Although Gov. Cuomo Halted Most Construction Statewide In Response Coronavirus Crisis, In NYC Where Crisis Is Worst, The Construction Of Tower Replacing Beloved Central Library Continues As “Essential Construction” of “Affordable Housing,” Except It’s NOT- It’s A Luxury Condo Tower

Address: One Clinton Street, Brooklyn
Category: Affordable Housing
All jobs for this BIN are approved

This is interesting– In a time when we are all wearing masks to deal with the Covid-19 crisis, the luxury tower replacing what was one the second biggest library in Brooklyn, the Business, Career, Education, and federal depository Brooklyn Heights library is wearing the mask of “affordable housing” in order to be able to continue construction despite Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s declared halt to most residential and commercial construction.

Apparently the luxury condo tower is calling itself “affordable housing” in order to be considered “essential construction” (see the image above with the site’s classification taken from the “Essential Active Construction Sites” data page.)   Let’s be clear, there is no affordable housing being built on this site.

The luxury housing was able to be built extra tall with more floor area because the developer has agreed to build and complete, ahead of time, affordable housing in Clinton Hill, but this luxury tower is not that affordable housing; there is no affordable housing being built at this site.

Curbed Governor Cuomo suspends construction in March, but "Affordable Housing Still Allowed"

At the end of March Governor Cuomo suspended “most construction statewide in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic sweeping New York, following outcry from workers and lawmakers when the industry was largely unaffected by a shut down of all nonessential businesses.”

Under Cuomo’s directive certain “crucial work, including on infrastructure, hospitals, and affordable housing, along with emergency repairs” was to be permitted.  Ergo, the luxury tower puts on a coronavirus mask and becomes “affordable housing.”

The Department of Buildings Commissioner Melanie E. La Rocca said that to “protect New Yorkers during this pandemic” there will be “stiff enforcement” of the rules (including shutdowns and fines of to $10,000) because “we simply cannot afford to continue business as usual.”  We'll see if this building being built by one of Mayor Bill de Blasio's favored developers, David Kramer, gets subject to that “stiff enforcement.”

Meanwhile, we will note that New York City libraries have been shut down during the crisis.  So libraries are not essential anymore, but that which replaces them is?  The shrink-and-sink deal agreed to by the city when it agreed to sell the central destination library means that a smaller library with far fewer books, pushed more underground is ultimately supposed to be built under the luxury tower.  Arguably that’s the actual public benefit to allowing the construction of the luxury tower to proceed.– We might hope then that, when that much smaller library is finally built, it is actually allowed to open, rather then the public simply being told at that time we have gone so long without libraries and physical books it proves they were never a necessity in the first place; that the only necessity in this world is luxury condos!

Views of David Kramer's Hudson Companies luxury One Clinton condo tower interspersed with the garden and library wall inscription that was lost

POST SCRIPT ADDENDUM: At the April 28, 2020 Brooklyn Public Library Trustees meeting following the original posting of this article, Jordan Barowitz of the Durst real estate organization, the BPL trustee who heads the BPL trustee committee overseeing real estate construction, told the trustees that most BPL library construction projects were halted.  He said that all DDC (New York City "Department of Design and Construction") library projects are halted.  DDC is the city's civil service agency accountable to the mayor from which library officials are working to wrest control, with among other things, the possibility of shifting projects to the Economic Development Corporation, an agency frequently criticized for how it is subject to developer capture.  Mr. Barowitz said that, because of its “affordable housing” component, the Sunset Park project was not halted.  Mr. Barowitz told the trustees that the David Kramer luxury tower Brooklyn Heights library construction was halted, but he added permission had been obtained to start construction again on the Brooklyn Heights project on May 5th.  Mr. Barowitz did not tell the trustees the basis for the grant of that permission unlike with the Sunset Park project.

POST SCRIPT ADDENDUM #2:  On May 7th, one of our Library Defenders reported the following-- They saw a project construction worker at the corner Pierrepont and Clinton, coming from Montague, holding a tall coffee or soda, no mask, ready to use cell phone.  First asking about when the building was to be completed, our Library Defender then curiously inquired: "I thought there was a ban on construction."  The construction worker answered, "This is essential construction."  To which our Library Defender responded asking, "How is it essential?"  The construction worker's answer: "It's affordable housing."  When the Library Defender expressed astonishment and insisted, "But this is a luxury condo!"  the construction workers disputed the point, saying that the building had an affordable connection.  "But that's in another neighborhood," our Library Defenders said.  "No, it's in this condo," the construction worker replied.  Perhaps the construction worker did not know he was wrong about where the "affordable housing" will be located?

Information For Library Defenders About Thursday, September 13, 2018 New York Democratic Primary Election

Here is a link to our event with Ms. Teachout, including video.  Although CDL helped Ms. James become Public Advocate, the results have been very disappointing.

    

THURSDAY,  September 13, 2018.
Election Day!  (This Thursday election day date may take you by surprise)
The New York primary election for state and local candidates will take place on September 13, 2018. 

The upcoming Thursday September 13, 2018 election day date may take you by surprise.  It’s the date for the primaries and in New York City and New York State the Democratic primaries are very important in terms of how they determine the flow of later events.

NYS Attorney General Race
    
The race that is especially important for the defense of our libraries this election (and also important for keeping checks and balances on the federal government) is the race for New York State Attorney General.  Library defending Zephyr Teachout has received the endorsement of the New York Times, the Daily News, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and now Bernie Sanders- Who would have predicted these bedfellows?

The polls say that the race is very close with a huge number of voters in the last polls still ranked as “undecided” voters.  If you are still wanting to decide you may want to listen to or watch the debate that was held between the candidates last week.  The other three candidates all went on the attack against Zephr Teachout, each of them seeming to believe that her qualifications, among them writing a book about solving the problems of political corruption, made her the number one threat to their own candidacies.  That made the library defending Ms. Teachout seem like the clear frontrunner in the race.

In the debate, Tish James was asked why her very well-funded campaign (along with Sean Patrick Maloney’s) is hauling in vast amounts (over a quarter of a million dollars, 19% of her funds) from big real estate developers and what they expect from her.  Her response was not satisfactory to us, especially given that what the donors could get from her could be from her in the NYC Public Advocate position she now holds or the NYS Attorney General position she wants to old.

Sean Patrick Maloney was asked why, as a lawyer running for NYS Attorney General, he didn’t seem to understand campaign finance law limitations he’s likely violated in transferring funds to himself from another of his campaigns, nor the status of the legal case that Ms. Tecahout has brought to hold him to account on the matter.

Leecia Eve was asked about why she wouldn’t, as a candidate, release her tax returns when she had criticized candidate Donald Trump for doing the same thing and she hemmed and hawed obfuscatorily about the not very revaling information she had released instead.

Library defenders, let’s get out and vote!  Let’s get a library defender as the NYS Attorney General, its one of the offices that matters most to the protection of the libraries.  By the way, if voter turnout is low, the vote of every library defender then counts all the more!!

Race for Governor

Cynthia Nixon

Cynthia Nixon is challenging Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.  She may get it.  Four years ago, with less lead time and less publicity, library defending Zephyr Teachout did surprisingly well against Cuomo.  If you want to learn about the candidates and the issues and an awful lot of important information about how New York State is run, we suggest you listen to the one debate Nixon and Cuomo had.  It was very educational.  An easy way to listen to it is to go to the web to listen to the rebroadcast on the Brian Lehrer Show.

We should also mention that people voting for Cynthia Nixon will probably want to vote (its an independent separate vote) for Jumaane  Williams for Lieutenant Governor whom the New York Times endorsed (interestingly, another such split ticket governor’s race election endorsement- will this get to be Times habit?).  Lastly, everyone, including the New York Times editorial board is reacting with extreme negativity to Cuomo's extremely dirty tricks fighting Ms. Nixon -  This level of desperation on Cuomo's part may be interpreted as clue that Cynthia Nixon could possibly win.

Relative to Race For AG: The Popularity of  Alexandria Oacasio-Cortez and Zephyr Teachout and Their Views and Why It Makes The Success of Libraries Threatening To Certain People In Power

WNYC’s On The Media ran an hour of subjects headed by a picture of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with library defending Zephyr Teachout about the shifts in public opinion that has made their views so increasingly popular.  Part of the discussion in one of segments was consideration about why successful libraries are a threat to people who want the precepts of private market capitalism to take over and run everything.

We have more available about it here:

Libraries As A Threat To The “Perspective” That Virtually Everything Should Be Dictated And Run By The Forces of Market Capitalism

 
Democratic Candidate for NY Governor Zephyr Teachout at Citizens Defending Libraries News Conference, Sept.6, 2014 from Michael D'Elia on Vimeo.

Watch our web  Citizens Defending Libraries Facebook page and Twitter feed (@Defendlibraries) as you can share this page and other things we post about the election choices. . . . Once again:  If voter turnout is low, the vote of every library defender then counts all the more!!