BPL Plans To Move The Brower Park Library To Children’s Museum (The First Public Presentation To Brooklyn’s Community Board 8)

BPL's David Woloch and Children's Museum's Stephanie Wilchfort present plan to move library at CB8 meeting.

The Brooklyn Public Library and the Children’s Museum jointly presented a plan last night to Brooklyn’s Community Board 8 to move the Brower Park Library into the Children’s Museum.

Brower Park Library

The presentation last night probably came when it did last night because Citizens Defending Libraries put an alert out last Sunday that Brooklyn Public Library and Children’s Museum trustees were congratulating themselves about making this deal.  (In fact, the BPL’s press release on the subject, dated Valentines’ Day, Tuesday, February 14, 2017, “Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Children's Museum Announce Innovative Partnership to Bring Family Library to Crown Heights,” came out only after we had given advance warning to some community activists and conferred with reporters about our alert earlier in the week.)  If were the cause of the presentation and press release, we are glad to have provoked the furnishing of more information to the public sooner than planned.  It is always good for the public to know what is going on as early as possible, before the cement for the fixes behind the scenes is dry.

There will be another CB8 meeting devoted to the proposed move on the library on April 4th (7:00 PM at the Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, 727 Classon Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11238- people are urged to bring their questions).

CB8 board members last night.

Video of the presentation is available on our YouTube Channel (click through to YouTube for best viewing): Plan To Move Brower Park Library To Children’s Museum Presented To Bklyn CB8.

[ADDENDUM (to the analysis below, added 2/19/2017): The article that appeared in Patch about the proposed move of the Brower Park Library into the Children’s Museum (Patch: Brower Park Library Relocation: New Details Released- The Brooklyn Public Library wants to move its Brower Park branch to the Brooklyn Children's Museum, by John V. Santore, February 17, 2017) included an additional representations by the BPL of the Children’s Museum, apparently obtained by reporter John Santore in interviews after the presentation.  While the analysis below is based on the dangled possibility that, with 11,000 square feet of potentially available museum space, a replacement library could be a larger, perhaps adequately sized library of 10,000 square or more, Patch writes of the replacement library as being just 6,000 square feet, even smaller than it is now.  Spending capital dollars to shrink what is already the “smallest library” in the BPL system while at the same time shrinking (recently expanded) space at the museum must be categorically rejected as indefensible.  Also, as Patch printed, and we missed focusing on, it is represented that the BPL would pay the Children’s Museum “about $230,000 per year in rent.”  In the presentation Children’s Museum president Stephanie Wilchfort said: “The Library is paying us slightly below market rent for this space, and that would be per square foot $37; it’s a total of roughly $230,000 a year.”  She appears likely to be saying the library is paying $37 p/s/f, which would mean the replacement library space is already sized and would be very tiny, just 6,216 square feet.  Or, Ms. Wilchfort could be saying, as interpreted by Patch, that $37 p/s/f is the market rate, but the library is paying below market and therefore below $37 p/s/f, in which case the library would be larger, but we don’t know by how much.  Another thing to think about: Given that the BPL would spend at least a probably underestimated $3 million upfront anyway, the $19K+ monthly payments mean, that at the low tax exempt borrowing rates available it could easily be cheaper for the library to buy suitable space to occupy. Apparently, DNAInfo was also told outside the room after the public presentation that replacement library could be a teenier shrunken down 6,000 square feet.  See: Brooklyn Library Details $3M Plan for 'Family-Centric' Museum Branch, by Rachel Holliday Smith, February 17, 2017.] 

First off, let us say that the proposal is not necessarily bad and might even constitute a thing to be desired.  But that is a significant "if." The devil is in the details and what we have found is that when the priorities of the real estate industry drive deals that might sound generally like good concepts, the public tends to wind up being shortchanged. . . . A lot depends on doing the numbers.

And, as for those devilish details and doing the math to ensure the public isn’t shortchanged, we notice that some of those important and potentially elusive details are problematically fugitive.

Here is why subjecting the Brower Park Library to a real estate move could, if the details are right, be a good thing, unlike some other situations where libraries have been converted into real estate transactions to please the real estate industry:

    •    The replacement Brower Park Library could, as it should be, be a bigger library than the existing one, bigger than the recommended minimum size for a NYC library of 10,000 square feet.  The Brower Park Library, built in 1963, is one of the system's teeniest libraries, only 6,285 gross square feet.
    •    The replacement Brower Park Library could be expandable (as it should be).  We say this because it was represented that the museum property is, itself, further expandable (we have not checked zoning restrictions or whether they would need to be overwritten).  Such future expandability of the library is not possible in the case of the new libraries proposed for Brooklyn Heights, Sunset Park or Inwood because such expansions are not possible when libraries are in the bottom of privately owned buildings, not possible in the bottom of residential buildings (vs. commercial ones), and not possible when all the development rights are conveyed away.  It was explained that the Children’s Museum building and underlying real estate is city owned.
    •    The replacement of the Brower Park Library in the museum would be close by, just a little more than one block (.2 miles) away, actually located next to the park for which it is named.  The library is currently at:  725 St Marks Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11216.  The Children's Museum is at: 145 Brooklyn Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11213.
    •    The replacement Brower Park Library could be (and should be) built and in place before the old library is closed so there is no need for the expense and extra disruption of a temporary library and little possibility of a bait-and-switch.  (Unlike Brooklyn Heights, Sunset Park, Inwood.)
    •    The existing Brower Park Library is one of the few NYC libraries that is not owned either by the city (as is typical), or by a library system (i.e. like Donnell and Mid-Manhattan).  The BPL has never acquired it through eminent domain and thus still pays rent to lease it.  Therefore, vacating the premises, is not exactly the same kind of reduction of the publicly owned realm that you see when other libraries have been transformed into real estate deals (although it does reduce the ultimate ability of the Children’s Museum to expand in the very long term and although it also does give up a building that invested city capital expenditures made suitable for its use as a library.)  The BPL’s representative said that it would cost the BPL (a low-sounding) $3 million to purchase the current Brower Park library site, so the BPL may be forgoing (or transferring) an option in the lease to buy at below-market.  Alternatively, the public realm would be expanded if the BPL bought the existing site through negotiation, eminent domain, or any possibly existing option.  The BPL represented (and when they are intent of real estate deals we don’t trust their figures- once again involving HVAC costs) that it would cost $8 million to buy and fix up the existing small library.
    •    The replacement Brower Park Library would have a separate handicapped accessible method of entrance, thus obviating any problems from the fact that the museum charges admission while the library does not, and the library is open longer hours than the museum and should be open even longer hours than it currently is.

There are likely problems with the proposal indicated by details that look like they might not necessarily add up or make sense and indicated also by the way that information and answers for the public last night were hedged:

    •    There is a question whether there is truly enough room available in the Children’s Museum to accommodate a properly sized replacement for the Brower Park Library.  We understand that museum trustees think there isn’t really enough space, but that with some tight squeezing the deal (that who wants?) can be accommodated.  The representative for the Children’s Museum, president Stephanie Wilchfort, said that it could readily give up 5,000 square feet of publicly used museum space for the library (“empty space at the back of the building”) while adding that there is another 6,000 square feet “in the front of the building” (“a little more than” “empty offices”) the museum uses for administrative space.  The implication that came across from saying this in the presentation was that if the museum vacated administrative space (to administrate from off site) there could be an 11,000 square foot (thus suitably sized) library housed in the existing space. Giving up just the 5,000 square feet of public museum space would usurp 10% of the Museum’s 2008 expansion (of about 51,000 square feet).  The entire 11,000 square feet for the library would usurp 20%+ of that 2008 expansion which cost $46 million, almost all publicly paid for at the time.  Did the Museum not actually need the amount of space it expanded to back then? Similarly, how does representing that there is now sufficient space available square with the museum representing that it is looking at, and intends to further expand, in several ways the public was told about last night: A new auditorium with money coming from the city, into the garden and building (“about 20,000 square feet”) upward?  Lastly, the public was told that museum was hoping to get back something it had before in the 60s and 70s: a planetarium.
    •    There is a question about whether the true cost of relocating the library is being acknowledged. The BPL’s representative aid that it would cost $3 million to build the replacement library in the museum.  $3 million seems like a depressingly inadequate amount, less than half of what you would expect to need, for properly outfitting a library that is properly sized at more than 10,000 square feet.
    •    There is a question whether the BPL truly intends to build a replacement library that would be of adequate size. That would be unfortunate if major capital improvements are going to lock in the future.  When I asked more specifically about the size of the replacement library and its cost, the BPL’s representative David Woloch seemed, ominously, to hedge and back off saying that there isn’t any minimum size a library should be, even though BPL President Linda Johnson told an audience at the Municipal Art Society on February 26, 2015 that libraries that are “7,500 square feet” are “woefully small,” and even though the Center For an Urban Future issued a report (endorsed as representing the BPL’s thinking, by Ms. Johnson) lamenting as inadequate branch libraries that are less than 10,000 square feet.  David Giles, the author of that CUF Report, has gone on to work at the BPL hired by Ms. Johnson.
    •    There is a question of for whose benefit this deal is being structured.  When I asked who was getting to walk away with the real estate of the Brower Park Library’s existing site specifically given that the BPL had previously entertained development proposals respecting the site, the BPL’s representative David Woloch said that the BPL had not such entertained any development proposals.  Going by the BPL minutes that is inaccurate.  Furnishing only the inaccurate information as his response Mr. Woloch neglected to answer the basic question: Who gets to walk away with the real estate at the site of the existing library?   The BPL minutes of September 18, 2007 say “The Landlord has proposed the following to BPL: demolish the building and build a 7-floor residential condominium; a new library would be on the ground floor; the library space would be available for purchase by the City; BPL has expressed interest in this opportunity subject to further due diligence, board approval and the availability of capital funding.”  The December 18,  2007 minutes say: “Brower Park Branch-  Developer has agreed to submit to BPL a proposal outlining an offer for a new branch library on the site in a more formal and detailed manner.”  As outlined in our previous post about this possible transaction the boards of both the BPL and the Children’s Museum have all sorts of individuals with real estate and other agenda not necessarily consonant with the best interests of library patrons.  At the presentation, the museum’s representative said that this proposal had been made to the museum “about a year ago.” That may be true, but it is interesting to note that David Offensend used to be on the board of the Children’s Museum. David Offensend, as Chief Operating Officer of the NYPL, was the master overseer initiating the NYPL library sell offs like Donnell, SIBL, Mid-Manhattan.  Meanwhile, his wife, Janet Offensend, was a key trustee placed on the board of the BPL structuring similar conversions of libraries into real estate deals like the Brooklyn Heights shrink-and-sink deal replicating the Donnell Library shrink-and-sink deal. . . . Will we ultimately finds out that this is another situation where somebody like the Fifth Avenue Committee is stirring the development pot?  We would all know more if, for instance, the BPL had provided Citizens Defending Libraries with the "Revson Study" and its "real estate strategy" requested by FOIL long ago.
    •    Question: If NYC/BPL have rights to the current site, like a below-market purchase option, how will those rights be used?   If the city/BPL has some economic control over the library’s existing site how will it be used?  Will that control be disposed of via proper bidding?  For instance, it could be wonderful if the site will be used to create housing that is truly affordable.  However, it would not be so wonderful if this is another city-controlled site that is turned over to the Fifth Avenue Committee without bidding and proper community consultation.

Clearly, while the presentation vaguely dangles as a lure an available (and likely acceptable) 11,000 square feet for a replacement library in the museum, the BPL seems to be toying with the idea of shortchanging the community with an unacceptably teeny replacement library (based on the fact that, as Woloch said, the library is currently the "smallest in the system"?-  The Crown Heights Library, over a mile away, is 11,119 square feet).

There are other things to think and wonder about.  As owner of the Children Museum’s real estate and a significant provider of its funding, the city of New York obviously has carrots and sticks with which to influence the museum's decisions: Remember that hoped-for planetarium (a funding request is in to the federal government), the city-funded auditorium, and the hoped for museum expansions?  And the intertangle of finances can be confusing.  The museum said that it expected to charge the library a “slightly below market rent” ($37 p/s/f) because of its fiduciary responsibilities.  But libraries on city owned land don’t normally pay rent.  Shouldn’t this instead be resolved more appropriately with some abatement of obligations of the museum to the city?  Otherwise the city library budget winds up being inflated by an amount that flows through to subsidize the museum, an unusual situation and not necessarily a good precedent either.  (Stephanie Wilchfort, the museum representative said, however, about the payment of rent that it was important to do it "just exactly that way."  Really?)

There was also a question raised at the presentation about whether services that the library now importantly provides adults would suffer if, as was talked about as a goal, the new library became more `children and family' focused in its offerings. 

Library officials have been taught by recent experience to say when presenting real estate plans for libraries that “It is not a done deal.”  They now carefully say that they seek and will respond to `valued’ public input.  Is that in fact true?  Lip service doesn’t make these promises sincere.

One thing is probably true: The sooner the public finds out about these kinds of plans and the more it knows what to watch out for, the more likely it can exert influence to get a better deal.  And that mean getting a deal where the needs of library patron are appropriately paramount.

Hopefully, if this transaction goes through to fruition it will only be because it is a much better transaction for the public and for library patrons than what has happened in prior situations where NYC libraries have been turned into real estate deals that were tortured to meet the priorities of the real estate industry.

We have a petition telling Mayor de Blasio and our elected representatives to properly fund libraries and not turn then into deals catering to the real estate industry-  Mayor de Blasio: Rescue Our Libraries from Developer Destruction.
 
(Signing the petition with you email also puts you in the loop for more information about selling off public assets and turning libraries into real estate deals.)

For more information about the Children’s Museum Trustees (and similarity to the BPL trustees) see our original post alerting the pubic about this transaction.  For more information about the trustees of the BPL (and the agenda which they might serve) see: Brooklyn Public Library Trustees- Identified + Biographical and Other Information Supplied.

The meeting was well attended

Below is contact information for the elected representatives responsible for the Brower Park Library:

Council Member (For the location of the Children's Museum and the Brower Park Library)
Robert Cornegy (D)
1360 Fulton Street
Ste. 500
Brooklyn, NY 11216
phone: 212-788-7354
fax: 212-788-8951
email: Rcornegy@council.nyc.gov
website: http://council.nyc.gov/district-36/

Brooklyn Borough President
Eric Adams
209 Joralemon St.
Brooklyn, NY 11201
phone: 718-802-3700
fax: 718-802-3522
email: askeric@brooklynbp.nyc.gov
website: http://www.brooklyn-usa.org/

Brooklyn Community Board 8 (for the current location of the Children's Museum and Brower Park Library)
Chairperson- Nizjoni Granville
1291 St. Marks Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11213
phone: 718-467-5574
email: info@brooklyncb8.org
website: http://www.brooklyncb8.org/

NYC Comptroller (Investigates and audits waste fraud and abuse including NYC libraries)
Scott M. Stringer (D)
The David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building, One Centre St.
5th Floor
New York, NY 10007
phone: 212-669-3916
fax: 212-669-2707
email: action@comptroller.nyc.gov
website: http://comptroller.nyc.gov/

NYC Public Advocate (charged with looking out for the public interest)
Letitia James (D, WF)
The David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building, One Centre St.
15th Floor
New York, NY 10007
phone: 212-669-7200
fax: 212-669-4701
email: GetHelp@pubadvocate.nyc.gov
website: http://pubadvocate.nyc.gov/

Brooklyn District Attorney (for criminal investigation purposes)
Eric Gonzalez
(replaced Kenneth P. Thompson)
350 Jay St.
Brooklyn, NY 11201
phone: 718-250-2001
fax: 718-250-2210
email: da@brooklynda.org
website: http://www.brooklynda.org/

NYS Attorney General (for criminal investigation purposes and oversee charities including the BPL and Children's Museum)
Eric T. Schneiderman (D, WF, I)
120 Broadway
New York, NY 10271
phone: 212-416-8000
fax: 212-416-8139
email: eric.schneiderman@ag.ny.gov
website: http://www.ag.ny.gov/

Assemblymember
Diana C. Richardson (WF)
NYS State Assembly District 43
1216 Union Street
Brooklyn, NY 11225
phone: 718-771-3105
fax: 718-771-3276
email: district43@nyassembly.gov
website: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=043

State Senator (for the site of the Children's Museum and Brower Park Library)
NYS State Senate District 25
Velmanette Montgomery (D)
30 Third Avenue
Room 207
Brooklyn, NY 11217
phone: (718) 643-6140
fax: (718) 237-4137
email: montgome@nysenate.gov
website: http://www.nysenate.gov/senators/velmanette-montgomery

NYS Comptroller (oversees authorities and adequacy of local audits such as by the NYC Comptroller)
Thomas P. DiNapoli (D)
59 Maiden Lane
31st Floor
New York, NY 10038
phone: 212-383-1600
fax: 212-383-4468
email: contactus@osc.state.ny.us
website: http://www.osc.state.ny.us/index.htm

BPL Proposing To Sell Crown Heights Library In Another Consolidating Shrinkage Apparently, Again To Make The Real Estate Industry Happy

 This page has and will be updated as necessary.

Likely in response to our surfacing the information, the BPL will present information to Brooklyn Community Board 8 on Thursday night concerning the move of the Brower Park Library (in Crown Heights) into the recently renovated Children's Museum where we understand there isn't truly enough room for it.

Presentation on moving the Brower Park Library to Children's Museum to CB8
Thursday, February 16, 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Brooklyn Community Board 8 meeting
151 Rochester Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11213
(Take the 3, 4 or A train)

This is now covered in a new DNAInfo article (Patch contacted us to track down the information after we posted what we knew, and then went to the BPL):

Brower Park Library to Move into Brooklyn Children's Museum
By Rachel Holliday Smith | February 14, 2017
Crown Heights, Prospect Heights & Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Education, Real Estate

Comparison of Brower Park Library's already far too short hours (it still has been converted to 7-day serve as advocated) with Children's Museum's even shorter hours.-  Also, information about space.  A proper library would commandeer 20% of the museum's 2008 expansion of space.

The DNAInfo article doesn't say how many square feet the "replacement library" will be but says it will be paid for with public funds (if they can get the money from BdB and the City Council) and will cost $3 million.  That very small price tag indicates a very small amount of library space or a very minimal amount of renovation work to create the space.  The DNA article does not say how small the replacement library will be.  (It is recommended that libraries be at least 10,000 square feet or more.)

The DNAInfo article does not indicate who will benefit in real estate terms by the library vacating the existing site.  The BPL had several years ago taken in development proposals for the site.  The site wasn't then owned by the BPL, but in such situations the BPL has been acquiring sites via eminent domain.  It is possible that an owner of the site will therefore benefit.  On the other hand, will the unidentified developer who was making proposals be involved?  Might it be the Fifth Avenue Committee stirring the library development pot again?

The Children's Museum is open  6 days a week, closed Mondays, for total of 43 hours.  (See chart above.)  The Brower Park Library, with hours already too short, is open 6 days a week, closed Sundays, for total of 48 hours.  The goal is for it and all city libraries to be open seven days a week.

There is no charge to use the library.  The Children's Museum has an $11.00 PER PERSON General admission to the museum for those over the age of 11 months (with “Pay as You Wish” Hours 2PM through 6PM sponsored by Investors Bank & Astoria Bank).

The Children’s Museum doubled its size with a 2008 $46 million expansion that added about 51,000 square feet.  The recommended minimum size for a NYC neighborhood branch library is 10,000 square feet (one fifth of the 2008 Children’s Museum publicly paid for $46 million expansion).  The BPL is planning to spend a paltry $3 million on the “replacement Brower Park library,” a fraction of what a 10,000 square foot library should cost.

For what we posted before that first got this information out, see below:

* * * * 

We are informed that the BPL plans to sell the Crown Heights Library.  The plan, another in an ever growing list of sales that turn libraries into real estate deals, is apparently another consolidating shrinkage to make the people in the real estate industry happy.

There has been no formal announcement of the sale plans so nothing can be verified against the public record.  The information given us was that the Crown Heights Library is being sold.  However, the Brower Park Library is another library considered to be in the neighborhood of “Crown Heights.”  The Brower Park Library is also very close to the Children’s Museum so there is a possibility that the correct information is that the Brower Park Library, a library in Crown Heights, is being sold for this transaction.  There are reasons why that should more likely be the case.

The proposal, as described to us, is for a consolidating shrinkage of space where the library will be moved into the Children’s Museum.

Crown Heights Library

Street view of Crown Heights Library

Above and below: BPL historical photos of Crown Heights Library

We were given to understand from the information we received that the 11,119 square foot Crown Heights Library, is to be sold to vacate its current site at 560 New York Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11225 and then will be moved over a mile (close to a half hour walk) and crammed into the Children’s Museum 145 Brooklyn Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11213 where there isn’t really room for it.

At 11,119 square feet the Crown Heights Library, built in 1958 isn’t one of the BPL’s smallest (like 7,500 square feet) libraries, but it isn’t exactly huge and is just barely bigger than the smallest libraries.  It is just big enough to be what is a recommended minimum size for a New York City library (10,000 square feet).  It is a single floor library so no space is sacrificed to stairs or elevators.  It has a 1,594 square foot meeting room with reasonable capacity of 69 people.  It also has conference room space: 1,594 square feet that will accommodate 16 people.  The current Crown Heights Library is eminently expandable.  At its present location the library is very convenient to the 2 and 5 on the IRT line.

Although the Crown Heights Library is only one floor, the site it occupies is currently zoned R6 (Zoning Map:17b) permitting more development rights to be used by whomever takes the site over.  For example, across the street on the other side of New York Ave (between Maple Street and Lincoln Road) there is a six-story elevator apartment building.

Library Locations

Right now the Crown Heights Library is about equidistant from five other libraries, the Rugby Library, the Flatbush Library, the central destination Grand Army Plaza Library, the Brower Park Library, and the Eastern Parkway Library.  A library in the Children’s Museum would be right by the location of the Brower Park Library, 725 St Marks Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11216.  The Brower Park Library has also definitely been eyed by the BPL, for some time now, for conversion into a real estate deal.

Brower Park Library

Brower Park Library

The Brower Park Library, built in 1963, is one of the system’s teeniest libraries, only 6,285 gross square feet.  Although it is larger than the 5,000 square feet BPL officials recently tried to shrink the Red Hook Library down to, it ought to eventually be larger.  Its 443 square foot meeting room space has the capacity for only about 13 to 20 people.

Although just one-story the library zoning lot is R6 (Zoning Map:17a).  The library is on a street where it is surrounded by taller buildings.

The Children’s Museum

The Children’s Museum, offering three floors of interactive exhibits, is currently 102,000 square feet, the result of a $46 million expansion (for which the city contributed $45 million) that was needed to double the museum’s size in 2008.  It is our information that there is not truly sufficient space for the museum to now house the library as proposed.

Trustees Congratulating Each Other On Deal

Reportedly the BPL and Children’s Museum trustees are complimenting each other on their deal.  Should they be?  And, if so, why?  The kind of composition at the Children’s Museum overlaps somewhat with the kind of trustees on the board of the Brooklyn Public Library which is chock full of real estate people, investment banker types (lots of Goldman), political operatives and other people with interest and agenda adverse to, or far from smoothly compatible with, the interests of libraries.

The board of the Children’s Museum has its investment bankers and venture capitalists, William D. Rifkin, Corey Baylor, Andrew Weissman, (an investment banker from Goldman of course, Stefan Duffner) and its people with real estate interests and connections. Tanya Levy-Odom now at Time Inc. for NYC Investor Relations used to be in investment banking.  George J. Sampas at the Sullivan & Cromwell law firm is co-head of its Private Equity Group using his knowledge of various takeover regimes. Janno Lieber is connected to all that World Trade Center stuff by heading the division in charge of it Larry Silverstein’s organization. Lawrence Kwon’s position at Moelis & Company, Investment Banking connects him through familial relationship to Ron Moelis one of the most politically connected developers in the city.  One of the board members, Adam Hess, is a partner at TerraCRG Commercial Realty Group, which focuses particularly on development in Brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods, including Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Garden.  Paul Gangsei is a real estate lawyer specializing in real estate and development transactions now at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP. (that has AT&T and SONY as big clients). There’s Chris Havens, an authority on New York commercial real estate leasing, financing, deals and culture who writes about it for the Commercial Observer, owned by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner (connected to the Donnell Library sale).  Yes there are important BPL board connections with the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  Similarly, Children’s Museum board members Jocelynne Rainey is Chief Administrative Officer, EVP at Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation.  With the BPL board you see politically involved Con Edison people all over the place.  At the Children’s Museum from Con Ed there is Milovan Blair. Brian Wornow is involved with mortgage lending and real estate market risk.  Niles D. Stewart is another banker working in the lending area.  Annik Wolf works for a conduit that seeks encourage investor funding.  Cindy McLaughlin works for “a tech company that makes never-before-been-organized property data and analysis beautifully visible to and usable by the similarly opaque real estate industry. Envelope was cofounded by world-renowned SHoP Architects and the hugely-respected Director of MIT's Civic Data Design Lab, whose work is on view in MoMA.”

Some people are just in helper businesses like PR.  Christina Bertinelli is a communications industry brand reputation expert working for Lumentus, a communications consulting firm that helps its clients manage their brands, protect their reputations and improve their perceptions across target and stakeholder audiences.

And is this a fascinating coincidence?:  The BPL board had on it, as a trustee, Janet Offensend, the wife of that library seller extraordinaire, David Offensend, who as Chief Operating Officer of the NYPL was the master overseer initiating the NYPL library sell offs like Donnell, SIBL, Mid-Manhattan.  David Offensend, who came to the NYPL from Evercore, was himself on the board at the Children's Museum!   

* * * *

This is, of course, another library being sold off as part of Mayor de Blasio’s (phone: 212-788-3000) continuation of Bloomberg’s privatizing reduction of the public real and public ownership.

The other elected officials involved and responsible in the case of this particular Brooklyn library sell-off are:

Council Member (For the current location of the Crown Heights Library)
Mathieu Eugene (D)
123 Linden Blvd.
Brooklyn, NY 11226
phone: 718-287-8762
fax: 718-287-8917
email: meugene@council.nyc.gov
website: http://council.nyc.gov/district-40

Council Member (For the location of the Children’s Museum and the Brower Park Library)
Robert Cornegy (D)
1360 Fulton Street
Ste. 500
Brooklyn, NY 11216
phone: 212-788-7354
fax: 212-788-8951
email: Rcornegy@council.nyc.gov
website: http://council.nyc.gov/district-36/

Brooklyn Borough President
Eric Adams
209 Joralemon St.
Brooklyn, NY 11201
phone: 718-802-3700
fax: 718-802-3522
email: askeric@brooklynbp.nyc.gov
website: http://www.brooklyn-usa.org/

Brooklyn Community Board 9 (for the current location of the Crown Heights Library)
Chairperson- Demetrius Lawrence (BPL Trustee Michael Liburd has been working on the CB9 board pushing plans that support development)
890 Nostrand Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11225
phone: 718-778-9279
email: bk09@cb.nyc.gov
website: http://www.communitybrd9bklyn.org/

Brooklyn Community Board 8 (for the current location of the Children’s Museum and Brower Park Library)
Chairperson- Nizjoni Granville
1291 St. Marks Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11213
phone: 718-467-5574
email: info@brooklyncb8.org
website: http://www.brooklyncb8.org/


NYC Comptroller (Investigates and audits waste fraud and abuse including NYC libraries)
Scott M. Stringer (D)
The David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building, One Centre St.
5th Floor
New York, NY 10007
phone: 212-669-3916
fax: 212-669-2707
email: action@comptroller.nyc.gov
website: http://comptroller.nyc.gov/

NYC Public Advocate (charged with looking out for the public interest)
Letitia James (D, WF)
The David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building, One Centre St.
15th Floor
New York, NY 10007
phone: 212-669-7200
fax: 212-669-4701
email: GetHelp@pubadvocate.nyc.gov
website: http://pubadvocate.nyc.gov/

Brooklyn District Attorney (for criminal investigation purposes)
Kenneth P. Thompson (D)
350 Jay St.
Brooklyn, NY 11201
phone: 718-250-2001
fax: 718-250-2210
email: da@brooklynda.org
website: http://www.brooklynda.org/

NYS Attorney General (for criminal investigation purposes and oversee charities including the BPL and Children’s Museum)
Eric T. Schneiderman (D, WF, I)
120 Broadway
New York, NY 10271
phone: 212-416-8000
fax: 212-416-8139
email: eric.schneiderman@ag.ny.gov
website: http://www.ag.ny.gov/

Assemblymember
Diana C. Richardson (WF)
NYS State Assembly District 43
1216 Union Street
Brooklyn, NY 11225
phone: 718-771-3105
fax: 718-771-3276
email: district43@nyassembly.gov
website: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=043

State Senator (for the current site of the Crown Heights Library)
Jesse Hamilton (D)
NYS State Senate District 20
1669 Bedford Avenue
Second Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11225
phone: (718) 284-4700
fax: (718) 282-3585
email: hamilton@nysenate.gov
website: http://www.nysenate.gov/senators/jesse-hamilton

State Senator (for the site of the Children’s Museum and Brower Park Library)
 NYS State Senate District 25
Velmanette Montgomery (D)
30 Third Avenue
Room 207
Brooklyn, NY 11217
phone: (718) 643-6140
fax: (718) 237-4137
email: montgome@nysenate.gov
website: http://www.nysenate.gov/senators/velmanette-montgomery

NYS Comptroller (oversees authorities and adequacy of local audits such as by the NYC Comptroller)
Thomas P. DiNapoli (D)
59 Maiden Lane
31st Floor
New York, NY 10038
phone: 212-383-1600
fax: 212-383-4468
email: contactus@osc.state.ny.us
website: http://www.osc.state.ny.us/index.htm