Views of a born and bred Brooklynite. (umbrooklynborn@gmail.com) This blog satisfies my need to hear and air feelings of B'klyn from the people whose life experience were born here. Hopefully it'll balance to some of the revisionist historical musings I've seen as if Bklyn barely existed before the 90's. Brooklyn as Tabula Rasa. If we can all live as best possible while appreciating the past and neighbors we've inherited that would be great too.
The thing many long term Brooklynites of a certain age remember is that if you took all those cheesy hollywood films about nightmarish crime ridden High Schools and rolled them into one they still wouldn't beat the reputation of Erasmus High. Seated in the Flatbush at what arguably is the geographic center of Brooklyn, Erasmus did a lot to earn that rep, or at least it's students did. Major crimes occurred just enough to make a Junior High Senior piss themselves at the thought of attending. And yet there is another side to Erasmus, as mentioned in the Times article, Erasmus is the oldest High School in the city, and one of the oldest standing in the country. Constructed in 1786 the building pictured above is the original school around which the modern school was built. It's also important as a former Tildenite that I mention Erasmus and all who attended were our sworn enemies and those epic stories are for another day.
Well the local Main Stream Media (MSM to the bloggies) has been all a flutter with Bloomy's proposal to effectively shutdown Broadway in Times Square in favor of a Ramblas styled public space. People are pissed and the press is eating it all with aplomb and a ladle but fear not Bloomy's minions express, "this is only a test" and will be reversed if it causes a trip down midtown to be timed with an hourglass.
Meanwhile here at BrooklynBorn Blog, I felt the bug of spring cleaning (really the lingering nag of New Years Upgrades undone) and I too have made drastic changes. You may (but as most designers fear may not) notice there are changes to this very blog. Where once there were two columns, now there are three. This should give you more info to pick like the succulent ripe from my musings are, without having to scroll around so damned much.
I've also added one of those cool "label clouds" as I learned they are called, which basically displays past topics in order of how many posts are written about those topics. The biggest sized labels have the biggest size, lesser written about topics have a smaller size. Plus a few additions I added months ago that never took, suddenly came to life with this redesign. And finally, just to plea for appreciation I will tell you that it took hours to revise, rewrite and otherwise screw with alot of techie javascript, xml, and wierdo-webpage code to bring this to life, and hopefully make your experience reading the BrooklynBorn Blog more pleasing. So don't said I never did ya nuthing.
Overall the pages as a result should be neater and I'd like to know what you think. Feel free to hate my overlord machinations because after all, "this is only a test".
It's been so damned cold out. But have you noticed? The days are getting longer and this is the last Photo Wednesday in Feb 09. To get us through the moment I thought a look back to brighter, sunnier, warmer days would help set our minds on a bright, sunnier, warmer future. Here's some pics I shot in Summer past when T-Shirts (and even no shirts) ruled.
According to recent news Chrysler and GM plan to drop a combined total 50,000 jobs this year so by comparison I guess we should be happy for people like those hearty construction workers who reach for the sky everyday in order to lift still going condo projects over our heads, like the development at 80 DeKalb pictured below.
Say what you will about the Condo-virus, capitalism, the perils of navigating construction sites or what-have-you (and you know I usually do) none of that changes how surreal it is to watch buildings rapidly grow. From my vantage point up in the Brooklyn Born Aerie, I've watched a total of over 100 stories go up in five buildings in the last twelve months. I find it mesmerizing in a weird artificially organic way.
80 DeKalb development comes into view behind the Forte Condos
My trance starts to wear off when I think of the needs of the average working family to find an affordable and acceptable place for a family of three or four to live. It doesn't disparage the desire to build and sell condos to admit that the price point for many condos in otherwise middle-income areas leaves them vacant for long periods, even in a good economy while developers weight for buyers to help them turn a profit.
However 80DeKalb is a rental development, which thankfully was pointed out to me by Norman Oder of the Atlantic Yards Report, whose blog has much more detailed info on the developer (Forest City Ratner of Atlantic Yards infamy) and the specifics of the project much of which can be seen positively and negatively depending on your politics.
Case in point the quickly constructed "Forte" with it's 30 stories, 500k+ starting price, and already dingy outer walls, is visibly 50% unoccupied three years after completion. A fact you can see from nearby Fort Greene Park. (below) Many vacancies are visible in the Forte Condo building.
Watching the skyline change before my very eyes (often one floor per day) is nothing when you consider the video below presenting the plan for downtown Brooklyn in 2012 that barely has anything to do with the Atlantic Yards calamity. Many of these towers are under construction at this moment.
Maybe you've seen this video, maybe not, I think it's interesting to see the 2012 plan, appropriately narrated by "X-Men" super-villain "Magneto" (Sir Ian McKellen provides the v.o.) The 80 DeKalb building materializes into view at 1:00 of the video from the left side. Check it, pass it, and try and wager which of these giants will actually be completed...
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