Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Historic district designation threatened in Brooklyn

From Brownstoner:

According to an email that went out last night from the Historic Districts Council, the Ocean on the Park Historic District, which has received broad support at every step of the landmarking process, is in jeopardy of being sabotaged at the last minute by Councilman Mathieu Eugene. Calling the situation a "preservation emergency," HDC reports that the Councilman "seems to have been swayed by the anti-preservation rhetoric of one property owner, who has put their property up for sale and has marketed it specifically as a development site."

Update: Ocean on the Park: Crisis Narrowly Averted

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

that looks like lefferts ave. Once a great central bklyn neighborhood until about 1966,i know,i grew up in "old"flatbush just south of empire blvd.It is now known as prospct lefferts gardens and wingate.All those limestonrs on stelinst,lffwrts ave,lincoln rd,maple st,et al are zoned 1 family hoses.I would say 90%are 2 if not 3 family illegal conversions.remember "blockbusting" in the 60's? i do.

Anonymous said...

Second look,that is probably ocean ave,near parkside ave. The apt. building in the foreground is /was patio gardegens.............great memories.

Anonymous said...

Read the latest HDC posting & you will see the councilmember now favors landmarking for the whole district.

Anonymous said...

Funny, if this was in Queens,

the local newspapers would be interviewing the holdout and printing letters to the editor from uninformed nutcases slamming landmarking (and not printing letters from advocates),

writing slanted stories that are antilandmarking (interviewing in detail those against it and giving them the last say "but those against the designation claim blah blah blah" ),

the local pols would be sitting on the fence and 'listening' (while their brothers in the clubhouse purposely spreading lies and sowing dissention within the community),

HDC would be, well, unless the 'right' person is involved with them (sort of like a mini clubhouse - get it?), politely ignoring the mess,

and those in the landmarked communities like Brooklyn Heights, and the West Side, enjoying subsidies from taxpayers for their status, would say absolutely ... nothing.

Anonymous said...

These historic districts were once what made certain NYC neighborhoods so desirable and open to gentrification. How ironic it is that now, they are just in the way of developers who want to replace them with high density, human warehouse crap.