Brooklyn Public Library Opens Shrunken, Sunken Library At Downtown Brooklyn Site of What Was Once Brooklyn Second Biggest and Most Important Library

BPL President Linda Johnson there at the shrunken sunken library opening to greet the public

Today at exactly 1:00 PM the Brooklyn Public Library opened the shrunken, sunken library that at the site of what was once the downtown Brooklyn Heights Library.  The Brooklyn Heights Library, centrally located in Brooklyn’s downtown business district was Brooklyn second biggest and most important library.

The library that opened today will not be a Business Library, a Career Library, and Education Library, or a federal depository library, all of which the former library with many more books was.  The new library’s most toutable feature is that it has some very high ceilings.  These high ceiling serves to boost the luxury apartments in the tower above it up high above the homes of neighbors.  It’s a symbol and a message that some folk should be boosted up over others in the community.  That goes along with the reason that in this shrink-and-sink deal the library’s publicly owned real estate assets were sold off to create the luxury tower.

The air conditioning in the new library also works.  That’s something people will appreciate.  They refused to fix the air conditioning in the former library as an excuse to sell it.

When the old library was sold, the public was told a new library would “replace” it in three years.  The former library shut down back in July of 2016.  You could actually say that it was subject to a long slow gradual shutdown that started way before that, long before books were being removed by the truckload in June 2016.  The trees were removed from outside the closed library in February 2017.  Today’s date is June 8, 2022.  So how long a wait did it actually take to open this one?  That’s notwithstanding that the luxury tower in which the library is housed didn’t stop construction during Covid under the pretext that the luxury tower should be considered affordable housing according to the shutdown rules.

The public’s 1:00 PM admission to the library was after a 12:00 Noon Ribbon Cutting ceremony.  That Ribbon Cutting ceremony was private and just fro the invited.

When we asked developer David Kramer (picture below) if Bruce [Ratner] was there, he said, “Of course” and then went on to say that Ratner had not actually benefitted financially from the sale of the library as he said that Citizens Defending Libraries reported.  Ratner’s company owned the adjacent real estate, which had to participate in a combining of zoning lots that allowed the Saint Ann’s School to get a financial windfall selling its air rights for building of the new luxury tower.  We guess that what Mr. Kramer meant is that Mr. Ratner and his companies did a favor for the real estate industry here with no direct, discernible, and traceable quid pro quo. 

We heard that the button to operate the front door for exiting handicapped people was observed to be not working.  Oh, my,- . . .  maybe they will have to sell this library and downgrade to a smaller library to pay to have electronics for working buttons?

When we asked developer David Kramer (picture above) if Bruce [Ratner] was at the private ribbon cutting, he said, “Of course” and then went on to say that Ratner had not actually benefitted financially from the sale of the library as he said that Citizens Defending Libraries reported.  Ratner’s company owned the adjacent real estate, which had to participate in a combining of zoning lots that allowed the Saint Ann’s School to get a financial windfall selling its air rights for building of the new luxury tower.  We guess that what Mr. Kramer meant is that Mr. Ratner and his companies did a favor for the real estate industry here with no direct, discernible, and traceable quid pro quo.

It’s What The Brooklyn Heights Association Wanted And Fought For: As Library-Replacing Lux Tower Gets Ready To Sprint Toward Full Height With Its Last Stack of Floors It Begins To Dominate Heights Skies

View of library-replacing luxury tower from Montague Street (crane working to add the last stack of thus boosted floors to achieve its final ultimate height)

The luxury condo tower, which in a shrink-and-sink deal is replacing the Business, Career and Education Federal Depository Library in Downtown Brooklyn, has another stack of floors to be constructed before it reaches full “stature,” if that’s the word for it.

The advertised condominium apartment views now available on the developer’s website show those views looking down on the federal courthouse across the way (once opposed by neighbors as being too tall) and looking over the top of the adjacent One Pierrepont Plaza Ratner 1988 skyscraper.  Those views are from only the height of the building’s twenty-sixth floor, round about the height the building is reaching now.  When the 400+ foot tall building is complete it will be 36 stories tall, an additional ten stories over that 26.

Looking down on the federal courthouse, a building one opposed as too big

The slightly higher than mid-level 26th Floor view gets you to the top of the Ratner skyscraper that vexed the Brooklyn Heights Association because of its size

But even at the threshold height it has now reached where it is, finally starting to leave the Ratner skyscraper below, it is now becoming clear how the building will dominate the skies of Brooklyn Heights.  We offer pictures here so you can imagine it even taller still.

It is interesting to think that this is what the Brooklyn Heights Association wanted for Brooklyn Heights, that it is what the association fought hard to bring into existence against the overwhelming consensus of neighbors who did not want to give up the second biggest library in Brooklyn, a central destination downtown library that conveniently served all Brooklynites and many other New Yorkers coming from all around the city.

It must be recognized that hugely tall buildings that leave their neighbors in the dust, at certain times, have, for many of us, a certain commanding beauty.  Sometimes you just have to begrudgingly admit that, even if and when they might make you feel small and insignificant or cast shadows onto your parks, they have an arresting way of whispering (or shouting) progress, achievement and newness while advertising human technological proficiency.  Maybe some who settled or who have dwelled enviously in Brooklyn Heights with a Manhattan-wannabe complex will feel that this building announces that Brooklyn Heights has arrived. 

Is this why the Brooklyn Heights Association fought so hard, often secretively and behind-the-scenes, to have this shiny new tower provide contrast for New York’s oldest historic district and  neighborhood by poking up into its skies where it will be seen from repeated vantages as the casual stroller meanders through local townhouse streets? . . .

. . .  Or was it that the Brooklyn Heights Association was just eager to see an important library squashed out of existence in a shrink-and-sink deal that would push the much diminished library space underground, while eliminating books and librarians, disappearing the Business Library, the Career Library, the Education library and the federal depository library resources?  Of course this means that the Brooklyn Heights Association was reversing itself from the time when it was opposing the height of the adjacent Ratner skyscraper and (in connection therewith) was negotiating for a bigger, better library.  And that bigger, better library the BHA said it wanted then is something the neighborhood finally got fairly recently, but now it's been been torn down for the luxury tower even though it was expanded and fully upgraded to be one of the best and most modern in the Brooklyn Public Library system.

. . . Of course shrinking the library and getting rid of the Business, Career and Education Federal depository resources does have the effect of evicting those who were coming from elsewhere, such as the nearby projects, to use the libraries.

. . .  Or did the Brooklyn Heights Association want to see the luxury tower replace the library because the Saint Ann’s private school was going to get a private windfall from the sale of real estate development rights it possessed provided that the city proceeded with eliminating the library?  Did it want that because the Saint Ann’s school contingent was better than well represented in the Brooklyn Heights Association’s decision making about what to do about the sale of the city land and public asset to create the luxury tower?  Moreover, the entangled Brooklyn Heights Association sidelined itself and eschewed speaking out in the name of good government, remaining steadfastly indifferent to the pay-to-play investigation scandals that emerged concerning the sale of the city owned library sale to a connected developer the de Blasio administration favored in the hand-off of the property for so much less than it was worth.  Once compromised in this regard it is more difficult to speak out in the future.

Of course all of this raises questions about what the BHA can be expected to do in the future and how reliable the BHA is, and for what (ditto an elected official like Councilman Steve Levin).  What will the BHA decide to oppose and what will it decide to promote?  There was, not long ago, a proposal to build another similar luxury tower just doors down from the library-replacing lux tower, the Pineapple Walk building.  The Heights Association, inconsistently we would say, opposed it.  That was then.  Real estate development is a long game.  No doubt that proposal will be back and when the library-replacing lux tower is fully present and accounted for it will seem even harder, seemingly sillier to oppose it. Maybe some of the new residents in the library-replacing tower will by then even be members of the BHA and arguing that it would be great to have a sister luxury Cadman Tower West building.

Then, aside from the question of what the BHA `opposes,' there is the question of what the BHA will be timely and effective at opposing.  We can note that the sale of Long Island College Hospital, The view-destroying over-construction of Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier One Pierrehouse buildings, the building at Pier Six in Brooklyn Bridge Park of more buildings than the agreed upon formula dictated, a lot of construction period as local public schools get more crowded were all things the BHA opposed, but its opposition was ineffective.

From Henry Street seen rising behind the Supreme Court Appellate Division Building

As seen from 101 Clark Street where many meetings were held to try to stop sale of the library

As seen currently (floors to go) from Monroe Place from where impetus and support for the building came.

Go all the way to to the end of this newly landscaped Brooklyn Bridge Park pier and you will find the tower following you like the moon follows you on along a road on a moonlight night

Behind the Unitarian Universalist church on Pierrepont Street

How Brooklyn Heights looks from the 26th floor of the luxury tower

Noticing New York’s Seasonal Reflection Thinks About Libraries, Amazon, A Departed Library Defender and Has Pictures of The Luxury Tower Replacing What Was Brooklyn’s Second Biggest Library.

Partially complete luxury tower overlooking the Unitarian church where you can hear a sermon about Amazon and from the DUMBO waterfront. 

In recent years, the threat to New York City libraries has regularly been part of Noticing New York’s annual season reflection.  This year it’s true again, including a mention of the passing of library defender Justine Swartz, plus there are pictures of the 2/3rds complete luxury tower replacing what was Brooklyn’s second biggest library, the Business, Career and Education Brooklyn Heights Library, the central destination federal depository library that served downtown.  . .  The luxury building, insisting its presence will be felt, will certainly be tall enough to be seen from all sorts of vantages in the neighborhood and those adjacent.

And there are thoughts about (shivering book lovers!) Amazon’s heavily subsidized expansion into Queens, which Noticing New York covered in a recent article.

The article (with links to past year’s season reflections as well) is here:

This Year’s Annual Seasonal Reflection: It Rhymes (But Not With "Reason" or "Season")

In This Winter Solstice Season, Long Shadows Being Cast By The Not-Yet-Complete Luxury Tower Replacing Brooklyn Central Destination Library

Today the winter solstice will arrive at 5:23 PM Eastern Standard Time.  Marking the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, it brings with it the dark days and long shadows of winter.

On the edge of Cadman Plaza Park, the luxury condo tower replacing the Business, Career and Education Federal Depository Library in Downtown Brooklyn is about two-thirds complete.  Even in its semi-complete state, it is casting long shadows into Cadman Plaza Park.

On Wednesday, December 19th, at 12:40 PM those shadows already stretched long, blanketing much of the west side of the park with a considerable swath of shadow.  You can see below a photo of this shadowy dimness (above- no photoshopping) looking back towards the building under construction.  In the opposite direction, in a picture taken from exactly the same spot (below- no photoshopping), you can see where at 12:40 PM the sun was still hitting the park, the branching bare tree limbs configuring pleasing patterns on the glowing ground.   Next year the view from that point will be different: The sun won’t hit the ground there; you will see more shadow instead.

As the sun progressed during the early afternoon, the shadows on west side of Cadman Plaza Park would progress to the east to fall over the eastern side of the park.

Shadows and where they fall will, of course, change all year.  In the summer, come solar noon, those shadows will trace a course that is less northern and more directly east as they edge out from the luxury tower.  Nevertheless, in all, the luxury tower that replaced a valuable library will bring a lot more shadow to this public park in the second half of the day every days all year round.

A Beloved Library Defender Is Gone, But Not Forgotten: Justine Swartz, Our Ambrosia

In the seat of honor, Justine Swartz, Ambrosia- On each side, co-founders of Citizens Defending Libraries, Carolyn McIntyre and Michael D. D. White

Most of the time we speak here of the threat of losing beloved libraries.  Sometimes we have to report losses of those libraries.  This time we have to report our loss of one of most beloved and spirited library defenders, Justine Swartz, who often sallied forth into this world by her adopted nom-de-frolic of “Ambrosia.”  The myths of ancient Greece tell us that ambrosia is the food and drink, the nectar of, the Gods, conferring long life extending into immortality on those who consume it.

We lost Justine the past fall that just ended with the solstice; she died on October, 12th.  We didn’t hear immediately: One of our library defending friends, Amy, reached out to let us know.  Justine was one of the longest residents in 30 Clinton Street across the street from the Business, Career and Education Brooklyn Heights, the central destination library she fought so hard to protect.  She died a few blocks south in the Cobble Hill Nursing Home after a protracted fight with cancer.  That fight didn’t stop Justine from, according to the report of one of her friends, spending her final summer “at Brighton Beach doing what she had always done (i.e., holding mermaid court among her admirers, flirting with the lifeguards, bobbing up and down in the surf, and telling people where they could place their beach towels....similar to her role at the St. Francis Pool)” until the beach "closed" for the winter.

Justine was with us as part of the Brooklyn Heights library fight pretty much from the very beginning.  If you go to our Citizens Defending Libraries YouTube channel and click to find the most popular, most viewed video, you will find Justine testifying.  With well over six thousand views, it leaves all our other videos in the statistical dust.  . . .  Justine was testifying against the sale of libraries at the New York State Assembly hearing on the subject held  June 27, 2013.  Starting out by making some more conventional points about why libraries shouldn’t be sold and also making clear why evicting Brooklyn’s second biggest library from easily accessible Downtown Brooklyn was worthy of an American with Disabilities Act compliant, Ambrosia then segued, breaking all the rules to launch into a poem of her own composition and she ended, literally, with a juggling act.  See:

Justine Swartz Poem to NY Legislators: Libraries Rock! Renovate, Don't Terminate (click through for best viewing directly in YouTube).

. . .  And somehow we thought the focus of the hearing should have been on the testimony of a Pulitzer-Prize winner like Edmund Morris!

No only was Justine a juggler par excellence, she also loved to belly dance: Check out her Facebook Page for videos.

Justine was the one who, living above to look down on the Brooklyn Heights Library was able to see, report and bring to the attention of the news media that the Hudson Companies developer who was dismantling the library to level and replace it with a luxury condo tower, was leaving unsecured construction debris to blow off the roof and rain down on the sidewalk like shrapnel. Justine made sure this news was broadcast on TV and got in the Brooklyn Eagle.

Justine got the news of the blowing, raining debris on News 12

We’ve lost track, and someone will someday have to calculate, how many letters to the editor Justine had published in the local papers.  We are sure her passionate outcries hold the record.

Justine sent us this picture of the Brooklyn Heights Library being demolished saying:  “The Library looks naked and vulnerable without its Windows.”

Justine/Ambrosia: “The Library looks naked and vulnerable without its Windows.”

Justine was on of the first to tell us when they began to start cutting down the many trees that surrounded the library.  She sent us these two pictures with the sad comment, "before and after."

"Before and after."

In happier warrior mode earlier this picture was posted by Justine on her Facebook page and often shared:

Here is a picture of Justine when she was enjoying a library defender lunch with Carolyn:

It was not too long ago that we last saw Justine in a good mood on Montague Street.  Her last communication with his was her wish to us on September 21st to have a Happy Rosh Hashanah, the first of the Jewish New Year.

A few days after learning that Justine had died, our screen saver popped up a picture of Justine looking merry, a sort of visit from beyond.  When we tracked that photo down in our collection we discovered that it was taken of us December 25th, 2015, Christmas Day, another time when we ran into Ambrosia on Montague Street. . . 

That is the picture you see right at the top of this post-

We wish that Justine were with us this season and into yet another new year.  We will remember her fondly.

There will be a memorial service for Justine in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood on January 2, 2019:

Memorial for Justine Swartz, our Ambrosia
Wednesday, January 2, 2019, 1:30 PM
Multi-Purpose Room on the 2nd Fl
St. Charles Jubilee Senior Center
55 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, New York 11201

Here are a few more photos of Justine we can share: