Fool me once...

From the Brooklyn Paper:

The city must ensure developers can’t weasel out of a proposal that would require them to create below-market-rate housing when building on rezoned land, says a panel of Bushwickians that tentatively okayed the scheme on Wednesday night.

Locals are still angry after the developers of the derelict Rheingold brewery on Flushing Avenue were able to blow off a promise to include below-market units in the property with no consequences, and said they don’t want to see that happen again.

“The Rheingold is such a terrible precedent,” said Anne Guiney, a member the Community Board 4’s housing and land use committee, who voted to support the plan. “I think that has made everybody very, very cautious and concerned, specifically about enforcement.”

Board members voted 17–11 to approve Mayor DeBlasio’s so-called Mandatory Inclusionary Housing scheme — which would require developers looking to rezone land so they can erect big buildings to set aside at least 25 percent of units for so-called “affordable” housing — but on the condition that the city find an air-tight way to police the program to prevent fiascos like the Rheingold redevelopment.

In that case, the city agreed to rezone the old brewery site for residential high-rises in 2013, after owner Read Property Group signed a pledge to include hundreds of below-market units in the new towers there. But Read then sold land to two other real estate companies earlier this year, both of which have refused to make the same commitment and aren’t beholden to the original agreement.

City reps claimed that they are already working on an enforcement strategy and will have one set in stone by the time the new rule takes effect, or not long after.

Knockdown Center has become an "artful" eyesore

From the Queens Chronicle:

Knockdown Center manager Tyler Myers was present at the meeting but did not speak to the board. However, he believes that the Knockdown Center has been and will be a force for good in the community.

"I have a long history of work in the non-profit sector, experience I am excited to bring to the Knockdown Center’s operations,” he said in an email after the meeting. “In a single year of operation, Knockdown Center has donated thousands of square feet of warehouse space to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for their Hurricane Sandy emergency response operations … and produced fundraisers for organizations like Ugly Duckling Presse, a Queens-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit and registered NYS charity.”

Yes, he worked in the non-profit sector - for Friends of the High Line. You know, the place that's supposed to be a public park, but is increasingly becoming privatized, much like Flushing Meadows. And Ugly Duckling Presse is in Brooklyn. Their corporate filing says so and their website says so. And we're talking Red Hook, not close to the border. But they're used to bending the truth, so we expected this.

"We feel good about the mass transit options there,” Myers said. “Four major bus lines stop within a block of us. There’s an L-train less than three-quarters of a mile from the Knockdown Center. There’s no reason why anyone coming to Knockdown would go through a residential neighborhood; they’d stay on main thoroughfares.”

How do you plan to "contribute to your community" and "build an important home for culture in Maspeth" if you don't expect Maspeth, or any Queens residents, to attend your alleged broad cultural programming? Maspeth is in the direction opposite of where the L train is, sir. And those "four major bus lines" are not very reliable at 2am.

Anyway, these photos show us exactly what you have brought to Maspeth: eyesores.

When I sent her these pics, my friend, Miss Heather, observed:

"It's like hippy meets Fred T. Sanford."

This sits outside the Knockdown Center on a public sidewalk. WTF is it? An "art project"?

A Walk Down Flushing Avenue, 1929

Forgotten-NY takes us down the Queens stretch of Flushing Avenue in 1929, based on an exhibit by the Newtown Historical Society. Pictured is the corner of Woodward Avenue in Ridgewood.