420 42nd Street: This One Could Get Ugly
It looks like Sunset Park is not immune from the kind of neighborhood wrecking developers who’ve been plaguing the South Slope and Greenwood Heights. First brought to our attention in Monday’s Sterling Place thread, a section of Sunset Park that heretofore has been composed almost uniformly of 3-story houses is about to get its first…
It looks like Sunset Park is not immune from the kind of neighborhood wrecking developers who’ve been plaguing the South Slope and Greenwood Heights. First brought to our attention in Monday’s Sterling Place thread, a section of Sunset Park that heretofore has been composed almost uniformly of 3-story houses is about to get its first non-contextual sore thumb in the form of a full lot-line (or almost 85X100′) 10-story, 31-unit building with underground parking and a 29′-high first floor daycare facility. The pile-driving started last Friday, which was a surprise to the neighbors who had never received advanced noticed that is required to be given to owners of adjacent properties. From the correspondence we’ve been privy to, there’s a groundswell of opposition building in the community. Once word gets out that this building, if built, will ruin the park view of historic St. Michael’s Church on 4th Avenue and seriously compromise the harbor vista, the whole nabe is likely to be up in arms. Given the scale, this fight could be the ugliest one we’ve seen yet. Check out the first salvo on YouTube below.
420 42nd Photo Gallery [CCGH] GMAP P*Shark DOB
Goodbye Sunset Park Views [YouTube]
Sunset Park Vista Photos [Bridge & Tunnel Club]
Heres a voice never seen or heard on here….im a small time developer putting up a five floor condo in williamsburg, eight units. im a normal post hipster from twenty five years of living in tribeca and the lower east side when i used to step over bodies on the street to go home at night. you guys can speculate all you want about how the process with the dob works, but ill tell you this from first hand experience….my site has been closed down TEN TIMES in two years…thats right, its taken me two years to get the building two thirds done. They harrasss me endlessly about the most minor stuff, the inspectors never cease coming at all hours of the day and night, i get fined up the yazzoo for things i have no control over, and i cant put ina screw without hundreds of forms filed and triple filed and notorized and hand delivered by a lawyer at three hundred dollars an hour. So i just dont know what the hell you think your talking about. Nothing can be done in Williamsburg, anyway, without every i dotted and every t crossed a hundred times for the DOB to give permission for ANYTHING to procede. thanks.
All I can say is that I’ve lived in Sunset Park my whole life. It is not the same anymore, and changes need to be made. Slowly, people are being driven away, not just by lack of housing, but the same ILLEGAL immigrant overcrowding going on… THAT and not the construction of needed housing, is what is taking away whatever charm the neighborhood had at one time. There are bigger issues and problems in the area that are largely ignored, and I don’t hold my breath on those issues ever being addressed by our local hacks (Ortiz is a joke, IMO) errr politicians.
I’d like to see some bookstores and shops, things for kids to do, and less bodegas/drug pushing fronts and 99 cent stores.
For those who want coffee houses, bars and all the things that make Park Slope look like Park Slope, GO TO PARK SLOPE! Sunset Park is not like any other neighborhood. It has its own identity and will remain this way.
Josh K, you are definately a moron. Move back to where ever the hell you came from because you obviously don’t know what the hell ur talking about. Maybe you are thinking about the gowanus mess that is 3rd ave. Don’t insulut the residents of Sunset Park, it is a very impressive neighborhood.
Areas improve all the time, like Williamsburg and Clinton Hill. The only thing missing from Sunset Park is some nice restaurants and bars.
Other than that, I think the area has great protential to be come a vibrant neighborhood. The express subway line on 4th Ave will get you to Manhattan in under 30 minutes and it has a great view of lower Manhattan. The rent there is still relatively inexpensive and the area is safe.
sunset park is a dump.i’ve lived there most of my life and was more then glad when i was able to move out a few years ago. i feel nothing but sympathy for those who have no choice but to live there.with that said, speaking from strictly an architectural point of view, there are many blocks with handsome brownstones in sunset.55th between fourth and fifth comes to mind.unfortunatley the human element in sunset makes even the nicest looking blocks downright unbearable to live in.that’s not to say that sunset doesn’t have great people living there. it does.but unfortunately they are not the ones that set the tone for the neighborhood.
I live across the street and they are disturbing my sleep. grrrr.
It’s called progress people. Get used to the way the world works. New buildings replace old ones.
Sure, Sunset Park is not a hipster paradise. However with new large projects like this one it may have a chance.