the three largest cities on earth).
Jason in Kew Gardens, can you read? The post is on development, not transit improvements. I do not see any MTA photos. If you are asking why increased density improves transit and pedestrian usage, and decreases automotive use, I think you need to take City Planning 101, or, better yet, take a train to Manhattan and then another to Plainview and observe the differences.
If you think that density doesn't create transit and pedestrian use, and sprawl doesn't encourage automotive use, then I'm not sure what to say...
Missing foundation, I used to live in the Third World. The poor live in self-built housing, so no, nothing in these pics is remotely related to the Third World.
---------
Yea, I lived there too. Were all those three and five-story apartment buildings self built?
Take pictures of Baghdad or Rio or Belgrade and you know what I mean.
And yes, we may poke fun at Leave It To Beaver and the conformity of America and the Grey Flannel Suit, but those homes and the planning that went into them have not been surpassed by today's carp.
Period.
"And the Mid-Central American "ideal" was a nightmare. Only on Queens Crap do people defend sprawl, autocentrism, low density, segregation and crap Levitttown-style housing."
Uh...The Mid-Central American "ideal" was what most of NYC was outside of Manhattan. Sprawl? We have already passed that point. Autocentrism? That was pre-determined for us when the subways were stopped at a certain point. BTW, Briarwood has great subway access so I am not sure why you chose this post to bring that up. Low density - Have you not heard that our antiquated infrastructure can barely handle the number of people we have now? Why would we choose to build more at this point before upgrading it? NYC has been a multiethnic city almost since its founding. It's the newest immigrants who come here and refuse to mingle. Levittown? Queens was never Levittown and I don't know where you are pulling this nonsense out of. Sounds like maybe it's your ass.
Hey let's not forget to mention that so-called "sprawl" is stopped in eastern Queens by private property abutting parkland being bought by the city and made part of the park. In western Queens, "sprawl" is stopped by building luxury condos.
>>>I'm in NYC because I love the urban form and density, and I want much more of this, especially in the Outer Boroughs.<<<
Multifamily dwellings can be built much better looking than this.
www.forgotten-ny.com
Photo #4 - that building opened a few years ago, but note the building going up in the background... both of these are right across the street from PS 117 where my kids go to school... 4th grader says they hear construction noise all day long and there are days they can barely work. The day of the all-important city-wide reading test, they had to be moved to another classroom on the other side of the building so they could focus.
I laugh at you all from my house in "the country". I left NYC many years ago and haven't looked back since.
Join me. You'll be happy you did. It's never too late to actually start enjoying life...
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