Four New York lawmakers are urging the National Guard to step in to preserve two deteriorating buildings along Admiral’s Row in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, upping the pressure in a lengthy bureaucratic transfer process that’s left the structures in danger of collapse.
The city is supposed to take over the two buildings — the historic Timber Shed and a former home called Quarters B — from the Guard as part of a development deal that would both rehabilitate them and create a ShopRite supermarket and industrial space on the site. But until that acquisition happens, the Guard isn’t allowing any emergency repair work and hasn’t done anything to preserve the buildings on its own.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Rep. Nydia Velazquez, who represents the Navy Yard, has now written a letter to Army Secretary John McHugh asking him to allow $2 million allocated to the Army Corps of Engineers for the buildings to be immediately used to stabilize Quarters B.
“Given the rapidly worsening state of the buildings, we now ask that the property be immediately transferred to the city,” she wrote in the letter, which was also signed by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Edolphus Towns, also of Brooklyn.
A spokesperson for the Guard said “expediting the property transfer process” is everyone’s goal but that it needs to finish up environmental and historic reviews, according to federal law, before that can happen. [WSJ]