Riverside Apartment Tenants Resist Garage
The LPC may have approved an underground garage with a park atop it at the Riverside Apartments in Brooklyn Heights, but tenants do not approve. They’ve hired a law firm, Collins Dobkin Miller “to represent them at the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal,” says the Brooklyn Eagle; DHCR has to say…
The LPC may have approved an underground garage with a park atop it at the Riverside Apartments in Brooklyn Heights, but tenants do not approve. They’ve hired a law firm, Collins Dobkin Miller “to represent them at the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal,” says the Brooklyn Eagle; DHCR has to say yes for it to proceed.
The problem with that building is that it is hobbled with particularly malevolent tenants who use the well-intentioned regulations of rent control to basically live for free in one of the city’s most expensive neighborhoods.
The landlord wants them out. And why shouldn’t he? they don’t pay rent, they are a pain in the ass, and they think that they own the place because they have squatters rights. It is appalling. Guiliani should have emptied the place out in the 90’s like he did similar buildings in the East Village and elsewhere. Not all the tenants are malevolent but it is the toxic ones that call the shots.
Many of the finest apartment buildings in the city have garages, people don’t die because there are cars in the basement. The whole thing is so stupid and it is made worse by the BHA who is an enabler to this type of self-destructive behavior.
Sam, unfortunately it seems you know very little about the building or its inhabitants.
The problem is not simply a garage. It is a garage under this garden behind this historic building in this historic neighborhood. A walk around the building would show warehoused storefronts that the landlord won’t rent out in order to plead poverty more convincingly. The brick, steps, etc., are chipped and falling apart. Any plantings surrounding the building are done and maintained by the tenants you love to denigrate.
We are not discussing a garage, underground or no, beneath a brownfield in Maspeth, Queens. AT White is cited by Jacob Riis in “How the Other Half Lives” for this ground-breaking project. Should a garage go under the AT White buildings in Cobble Hill, in place of their gardens?? How about the gardens by the Promenade?? Even if the building WERE NOT diverse, it’s still a travesty.
Is it OK because a percentage (and far from ALL) of the tenants are on rent control? Should the apartments of free-market renters fresh out of the Ivy League get one window box each in compensation, since they are more important??
Should YOUR apartment/building/home be surrounded by fumes in direct proportion to your rent/maintenance/tax bill?
bklyn20: get a grip. It’s just a garage. It’s not the nazis marching into Poland. There is nothing diverse about that building. Most of the rent-control tenants are cheap, unfortunate white folks. Some are quite mad, and if there is one thing there is plenty of in the heights it is old, white, nutty ladies and gentlemen.
This building is probably the most diverse in Broklyn Heights — not exactly a likely location for a “gated community.” The parking lot “garagecarden” is a problem because, among other things, the garden itself should be a landmark.
Given the current lousy economy, why can’t Packer decide to put a garage in their front or back yard, or Plymouth Church? What about the giant gardens behind the Remsen street townhouses that open onto Grace Court? All these beautiful and historic places could then become built-up lots, garages, etc.
Botanically speaking, the 50- to 100- year old trees in the current historc garden are 5 stories high. The proposed garden will not have sufficient soil (4 or so feet, by Pinnacle’s own estimation) to support such large and beautiful trees. And given the current landlord’s poor record on building maintenance, they won’t take care of the new trees in their de facto container garedn any better than they have the facade, the stairs, the stonework, etc. Trees in shallow soil need more frequent replacement, watering, pruning, etc. Check the Bklyn Botanical Garden’s own info if you want a reality check.
Pinnacle recently fired most of the maintenance people for the building, so why will they stick to their promise of a trust for the building to maintain the trees? How will they enforce the monthly-parkers only rule — and how will DOB/landmarks enforce it?
Sure, we ned more parking, but we DON’T need it in anyone’s historic backyard. Dessicated bonsai trees atop a parking garage are NOT the same as a properly restored historic garden designed by AT White. Those who think it’s the same, hope soon have neighbors crying poor and renting out parking spaces in lieu of front’yard gardens. I hope they enjoy the fumes and honking on spring mornings.
The BHA is in La-La land. Some of the self-annoited community leaders have deluded themselves into thinking that they live in a private community with limited access to outsiders.
If I read the article correctly, sam, there seem to be two “problems” with the garage. First, rents on the regulated apartments are reduced because a previous landlord tore up the garden. “Restoring” the garden (on top of the garage) will allow the current landlord to raise rents. That seems to be a “problem” for some of the tenants. Secondly, it seems that the Brooklyn Heights Association is concerned that the garage is going to create additional traffic.
slick might be right about construction being a nightmare. Digging down between a nineteenth-century apartment building and the BQE sounds like it might have all sorts of unforeseen consequences.
construction of a one-level underground garage a nightmare? Why? Is the courtyard built on solid rock?
It will basically be a big landscaping job. Underground parking, though expensive, is usually the option of choice for landmark-protected properties. No?
My instinct is that construction will be a nightmare. I wouldnt want to live near it.
What is so terrible about an underground garage?
The plans look nice to me.