Carroll Gardens Elder Statesman Talks Development
“For about 30 years I’ve been on bended knee,” says Buddy Scotto, “begging developers to come into Carroll Gardens. It’s hard for people who haven’t been involved to understand how difficult it’s been.” Scotto, who was born on Court Street and owns several properties in the neighborhood, including the Scotto Funeral Home on 1st Place,…
“For about 30 years I’ve been on bended knee,” says Buddy Scotto, “begging developers to come into Carroll Gardens. It’s hard for people who haven’t been involved to understand how difficult it’s been.” Scotto, who was born on Court Street and owns several properties in the neighborhood, including the Scotto Funeral Home on 1st Place, is referring to neighborhood residents who’ve been calling for a moratorium on all new construction over 50 feet. The most vocal of those activists have organized as a group called CORD, or the Coalition to Respectfully Develop. “All of a sudden there are all these people who are concerned about high buildings are going to be,” says Scotto, the “unofficial mayor” of the neighborhood who helped create the Carroll Gardens Civic Association in 1964 and played a significant role in getting the Gowanus Canal flushing tunnel reactivated in the late ’90s. Scotto says he supports the current plans for the Public Place site, Clarett’s project at 340 Court, Billy Stein’s development at 360 Smith, and the Toll Brothers’ project next to the Gowanus Canal. Scotto answers critics of new development by saying that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” adding, “what I’ve tried to call Clarett is that this intensity of feeling about Carroll Gardens is what will help sell their development. It’s all a plus.” While Scotto welcomes the development projects now on tap, he also believes that most of the neighborhood should be landmarked, which he says he’s been pushing for since his civic organization helped get four blocks in the area landmarked in 1973. Scotto is working with Bob Furman, formerly of the Four Borough Neighborhood Preservation Alliance, to raise funds for a landmarking study, while another group, the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association, is also independently trying to raise funds. “While I’m excited about all the new development,” says Scotto, “I have been anxiously awaiting the landmarking of the whole neighborhood since 1973.”
Calls for Reining in Development at Carroll Gardens Meeting [Brownstoner]
Time for a Moratorium on the Moratorium Talk? [Brownstoner]
Photo from nyc.gov.
Scotto’s Wine is one of the worst wine stores I’ve ever been to.
And his relative (niece or daughter), Rosanna Scotto is a terrible news anchor.
Landmarking may happen someday but not for years. And there are many blocks in Carroll Gardens are just not historically or architecturally significant. That is just the reality. What I suspect will happen is downzoning in CG in exchange for a lot of development along the Gowanus and 4th Avenue. Landmarking of the garden blocks and limited additional areas.
Does not matter what it was like in the 60s or 70s its time for Buddy Scotto to Move to Florida he is done in Carroll Gardens. It’s time to Landmark now OLD MAN>
You would be very lucky to have lived in the Carroll Gardens or Park Slope of the 1960s or 1970s. It was a beautiful time. It wasn’t congested and materialistic and muich more diverse than people realize: Hispanic, German, Irish, Italian working class, professional class, intellectual class. Kids played street games all day and very care free. Our imaginations and instinct took us everywhere and anywhere. You could walk to the candy / soda store with a dime and get a treasureful of “penny” candy. You do not know anything, nor will you ever know anything about Brooklyn in the 1960s or 1970s.
Buddy said he’s been, “begging developers to come into Carroll Gardens.It’s hard for people who haven’t been involved to understand how difficult it’s been.”
HUH?
Maybe thirty years ago it was hard to find these developers. But today they are begging and chomping at the bit! It’s not an question of: “Do developers want to come and build in CG?” The answer is an obvious “Duuuuhhhhh”….
The old CG he is talking about is long gone replaced by newer residents paying 2 million dollars and uP! for a home here. Of course developers know this kind of market and its potential value and are dying to get their jands on it.
The question is “HOW” will they develop? not:
“Will” they develop?
Are current residents really supposed to remain silent while these same developers run unhibited all over CG ruining the very neighborhood they live in and have invested in themselves? Should the community be welcoming them with the same kind of “carte-blanche welcome” that Buddy likes to embrace:a kind of ‘wink, wink, nod, nod…yes, yes, yes, to the developers like we have no options and praying for some tiny little, barely significant, crumb back from them if they offer it? Of course not!
No the community nust be wary and cautious and skeptical and ask a lot of questions and demand answers since this is our neighborhood after all.
And the community needs to understand the real “END GAME” in sight for CG. What will CG look like in ten years? Will anyone living here now recognize it or even want to live in it? Isn’t that an important question to ask?
As for his “supporting” the current plans at: “340 Court St and 360 Smith St) perhaps he is privy to the final plans of these buildings? No one else in the community knows what the final buildings will look thanks to the developers own caginess about sharing them with the public. How can any community as passionate as CG is, be expected to support anything sight unseen?
Did Buddy mention that landmarking will not happen until 2010 the soonest? That is the reality of an over-stressed landmarking commission swamped with applications.
The community needs to have a much louder voice in determining the future of CG and few of the new residents here have ever had any personal contact with Buddy. That is why so many people do not understand where he is coming from as “unofficial mayor”. He has, indeed, helped CG develop into the 21st century and CG is nothing like it was in the 1960’s and 1970’s. But then again, neither is Park Slope, nor Boerum Hill, nor Cobble Hill for that matter. And perhaps it’s high time for him to share his “unofficial mayor” postion with more of his neighbors at large and fewer of his hand-picked cronies and politicians.
and he wears a terrible hair piece!
Just Landmark the Area and Enough with this Old dude Buddy Scotto. Who cares what he says know one is going to listen to him there is New Blood in Carroll Gardens and we Want it Landmarked now.
The article failed to list Scotto’s interest in the Bayside project, also on the Gowanus, with plans for 500 units and 140 foot heights.
“FOLLOW THE MONEY,” it’s the straightest line for reporters to take to get the real story.
“One, because he’s registered Republican even though he’s on the board of a local democratic club. Two, because until recently he lived most of his life in Bensonhurst. And, three, because he’d have to disclose the sources of his wealth.”
Four, he’s connected.