From the Prospect Heights Message Board

Uploaded on March 29, 2005
by kenpete

ftunnah writes: “Does anyone know what happened at the Grand Army Plaza Stop today? There were about 6 cops there around 1pm this afternoon and there was a lot of blood on the platform. I can’t find it on any local news websites….”

Posted in the Prospect Heights Message Board

OK, OK, it was an innocent typo…

PICTURED: Mamma Donna leads the crowd at the Autumnal Equinox event… thing… yesterday at the Grand Army Plaza fountain.

Click here for more Autumnal Equinox pictures by trevorbrkyln

trevorbrklyn posted this in the Prospect Heights Message Boards: “Drumming in the Dark: An Autumn Equinox Celebration
with Mama Donna Henes, Urban Shaman & Co.

A sunset ceremony to center us as we enter the dark season

Bring kids, drugs, percussion & plenty of spirit [uh… kids and drugs??]

Thursday September 22

6:00pm Event Begins; 6:23pm Equinox Moment; 6:43pm Sunset

Free at the Fountain, Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn (2/3 Train to Grand Army Plaza)

For Info: 718 857 1343
Mama Donna’s Tea Garden and Healing Heaven

According to Wikipedia, the autumnal equinox is “the moment when the sun reaches one of two intersections between the ecliptic and the celestial equator … the length of the day (and the night) is precisely 12 hours at an equinox.”

GO: Prospect Heights Message Boards

So now that summer is almost over, what’s the deal with the fountain at Grand Army Plaza (Bailey Fountain) that stilll hasn’t been turned on? queen_of_pies reports on the Prospect Heights message board… “Here’s what Prospect Park Commissioner Tupper Thomas wrote to me when I inquired about why it was dry: ‘We hope to have the fountain running by Labor Day, but it could be as late as Sept. 15th. The engineering sub-consultant has taken responsibility for the problem and the new pump has been ordered. Installation will begin as soon as the new mechanical device arrives…’”

Read more on the Prospect Heights message board.
IMAGE SOURCE: Bridge and Tunnel Club

DH regular JoshB writes: “Not to toot my own horn, but I have an article in this week’s Time Out about the puppet library. Go … service journalism!”

You can try looking at the Time Out website, but they have an annoying habit of not posting articles online.

LINKS:
PUPPET LIBRARY Coming Back to Grand Army Plaza
HOME HEATING OIL Puts Prospect Heights on Map

PICTURED: The home of the New York Puppet Library in Brooklyn. What would puppets read (WWPR)? You can find out. This just in from the The Puppeteers’ Cooperative:

“The Rights of Spring in Brooklyn, NY will happen, starting with a volunteer parade, 1PM Saturday May 14th and Sunday May 15th … Saturday starting at the Arch (Grand Army Plaza), and Sunday starting at the Meadowport Arch, just inside the park at the Grand Army Plaza. Come parade and be in the show - you can watch it too, if you wish. This weekend will also be the kickoff of the New York Puppet Library lending season. Then we will attempt to have a show in, at, or near the Arch every Saturday at 1PM, and have the library open 1-4 PM.”

DH contributor Quig got his hands on an artist’s rendition of Meier’s proposed luxury condo tower on Grand Army Plaza. Is it authentic? Based on the description we published last week (”glass, white, curved to fit the street shape”) we can’t rule it out as a fake.

(NOTE: All of the ‘air rights’ business below could be out of date. Still searching for updates but have not found any.)

Interesting. You know that tall luxury condo that will be built on the Union Temple parking lot facing Grand Army Plaza? Now, a member of the Prospect Heights Parents List (Yahoo! Groups) say the developer is in trying to buying air rights from a few neighboring buildings. Successfully buying air rights would permit him build up to 30 stories. The plan would have to survive community approval and review, of course, but it could be done.

So… the New York Times article may be “incorrect” for now, but that “30 stories” figure came from somewhere.

ALSO:We found out that the Eastern Parkway block association has discussed the condo development with Council Person Letitia James. Summary:

-Glass, white, curved to fit the street shape
-Eastern Athletic’s pool will lose (some of?) its grand view! (but will still receive light)
-Meier building will be 150 feet, or slightly higher than Union Temple)

[UPDATED]
Will the Union Temple Condo be 16-18 stories? 30 stories? 15? Both Curbed and Brownstoner picked up on Quig’s coffee-spitting moment yesterday when a New York Times reporter blithely alluded to a (ho, hum) 30-story condo to be developed on the Union Temple’s parking lot on Grand Army Plaza. Reliable sources had led us to believe that the project was going to be only 16-18 stories.

Is it possible the NYT simply got it wrong? If so, it will be another great excuse to haughtily smirk and wryly refer to that paper, with a nudge-and-a-wink, as “The Gray Lady”–which, if you’re an editorialist at a competing paper, is shorthand for “I’m intensely jealous that THEY get all the readers and that they rejected all my freelance queries.”

Now, our favorite ProHo reporter DEBORAH KOLBEN–who is always right there on the stories we care about (and who has never publicly referred to the Times in a pejorative, ageist manner), has done her own piece on the Temple Tower, which pegs its height at a more reasonable 15 stories.

Catering to the Rich: Did we call it? We called it. Developers originally and laughably sold this condo project to us as “not luxury.” However, Deb’s conversation yesterday with a “boasting” spokesperson for Richard Meier revealed that “It will be the most luxurious building in Brooklyn.” Local agents speculate a 2-bedroom unit will go for about $1 million.

So what’s the real story? 15 stories? 30? The real story is that a developer has been planning for years to put a very large, very exclusive condo in your neighborhood, and you probably didn’t find out about it until very recently.

[UPDATE TO UPDATE] Thank you, dear guest: “The NYTimes has confirmed that (the condo) is NOT in fact 30 stories. They were working from old info and will run a correction shortly. The building will be 150 feet tall, and roughly 16-18 stories.”

From the “Affordable Housing for The People” dept.:
That Grand Army Plaza condo development tentatively known as 1 Prospect Park: exactly how massive will it be? Nearly double the size we thought? Assiduous reader Quig writes in: “From today’s NYT. I almost spit coffee on my laptop.”

Today’s NYT: “Mr. Meier has taken a similar hands-on approach to a residential building he is designing in Brooklyn on Grand Army Plaza overlooking Prospect Park. The 30-story condominium includes 120 units, most of which have balconies with park views.”

Huh. There was some “discussion” of this at a community meeting about a year ago, and a few people were fuming about the long shadow this would cast–not to mention the problems a ginormous condo complex could inflict on St. John’s Place (i.e. sanitation issues and traffic from an underground garage).

The funny thing is, until today, we were under the impression that the condo would be only 16-18 stories in height. From The Real Deal, just a few months ago(Sept.-Oct. 2004): Architect Richard Meier, who designed the celebrity magnet towers at 173-176 Perry Street, is working on a new project in Prospect Heights. The building, on Eastern Parkway, is for developer Mario Procida of Seventeen Development LLC and should be ready in two years. It will be 16 to 18 stories tall, and feature one-, two- and three-bedroom units, but will “not be luxury,” Meier told New York magazine.

By the way, “Not Luxury” will be defined as affordable to the top 1% of Brooklyn families, as opposed to the usual cut-off of 0.5%. It’s a development for The People! (CAUTION: This is humor.)

According to Property Shark, the lot is still owned by the Union Temple; the lot is currently being used for parking. We are in touch with sources close to Union Temple, so stay tuned for updates.

Links:
For Act II, Architect Gets More Hands-On [New York Times]
Ownership of 17 Eastern Parkway [PropertyShark]
New Residential Developments [The Real Deal]

Recycle Your Electronics Day: Sunday, April 3rd
11am to 3pm @ Prospect Park West at Grand Army Plaza

-Bring your old computer
-Bring your friends and their old computers
-Stop by to say hello
-Help load the truck

WHAT CAN BE RECYCLED? Working and non-working computers, servers, monitors, printers, copiers, fax machines, scanners, TVs (no
wooden consoles please), keyboards, mice, cables, docking stations, battery backups, storage devices, routers, radios, phones, cell phones, stereo equipment, CD players and microwaves.

WHERE WILL THE ELECTRONICS GO? To Per Scholas, a nonprofit organization in the South Bronx with three primary goals: bring computers to technologically deprived children and families at the lowest possible cost, train disadvantaged community residents to become computer technicians, and provide environmentally responsible recycling of end-of-life computer equipment in their EPA Approved Recycling Facility.

Donations: Appreciated but not required. In exchange for each $10 donation, contributors will receive a $25 coupon toward the purchase of a Per Scholas reconditioned computer.

Who knew Iraq War protests were scheduled for Saturday? DAILYHEIGHTS stumbled upon a small group of protesters readying cardboard coffins and fighting off freelance reporters. PICTURED: This skit portrayed military recruiters as skull-faced merchants of death—a tactful soft-sell that surely changed a lot of minds (see also: “How to Initiate Meaningful Political Dialogue by Comparing Bush to Hitler”).

The protesters, including this money-denouncing youngster, marched to the Army, Navy and Marine recruitment office at 41 Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, where Frank Lynch stayed at least long enough to capture this phalanx of NYPD riot police:

The New York Post (which dedicated a whopping 123 words to protest coverage) pinned the number of marchers at 200. According to this Daily News article, 3 men and 5 women got arrested at the Flatbush Ave. recruiting station.

Paging Harvey Keitel.

Go take a look at the minipix (moonmilk.com).

1. Click on this Google Maps search.
2. Double-click on Grand Army Plaza (or Flatbush Ave).
3. Say, "Whoa."
4. Delete Yahoo! Maps bookmark, create Google Maps bookmark.

Andrew lets us know what’s inside Grand Army Plaza. Click on the mysterious photo excerpt to find out.

"…DOT is continuing its efforts to improve safety in the Grand Army Plaza section of Brooklyn by improving a crucial traffic island next to the Brooklyn Public Library."

"Last week, DOT enlarged a triangular island that was initially built last year. This raised island provides extended refuge space for pedestrians who cross half of Flatbush Avenue and then await the rest of the crossing. DOT installed bollards along the entire perimeter of the traffic island to provide even greater protection for pedestrians."

WEINSHALL: "We received favorable comments when we installed this raised island last year - the bollards and the increase in space shall provide even more protection."

"A total of 39 bollards now surround the island - and DOT installed an additional 1,600 square feet of sidewalk. DOT worked in conjunction with the Prospect Heights Parents Association, who requested bollards as a means of further protection."