« Senate Helps Golf Club in Eminent-Domain Fight | Main | Letters to the Editor, New York Times »
June 11, 2006
For Brooklyn's Beacon, the Luxe Life
New York Times
To most Brooklynites, it is surely the building's exterior, especially the four illuminated clock faces below the dome, that matters most. But there is some question about how visible these images will be in the future. A 22-acre plot of land around the corner is the site of the proposed Atlantic Yards development, including a basketball arena and more than a dozen new towers, which some critics of the Atlantic Yards proposal say could obscure the bank building's pride of place as the grandest light on the borough's skyline. After three-quarters of a century, they fear, the classic skyscraper that has been Brooklyn's beacon could disappear from view.
...
Many of the dentists will lose their offices in the conversion (Dr. Franzetti is among only 16 who will stay on), but they weren't the only ones unhappy with the building's new role. In April, nearly 100 protesters gathered outside the tower to demand low-income housing in return for the city tax breaks for which the development, as a rehabilitation project, will be eligible.
"When they invited me to their grand opening, I told them I am not going," said City Councilwoman Letitia James, who participated in the protest and whose district office occupies a storefront just down Hanson Place from the tower. "Downtown Brooklyn is becoming very homogeneous. We need to preserve the diversity of downtown Brooklyn. We need to advance it."
Posted by amy at June 11, 2006 1:52 PM