The Eminent Domain

When we first started putting together this site last fall, Alyssa and I spent a lot of trying to figure out just who, exactly, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership was.

According to the organization’s website,

The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP) is a not-for-profit local development corporation incorporated in the summer of 2006 in an effort to coordinate economic development activities in Downtown Brooklyn and ensure implementation of public and private development projects in the area. The DBP works in close partnership with the City of New York to:

• expedite design and construction of public capital projects
• facilitate the development of commercial and residential real estate projects
• create strategies for corporate recruitment and the reuse of undercapitalized properties
• advance the development of cultural venues and public space within the BAM Cultural District
• coordinate transportation planning initiatives
• spearhead an area-wide branding and marketing campaign
• improve area business conditions and quality of life.

The DBP incorporates the functions of four existing not-for-profit organizations providing economic development services within Downtown Brooklyn (Downtown Brooklyn Council, BAM Local Development Corporation, MetroTech Business Improvement District and Fulton Mall Improvement Association) and has an annual operating budget of approximately $8 million.

The DBP has a staff of approximately 25 and is overseen by a Board of Directors comprised of leaders from Downtown Brooklyn’s corporate sector, academic institutions and cultural community.

A little vague, right? And what about that $8 million budget? Only $2 million is coming from the City, and the BID budgets don’t add up quite that high. So who are the private funders? We placed some calls, but got no answers.

Well, we’ve gotten our hands on an internal email, dated August 16, 2007, containing a complete listing of contributors (after the jump) and amounts paid. We figure it’s in the public interest to know exactly who has been financing the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership’s activities, and therefore has former Bloomberg administration economic development officials at their disposal to advocate for their projects.

Read the rest of this entry

FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality) is having our 6th annual Convention on May 17th, at PS 67 at 51 St. Edwards Street, from noon to 5 p.m. Lunch will be served from noon to 1 p.m. At 1, we will be ushering all of the community tenants into the auditorium to hold our District leaders and elected officials accountable and have them answer all the questions the community has about the development in Downtown Brooklyn, the problems they are having in their public housing developments, and the lack of services in their community.

Some parts of our community are lacking are a supermarket, laundromat, pharmacy, restaurants, grocery store, retail store, Check Cashing, and fish market. The community also wants the renovated community center to be opened to the people currently living there and, want to be a part of planning of the programs that will be offered there as well.

The community wants the vacant apartments in the Ingersoll and Walt Whitman Houses filled. The Community also wants the condominiums that are springing up around the community to be affordable to the people of the community as well folks earning income ranging from $16,000 to $35,000.
Once the Convention program wraps up in the auditorium, the community members in attendance, FUREE and the Sarah McKinney High School Band will be marching around Downtown Brooklyn!
I had a lot of fun planning the Convention. I got the chance to speak with and invite elected officials like Congressman Ed Towns, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, State Assemblyman Hakim Jeffries, State Assemblyman Karim Camara, State Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, Council Member Letitia James, Council Member Charles Barron, Councilmember David Yassky, and Mr. Tino Hernandez (Chairman of NYCHA).

In the planning of the Convention, we had a lot of footwork ahead of us. We are putting up flyers all over the neighborhood, door knocking throughout the community and making many phone banking calls to the people in the community to get them to come out and hear their elected officials but also to have their elected officials hear them.

We plan on having at least 500 people at the Convention this year since we had 300 people last year. We are giving out drawstring bags with packets, which will have a lot of information for the people, a FUREE pin so that they can show support, a pen that says FUREE so that we’re always in their creative writing minds and more goodies, just for signing up and coming out. We also had fun making the flyers posters, and FUREE flags because we get a lot of volunteers. We sat around a large table making these and having a lot of fun learning more about each other. At the Convention we will wear our FUREE T-shirts, which come in red, black and white.

The Convention is a very powerful learning session and forum to show that the community cares and wants to be involved in the decisions made about their lives. It iis a space where the community can hold the elected official accountable for their words and actions. It’s important to be able to have these accountability sessions because none of the elected officials come knocking on the community’s doors to give them any answers about what’s going on.

FUREE’s annual Convention is where not only can these sessions can take place, but where these sessions give the community back it’s voice, it’s power to make change and the energy needed to keep on fighting for the rights on the community members.
Everyone is invited to come out and be heard.

Hello my peoples. My name is Eric Pugh and I am a resident of Ingersoll houses. It’s located in the heart of Brooklyn right downtown. Downtown Brooklyn, a place where you get all your affordable shopping goods. “My Downtown,” is what I used to call it when I was young. Downtown used to be a very beautiful area.

Well, at least it used to be before the rezoning. Now where there was a neighborhood super market, local drug store, laundramats, your favorite discount store and your friendly neighborhood grocery store there stands nothing but a vacant lot.

My community was ripped away from me. It not only has an effect on me but to the residents of my community. Like our elderly. It was more convenient for our elderly to shop right across the street from where they live. Now that our stores are torn down they now have to walk three blocks up a hill just to get a little bit of shopping goods. So now not only do they have to go further than what they were used to, they also have to deal with the pain of heavy pushing or lifting. It’s just too much labor for them. My neighborhood only has one store now, on Myrtle Avenue and Prince Street, and they charge much more than they should.

So now our residents have to walk three long blocks just to get one item and to me, that’s just crazy. It’s as if downtown had its very own Katrina and the only difference it that, instead of water we are drowning from developers and this is a current that’s just to hard to swim with. The effect that was left on “My Downtown” is just heart breaking. How can you take away what yesterday owned and destroy the giving promises of tomorrow?

The Fort Greene Association met Monday night to discuss, among other matters, the controversy erupting over the grand but decrepit historic houses on Admirals’ Row, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard… and members think the solution might have a lot to do with freshly baked bread.

Check out last week’s New York Times City Section for the story on the 10 crumbling buildings on Admirals’ Row, which once housed high-ranking officers but now stand vacant. The city wants to purchase the structures from the National Guard and demolish them to make room for a grocery store that would serve and employ local residents, especially those from the nearby Farragut Houses. Historical preservationists, like those who make up the FGA, want the city to grant the 150-year old buildings landmark status and restore them — a project that, according to the Guard, could cost as much as $20 million.

At the meeting Monday night, FGA member Paul Palazzo suggested that the restoration of the houses would be a boon to the community, bringing in profits from tourism that could be used to improve other areas of the neighborhood. “We have a valuable historical asset that can be turned into cash!” he said. Palazzo, well aware that the majority of community members are in favor of the plan to build a grocery store on the site, assured his audience “we can have our cake and eat it too.” (The phrase comes straight from a December post by Brownstoner, which slammed David Yassky, Tish James, and other elected officials for contending that the pricey preservation of the buildings would kill any hope for a supermarket.)

Read the rest of this entry

With so much cooking in downtown Brooklyn it’s hard to know where to begin, but the current tug-of-war over the future of Admirals’ Row speaks volumes about the cognitive dissonance Brooklyn is going through, painfully.

Here’s what’s going on, as explained well in the Daily News: The Navy Yard Development Corporation is looking to develop a supermarket on the site of 10 decrepit mansions that once housed top officers of the Navy. Historic preservationists have sought, without success, to get the structures landmarked. Now the National Guard, which owns the buildings, has issued a report concluding that the buildings could be restored — at a price of nearly $20 million in all.

Now, we’re all familiar with the usual development scenario in New York City, as we’ll amply cover it on this site: Big developer proposes a project, government greases the way with rezoning and subsidies, neighbors rally to block the project. At first blush that looks like what we’ve got here. But. Brooklynites are struggling right now with the deep contradictions of the current path of downtown development, and it’ll make the Admiral’s Row saga a fascinating one to follow.

Read the rest of this entry