From left: Squibb Park and Beastie Boy Adam Yauch
A group of residents in Brooklyn Heights say the neighborhood’s Squibb Park should change its name to honor the late Beastie Boy Adam Yauch, aka MCA, the Brooklyn Paper reported. Squibb Park, which has a skate park and will one day serve as the entryway for a bridge linking the neighborhood to Brooklyn Bridge Park, should be named for a local, not 19th-century pharmaceutical pioneer Edward Robinson Squibb, the residents say. [more]
From left: Community Board 2 Chairman Brad Hoylman, Alicia Hurley, NYU's vice president of government affairs, and NYU's expansion plan
An ambitious plan to expand New York University’s Greenwich Village campus by 2.5 million square feet was unanimously rejected by Community Board 2 during a raucous hearing last night where residents and local community activists roundly criticized the proposal.
The board approved a resolution, which will be posted on its website this morning, blasting nearly every phase of NYU’s so-called 2031 plan, which would take nearly two decades to complete. [more]
When the developers of Trump Soho built the 46-story hotel-condo in Hudson Square, they were allowed to build 20 percent bigger than zoning would typically allow by vowing to build an 8,161-square-foot plaza. According to the Villager, one year after the building opened, the developers now want to take back some of that space for outdoor seating for the Quatro restaurant on the hotel’s ground floor. Trump Soho representatives presented the plan before Community Board 2, which plays an advisory role in the City Planning Commission’s decision, arguing that the plaza attracts little public use and the cafe would invite people into the public space. … [more]
The city has launched its public review process for a preservationist-friendly rezoning of a 31-block swath of Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill that would discourage out-of-scale building and prevent commercial development from intruding onto residential blocks in the neighborhood, City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden announced today. The proposal covers the mostly rowhouse-filled blocks bounded by Atlantic Avenue to the north, Fourth Avenue to the east, Warren and Wyckoff streets to the south and Court Street to the west, Burden said. TRD… [more]
While pop-up shops have become popular among landlords looking to secure temporary tenants during the economic downturn, Soho’s Community Board 2 isn’t thrilled with some of the pop-up tenants that have opened up shop in its neighborhood, according to Eater. The board, which claims the non-permanent tenants have become a menace, plans to hash out the issue of pop-up shops and restaurants at Thursday’s community meeting. The group has already begun distributing fliers that claim pop-up establishments are setting a “dangerous precedent” that could “become the new backdoor means by which an eating and drinking establishment obtains their liquor license without going through the proper legal procedures.” [Eater]
Adam Weinberg, director of the Whitney, and a rendering of the museum (credit: Renzo Piano Building Workshop in collaboration with Cooper, Robertson & Partners)
The Whitney Museum of American Art will break ground on its new downtown site May 24, with the project slated for completion in 2015, museum officials announced last night during a Community Board 2 meeting. With 70 percent of the funds raised for the project, demolition is scheduled to begin in February. Whitney’s director, Adam Weinberg, was on hand at the West Village meeting to present the newest plans for the 200,000-square foot building, which will be located at the southernmost entrance of the High Line, in the Meatpacking District. Weinberg noted that the museum’s move downtown is a “return to our roots in the Village,” since the Whitney originally started out on West 8th Street in the 1930s. … [more]
Greenwich Village residents are making a renewed push to keep three parcels of land out of the reach of an expanding New York University by transferring their control from the city’s Department of Transportation to the Department of Parks and Recreation, according to the Daily News. Community Board 2 has already orchestrated several unsuccessful attempts at the transfer, but this time, amid the school’s 2031 expansion plan, Villagers are stepping up their efforts, having already sent out petitions to Mayor Bloomberg, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. NYU has said it wants to take the blocks where the land parcels — including the Mercer Playground, LaGuardia Park and the Mercer-Houston Dog Run — are located and “knit them back into the city.” [NYDN]
… [more]
“Overtaxing,” “disturbing,” “untenable” and “a misfit for the community” were some of the choice words used last night by Greenwich Village residents to describe New York University’s expansion plans, particularly the school’s proposal to build a 38-story [more]
“Overtaxing,” “disturbing,” “untenable” and “a misfit for the community” were some of the choice words used last night by Greenwich Village residents to describe New York University’s expansion plans, particularly the school’s proposal to build a 38-story [more]
Toll Brothers’ planned residential tower on Dumbo’s Water Street cleared the first phase of the public review process when a Community Board 2 committee approved the project’s design in an 8-3 vote last night. Toll Brothers’ plans call for 67 market-rate apartments and 86 underground parking spaces. Current zoning in the district allows for up to 12-story buildings and does not have the 20 percent affordable housing requirement that other areas of Brooklyn have, so the steel and gray concrete project at 205 Water Street glided through the vote easily. “We loved the gritty nature of this industrial area, and that was our inspiration,” said Navid Maqami of Greenberg Farrow, which designed the project. Toll Brothers, which recently abandoned its long-planned Gowanus Canal development after it garnered a Superfund designation from the Environmental Protection Agency, will now need to win approval from the full community board before an April 6 vote by the Landmarks Commission. [Brooklyn Paper]… [more]
For NYC real estate updates provide email below
