PHOTO GALLERY+: September 12, 2015 Connect The Dots Save Our Libraries March Through Brooklyn Heights

(This page will be updated)

On September 12, 2015 Citizens Defending Libraries led a Connect The Dots Save Our Libraries march through Brooklyn Heights.

The march, Citizens Defending Libraries first such march, was a walking tour through the Brooklyn Heights area.  We are likely to hold more because this was a success.  Preparation for this march was hurried (during August and Labor Dar) because we wanted it to happen before the upcoming September 22nd City Planning Commission hearing on the proposed sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library and there was little leeway given the surrounding holidays.

We started at the plaza on the northwest corner of Cadman Plaza West and Pierrepont Street (next to Hillary Clinton’s national campaign headquarters adjacent to the library at the corner of Tillary and Clinton.)

The marchers stopped at various locations to talk about worrisome real estate developments in the area and how they relate to the proposed sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library in Downtown Brooklyn.

At these points our marchers were addressed by informed individuals from the community and members of local activist groups working to protect the community who will articulate things the community needs to be aware of and we will talk about how a number of these matters also relate in sometimes surprising ways to the proposed hand-off of the city-owned library to a developer and how besieged our public assets are in general.

The march was blessed when, to a large extent, weather that had been terrifically threatening was kind.  The only time it was lightly raining was for the latter half when we were on the promenade and able to adjust by sheltering under scaffolding to hear about other worrisome development

During the stops on the march we heard about and discussed:

    •    The multiple relationships between Monroe Place, a short one-block street in Brooklyn Heights, and those fighting for and against the selling off of New York City Libraries.
    •    The overcrowding of PS 8
    •    The Save The View Now fight
    •    The Save The South Street Seaport Fight
    •    Friends of Sunset Park and the proposed redevelopment of the Sunset Park library into a multi-use project
    •    The Pier 6, People For Green Space Fight
    •    The fight to save Long Island College Hospital and the Fortis proposal that has now materialized to replace it

Other Connect the Dots development relating to what can be seen from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade:

    •    On the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge from the too tall Pier House development is the Dock Street project in DUMBO, taller than the community wanted because, as “smoking gun” emails show, the Bloomberg amdinstartion manipulated to withhold provision of a city school to get taller, denser development.  That’s blackmail like saring and withholding libraries.

    •    The Ratner Gehry Spruce Street project beside the bridge in Manhattan where Ratner, also containing a school to grow bigger and where Ratner blackmailed the community board threatening to withhold the contracted for school in order to get more concessions.  (On the same project he also blackmailed the construction unions to reduce workers’ pay.)

During the march we delivered two new open letters and discussed a third, all asking that organizations key to what is happening consider their obligations and duties to the community to join with the community and oppose the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library rather than pushing that sale and shrinkage forward:

•    Saturday, September 12, 2015, Open Letter To Saint Ann's School: Please Oppose the Sale and Drastic Shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library

•    Saturday, September 12, 2015, Open Letter To The Brooklyn Heights Association: Stop Supporting The Sale and Drastic Shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library And Start Opposing It.

•    Saturday, September 12, 2015, Open Letter To The Fifth Avenue Committee: Stand on The Side Of Protecting The Community And Our Public Assets

Given the rain, we completed out two-hour march by taking an imaginary walk down Montague Street (noting how many people related to fighting for and against library sales are nearby residents) and then stopping in front of the library and the small public park outside it ("Truth Park" at the corner of Tillary and Clinton)..

We ended with music and song from Paul Stein, Judy Gorman and Marilyn Berkon.  Paul composed, on the spot, new library lyrics to “This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land” and Marilyn had specially written a song about Francis Keally’s Brooklyn Heights Library.  Judy sang Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” as one of her selections.

Our last gesture was our ceremonialize our delivery of over 2,000 testimonies to the Brooklyn Borough President and give thanks for his fateful decision about the library, an irreplaceable public asset, that he made Wednesday of this past week.

Books departing Donnell as it closed- Now in Mid-Manhattan?  They seem to have largely disappeared. 

Brooklyn Heights Blog poll:  "Who Do You Trust"

Over 2,000 testimonies delivered to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams

"Truth Park," open to the public soon after the Brooklyn Height Library was opened and before it was substantially enlarged and fully upgraded in 1993.

Open Letter To The Fifth Avenue Committee: Stand on The Side Of Protecting The Community And Our Public Assets

September 12, 2015

Michelle de la Uz
Executive Director
Fifth Avenue Committee
621 DeGraw Street
Brooklyn, New York 11271

Re:  Stand on The Side Of Protecting The Community And Our Public Assets

Dear Fifth Avenue Committee:

Some of us have asked you before, so we know we are asking again, but some things it never hurts to ask for again, even if you are asking over and over: Please stand with us in solidarity against the sell-off, the looting, of our public assets for private benefit.  This letter is solely for the purpose of entreating you on this subject once again, since we are confident that you are already acquainted quite sufficiently with the facts.

You have been asked by us, and we ask again, for you to stand up against sell-off of our public assets like the sale of the central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Heights Library on Cadman Plaza West at the corner of Tillary and Clinton, and Long Island College Hospital.  You have failed to oppose the proposed plunder of both of these public assets by private real-estate driven interests.  The Downtown Brooklyn library was recently expanded, building out over two wings and was fully upgraded, including bringing it into the computer age.  It is now proposed to be shrunk down to just one-third size.  Although public assets are threatened by privatization across the board in this city, these assets, the library and LICH, are each highly emblematic and local to what the Fifth Avenue Committee now treats as its expanding domain.

(More on the sale of our public assets here: Our Public Assets Under Attack- A Calamity of the Commons Unfolding That We Must Act Collectively Against- How best To Express It?)

It is not as if the Fifth Avenue Committee doesn’t side with the community on such matters when it deems doing so is expedient to its political self-interest: The Fifth Avenue Committee opposed the sale of the Pacific Branch Library, first proposed for sale at the same time as the Brooklyn Heights library, and like the Heights library immediately next to Forest City Property.  That means you allied with us in that case.

It is unfortunate that although we have been making these requests of you, the Fifth Avenue Committee has, instead done precisely the opposite and in ways that don’t speak well of the ability of the community to trust it.  The Fifth Avenue Committee tells the community `trust us,’ but should we really do that?

For instance, on June 10, 2015 at a Brooklyn Community Board 7 presentation he was making, Jay Marcus, Director of Housing Development for the Fifth Avenue Committee was attempting to assuage community misgivings about the proposal that had been sprung on them to sell the Sunset Park Library to turn it into a multi-use project of which a replacement library was a proposed part, the rest being a development handed off to the Fifth Avenue Committee without public notice, input or competitive bid.  To quiet community concerns Mr. Marcus told those in a largely skeptical audience that the Fifth Avenue Committee has “as a basic part of our mission that we are from the community and work in the community” and that “as a lot of you know” we are “community oriented and focused” interested in “community driven planning.”  He further assured, “as you know the Fifth Avenue Committee was part of the lawsuit against Forest City Ratner . . . we’re on your side.”

Accordingly, Citizens Defending Libraries’ Michael D. D. White followed up by asking Mr. Marcus:

“The Fifth Avenue Committee says that it represents the community, that it’s gone to bat for the community, that it was against Forest City Ratner on Atlantic Yards: We have asked, and I ask again, will the Fifth Avenue Committee come out with us against the sale of public assets, will it come out against LICH- we have asked about that, will it come out against the sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library, which is, when you analyze it, is being sold off at a huge public loss. . .  and Forest City Ratner, on that transaction, stands as a gatekeeper to that transaction, so if you want to stand against Forest City Ratner, here’s another opportunity.  - Will the Fifth Avenue Committee come out with us and oppose the sell-off of public assets?”

Mr. Marcus hedged somewhat politically in his answer, but, nevertheless, assured, “all of us support bigger libraries. .  and we want to make sure that it’s being done that way.”   He said the Fifth Avenue Committee wanted to fight with the community to expand the libraries.  He said the Fifth Avenue Committee would meet with us about any injustice we perceive to be going on, although, at this point, that injustice should be no mystery to the Fifth Avenue Committee.

Mr. Marcus offered another set of assurances that did not bode well: More than once he assured the community that the leadership of the Brooklyn Public Library was, like the Fifth Avenue Committee, looking out for the community as part of their mission.  He did this in the midst of discussion about the abject lack of transparency with which the BPL has been proceeding with respect to plans to turn libraries into real estate deals, including its refusal to produce its long secret “strategic real estate plan.”

Did the Fifth Avenue Committee come out against the sale of public assets, against the boondoggle sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library?   No, you did the opposite.

Days later, on June 17, 2015, the Fifth Avenue Committee sent its representative to Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee’s hearing to testify in favor of selling and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library.  We requested that Fifth Avenue Committee not again deliver such testimony contrary to the public interest.  Instead, on August 18th, you doubled down, sending TWO representatives to Brooklyn Borough President's hearing to endorse the sell-off and shrinkage.  Presumably the Fifth Avenue Committee sent TWO representatives because ranks were thin with nobody testifying for the sale except those one way or another on the payroll of the real estate industry or like FAC perhaps seeking to benefit directly from it.

Having assured the community that Fifth Avenue Committee could be relied upon to be on the community’s side FAC proceeded to prove exactly the opposite.  This included fighting for the opposite of principles Mr. Marcus specifically indicated FAC would be on the community’s side in fighting for.

That is an example of our taxpayer money being used in a tragic way directly against the public interest because the Fifth Avenue Committee is so substantially taxpayer financed through grants and subsidies.  Does the Fifth Avenue Committee’s dependency on city largess also pose a problem in terms of the Fifth Avenue Committee’s alignment with the community interest if FAC supposes or knows that Mayor de Blasio wants the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library to proceed?  This is de Blasio who, when running for mayor, stood with Citizens Defending Libraries and criticized the library sell-offs, calling for their halt, this one specifically included, saying that, “once again we see, lurking right behind the curtain, real estate developers who are very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties,” but then was taking money from the development team for the Brooklyn Heights Library while their application to be selected by his administration was pending.

Certainly, the Fifth Avenue Committee, as a conduit of taxpayer expenditures, has done much good work, especially historically.  And it is to be given special credit for the real courage it showed in opposing Atlantic Yards, a project the city administration wanted and pressed over the objections of the community.  However, precisely because this past good work can have an anesthetizing effect on the critical faculties of our elected officials and community members as they readily trust you, you should feel duty bound to represent the community interest when you say that is what you will do.  Otherwise, when the Novocain wears off, things may be very different and we may all in the future find ourselves flinching and skeptically alert when the name of the Fifth Avenue Committee is mentioned.

We acknowledge that the replacement Sunset Park Library proposed to be part of your multi-use redevelopment would be bigger than the current library, and that at 20.600 square feet would actually be bigger than the BPL specified in its Request For Proposals that developers needed to make a drastically shrunken Brooklyn Heights Library.  We give you credit that, as you tell us, the Fifth Avenue Committee was an influence to increase the library to at least that size, although, as you acknowledge, library design is not really an area of FAC’s expertise.  The Sunset Park Library proposal is the first library redevelopment proposal to surface since Citizens Defending Libraries has been on the scene and we would also like to think the spotlight we’ve brought to these matters also applied pressure to make the library larger.  Still, unfortunately, like the proposed shrunken Brooklyn Heights Library, because that replacement library would be at the bottom of a privately owned residential tower, the Sunset Park Library could never be enlarged afterward, something that would not be the case, for example, if such libraries were located in city-owned commercial buildings.

There are other issues of principle for the Sunset Park community to consider as it debates what is best for Sunset Park.  See:  Proposed Statement of Principles Concerning Any Possible Redevelopment of Library-- Sunset Park Branch - 

Perhaps the Fifth Avenue Committee considers that what can justify its endorsing the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library is assurances it has received that the Fifth Avenue Committee’s Sunset Park multi-use project will be advanced to the head of the list for city library and other government funding if the Downtown Brooklyn library is sold and shrunk (although that doesn’t mean that funds for these things overall will increase- other proposals may just get pushed further down.)   In other words, you view the two transactions, the Downtown Library sale and shrinkage and your Sunset Park project as linked, but that only further sullies the already questionable Sunset Park deal that was sprung on the community.  It is far from clear that with a proper and open debate the community ought to consider the Sunset Park project you wish to advance as best for their interests, but if it is to be considered as inextricably combined with the Cadman Plaza boondoggle, then it is certainly a bad news venture you are promoting.

The fact that you would argue against the public interest in the case of the Brooklyn Heights Library also makes suspect whether you are in good faith arguing for the public interest in the case of the Sunset Park Proposal. It means that the Fifth Avenue Committee, instead of representing the community, is just operating as another insider, expecting to be one of those who, playing on the inside, gets to have their interest come before others.

There is a fight to be fought to preserve our public assets and those who truly represent the community should be aligned with the community in this fight.  As noted, you should long ago have weighed in on the LICH proposal where endowments to the community of significant public assets have been similarly raided.  The Fortis proposal to replace the LICH health facility proposal reveals just how ravenous the forces are that would turn our public assets into private developments.

LICH and the proposed Fortis development that would replace it is just up the hill from where you are involved in the Pier Six Brooklyn Bridge Park development proposal for Brooklyn Bridge Park land so this in all going on turf you stake out as FAC’s.  Even more familiarity with what is going on should stem from the substantial overlap between thoose pushing for development of libraries on the BPL board and those pushing for more development in Brooklyn Bridge Park on board of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation.  

Again, we ask you to join in the defense of our public assets, to stand by the principles by which you are remembered and presumed to have.  It is not too late to do this or to speak out against these projects as you should.  Or, in the very least, don’t be on the other side, especially while saying that you represent the community’s interests.

Sincerely,


Citizens Defending Libraries
Friends of Sunset Park
The Village of Sunset Park
Barbara Gartner, Save Long Island College Hospital Advocate
Brenda Pepper, Save Long Island College Hospital Advocate
Robert Pepper, Save Long Island College Hospital Advocate

Open Letter To The Brooklyn Heights Association: Stop Supporting The Sale and Drastic Shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library And Start Opposing It.

September 12, 2015

Brooklyn Heights Association
55 Pierrepont Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201

Re:  Stop Supporting The Sale and Drastic Shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library And Start Opposing It.

Dear Brooklyn Heights Association:

We ask again for that the Brooklyn Heights Association take highly consequential and urgent action: We ask you to stop inflicting woeful damage on the community that it is your duty to represent.  Specifically, stop supporting the sale and drastic shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library, the central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn, and start vigorously opposing that sale and shrinkage.

There will be a City Planning Commission hearing about this proposed sale and shrinkage on September 22, 2015.  Be there and testify against this real estate boondoggle and the losses it would inflict upon the community.

Such change by the BHA is long overdue, but would it is still not too late to have significant effect because much hangs in the balance right now.  Your influence has weight.  Whether that’s fortunate for the community or exactly the opposite depends on what you do.  The community watches you hoping that the BHA will not now further enmesh itself in ill-considered support for the sale and shrinkage.

Your decision will be long remembered just as the city continues talk about, write books about, and excoriate what happened when the Donnell Library was sold.  That library's sale and shrinkage is now considered the "poster  child" for an inexcusable sacrifice of a library.  It is no accident that the proposed Brooklyn Heights Library sale and shrinkage, conceived of at the same time, is modeled on that Donnell debacle with some of the same people connecting them in the background, some of those people with their conections to the Brooklyn Heights Association as well.

The Brooklyn Borough President just issued a disapproval (with conditions) of this proposed sale and shrinkage (“guided by the thousands of Brooklynites whose feedback” he “considered in recent weeks”).  Please do work to support not frustrate what the community has achieved.

The BHA’s doing the right thing in this regard would correct the inconsistencies and cognitive dissonance that surely hamper the BHA in its other work:

    •    The BHA once worked to make this a bigger library and that goal was ultimately achieved when this Brooklyn Heights Library was substantially enlarged in 1993 by building out over two wings.  (It was also fully upgraded at the time so that it is now one of the best libraries in the system in terms of supporting 21st century computer needs.)   And now the BHA argues for the library to be shrunk to a mere third of its present size, far smaller than it ever was?

    •    The BHA has expressed concern about the overcrowding of PS8 calling for a moratorium on approval of new discretionary development (like the buildings in Brooklyn Bridge Park) because: “Public school overcrowding will be exacerbated by the additional development. PS 8 is already operating at more than 140% capacity and turning away local kindergarteners for this Fall.”.  But the BHA would specifically exclude from this moratorium the sale of a significant public library, thereby eliminating a supporting educational resource and worsening the imbalance as our infrastructure fails to keep pace with private development racing forward?

    •    The BHA once refused to join with Citizens Defending Libraries in calling for proper funding of all our libraries and expressing concern about what was being done to libraries throughout the city.  The BHA refused to take a position because those libraries were outside of the neighborhood.  But now, the BHA is reversing itself, calling for the Brooklyn Heights Library to be sold because (supposedly) the sale and shrinkage would mean that libraries in other neighborhoods would get better funding? . . . (That is actually treacherously false to believe and patently silly, because there is no guarantee that money would actually go to libraries.)  Worse, this library is being sold off at a huge public loss in a transaction that may net less than zero cash.  Lastly, it is obvious that selling off libraries to developers as a self-cannibalizing funding program is more likely to foster more underfunding than anything else.

The BHA should acknowledge that ever since the initial support the BHA gave to this sell-off of a public asset, facts have continued to roll out that make it torturously clear that what is being proposed is far worse than it might have superficially supposed at first.  There's therefore plenty of reasons fro the BHA to change course, like the Brooklyn Public Library's lack of transparency.  Thinking through the PS8 crisis itself ought to have been enough.

The BHA apparently faces difficulty in reversing and correctly its position because there are certain trustees on the BHA board who are still fighting for the sale and shrinkage of the library.  We have a simple solution: Those trustees who are working against the community interest should resign.  Accordingly, if the BHA cannot otherwise correct course, we demand that they be removed from the board.  We think the rest of the community will readily endorse us on this.  . . . You know best who needs to leave the board, but we know how Alexandra Bowie and Erica Belsey Worth have fought hard to push through the sale and shrinkage of the library against the community's wishes and we know that Inger Yancey on the library committee is one of the board members with a direct conflict of interest in the matter given her connection with Saint Ann’s School.

Although the community is sadly accustomed to having its voice ignored and run rough-shod over by private real estate interests, this is not the behavior we expect from the BHA.  If the BHA continues to act in a fashion contrary to the community's interest and expressed wishes, the community will more and more perceive, as has already been achingly the case, that the BHA is no longer what we once knew and understood it to be.  . .

. .   Replace your errant policy, if needs be your trustees too, or we may be faced with having to replace the BHA.

Sincerely,


Michael D. D. White and Carolyn E. McIntyre

Co-founders of Citizens Defending Libraries

Open Letter To Saint Ann’s School: Please Oppose the Sale and Drastic Shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library

September 12, 2015

Saint Ann’s School
129 Pierrepont Street
Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201


Re:  Please Oppose the Sale and Drastic Shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights  Library

Dear Saint Ann’s School:

We write this a letter to Saint Ann’s school.  By that we mean that the intended recipient of this letter is the entire Saint Ann’s School community that comprises the school to make the school what it is, not just the management, its board of trustees or those formally in charge as decision makers, but also the faculty, the students, the parents and the Saint Ann’s alumni.  Accordingly, we ask this letter be forwarded and shared with all accordingly.

We ask that Saint Ann’s side with the community in taking a stand against the proposed sale and drastic shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library, the central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn.

Saint Ann's School was nurtured and incubated by this community when it was founded in 1965.  At a time when it had only 63 students and seven teachers and was located in the basement of St. Ann's Episcopal Church it depended on the richness of the resources in, and provided by, the community surrounding it to have a full fledged existence.  Saint Ann’s should not now, with greater wealth and self-sufficiency, turn its back on the value of a public commons and resources we all can and should value and that some inevitably at times must depend on more than others.

Join with us to amplify the voice of the community.

Saint Ann’s owes its genesis to its original affiliation with a charitable, community-minded church, St. Ann's Episcopal Church.  While that formal affiliation has been discontinued, it is still one more reason for us to call upon you to act with a conscience and conscientious community spirit.  We hope you have not strayed so far from your origins that you would work against the greater good.

We know that Saint Ann’s will benefit substantially from a financial standpoint by the selling and shrinking of the library.  The exact sum is vague and undisclosed at this point.  The developer, after refusing to address the question for months, ventured without documentating evidence that the sum of actual money is less than six million dollars.  Saint Ann’s has been publicly quiet about how it will benefit, or how much, and about what its participation in these real estate deals has been behind the scenes. . .

. . .  But, whatever the public does not know, we know that previously, as part of the exchange, Saint Ann’s was to receive from the developer in his 400 foot project a student theater of 20,000 square feet, the same size that the Brooklyn Pubic Library (and city’s real estate corporation) specified for the vastly shrunken library in its developer Request For Proposals.  We also know that the developer’s architect is concurrently doing other work for Saint Ann’s.

Your private benefit from these transactions will come because one of your school buildings has unused development rights that you can sell, passing through Forest City Ratner, so that the developer can build his tower bigger.  But we think that you should tear down and rebuild (or build on top of) your own school building, instead of the public having to tear down, rebuild and shrink an important library for you to achieve this private benefit.

We don’t know everything that Saint Ann’s has done quietly and behind the scenes with respect to this transaction, but, whatever you have done, we call upon you now to lend your voice to join with the otherwise virtually unanimous voices of the community in opposing this sale.  We also call upon you not to sell your development rights to the developer, inducing this library sale and shrinkage to further proceed.

We believe that if you do anything less than this, the community can rightly take umbrage at your choice to diverge and pursue private benefit effected by an inexcusable public loss.

Please, join with us.  Do the right thing and do it quickly.

Sincerely,


 Michael D. D. White and Carolyn E. McIntyre
Co-founders of Citizens Defending Libraries

* * * *

Saint Ann's School Response

Saint Ann’s School has written responding to our open letter (image copy below)

They say that they are dedicated to pursuing the profit they will make from the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library.  One interesting contradiction that came out: Developer David Kramer of the Hudson Companies earlier said that Saint Ann’s was willing to disclose how much money they were making on the transaction.  This letter defended Saint Ann’s right not to disclose that information and didn’t furnish it.

The text of the letter will appears below. . . .

Saint Ann's School
Vincent Tompkins
Head of School

October 6,2015

Carolyn E. Mclntyre & Michael D. D. White
62 Montague Street, Apt. 3E
Brooklyn^ Y 11201

Dear Mr. White and Ms. Mclntyre:

Thank you for your letter of September 12 regarding the proposed sale and redevelopment of the Brooklyn Public Library branch in Brooklyn Heights. I am grateful for the opportunity to address the concerns you have raised on behalf of Citizens Defending Libraries about this project.

There have been many misperceptions about Saint Ann's role in the redevelopment of this site. Our interest in attaining additional space on the site so that we could better carry out our educational mission was on the basis of a simple purchase of condominium space in the building, and in that regard no different from the transactions that we assume will occur between other condominium owners and the developer if this project goes forward. The space we sought was, with the exception of a small entry lobby, entirely underground and therefore had no impact whatsoever on the space allocated to the library, and was in no way subsidized by any public or private entity. Further, it is our understanding that the amount and location of space to be provided to the library was specified in the RFP. which was issued by both the EDC and the Brooklyn Public Library.

As you know, Saint Ann's made a decision last spring not to pursue a condominium purchase. The potential sale of school air rights has always been an entirely separate, private transaction between the school and the developer. Because it is a private transaction the school has not felt it necessary or appropriate to make public the sale price we might receive for air rights. I would further point out that some of our air rights will serve to increase the amount of affordable housing that will be constructed as a result of this project. As was the case with our potential condominium purchase, the inclusion of our air rights in this development will do nothing to impinge on amount or location of the vital public space for a new library.

As an educational institution that has been part of the Brooklyn and greater New York communities for half a century we arc strongly in favor of a robust, accessible, and well-funded public library system. We will continue happily to abide by the decisions that our elected and appointed officials, the agencies they appoint, the local Community Board, and other representatives of the public interest reach in this matter. And we welcome all of the voices that members of the community on both sides of this issue have lent to the public review and approval process. Robust, honest, well-informed and open-minded debate is critical. As a vibrant Brooklyn Heights institution we will continue to do right by our educational mission and our responsibility to the community we are honored to serve.

Sincerely yours.

Vincent Tompkins
Head of School

129 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 718-522-1660 X202 / vtompkins@saintannsny.org

NOTE from Citizens Defending Libraries: The motto on the Saint Ann’s School seal, “Altiora Peto” translates as "I seek higher things" or "I strive higher."

PRESS RELEASE & NEWS ADVISORY- Citizens Defending Libraries Connect the Dots Save Our Libraries March, Saturday

    PRESS RELEASE & NEWS ADVISORY-

New York City

WHAT: Citizens Defending Libraries is holding a Connect The Dots Save Our Libraries March
WHEN: Saturday, September 12, 2015, starting at 4:30 P.M.
WHERE: Starting at the Plaza at the northwest corner of Pierrepont Street and Cadman Plaza West, Brooklyn, New York 11201

Citizens Defending Libraries is holding a Connect The Dots Save Our Libraries March on Saturday, September 12th starting at 4:30 PM

The March, a walking tour through the Brooklyn Heights area, will start, as noted above, at the plaza on the northwest corner of Cadman Plaza West and Pierrepont Street.

We will stop at various locations to talk about worrisome real estate developments in the area and how they relate to the proposed sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library in Downtown Brooklyn.

At these key points our marchers will be addressed by informed individuals from the community and members of local activist groups working to protect the community who will articulate things the community needs to be aware of and we will talk about how a number of these matters also relate in sometimes surprising ways to the proposed hand-off of the city-owned library to a developer and how besieged our public assets are in general.

These interludes during the tour will include stopping to speak about the following:

*  The Pier 6 Fight (at the stop on the South end of Promenade)
*. Friends of Sunset Park (discuss from the south end of Promenade)
*  The Fight for LICH, discuss the fight and the proposed replacement of LICH with the Fortis proposal (discuss at the south end of Promenade)
*  The Save The View Fight (at stop on the north end of Promenade)
*  The overcrowding of PS 8
*  The Save The South Street Seaport Fight (discuss while viewing from the Promenade)

We will end the march in front of the library and the small public park outside it (“Truth Park” at the corner of Tillary and Clinton) where we will do some entertaining, music and theater, before heading to nearby Borough Hall, where we will ceremonialize our delivery of over 2,000 testimonies to the Brooklyn Borough President and give thanks for his fateful decision about the library, an irreplaceable public asset, that he made Wednesday of this past week.

CONTACT:
Carolyn E. McIntyre, Michael D. D. White
Michael White, 718-834-6184, mddwhite [at] aol.com
Carolyn McIntyre, 917-757-6542 cemac62 [at] aol.com

Follow us on Twitter: @defendinglibraries


For photos and videos of prior Citizens Defending Libraries rallies opposing the sale, shrinkage, underfunding of New York City libraries, and elimination of books and librarians in the two and a half+ years since its founding, see:

PHOTO GALLERIES- PAST EVENTS

http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2014/01/photo-galleries-past-events.html

See also our latest masterpiece video (3 minutes 50 seconds):  Selling Our Libraries!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD88Puy3px8

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New York City Planning Commission To Hold Uniform Land Use Review Procedure Public Hearing, September 22, 2015, On Whether Brooklyn Heights Library, Brooklyn’s Central Destination Library In Downtown Brooklyn Should Be Sold And Shrunk

(IMPORTANT NOTE:  -Added after the oral hearing-  A report of the oral portion of the hearing, testimony thus far submitted, discussions with respect thereto by the commissioners is now available at: Tuesday, September 22, 2015, Report on Tuesday, September 22nd City Planning Commission Hearing On Proposed Sale and Shrinkage of Plus Testimony of Citizens Defending Libraries.  Reference to this new page, including consulting what the commissioners have expressed about their thinking to date and how we have addressed it will be useful to anyone submitting additional testimony.  The Commissioners are still accepting additional testimony before they vote, probably on Wednesday October 21st.  Such additional testimony is best submitted- fifteen copies to Yvette V. Gruel, see below- before noon on Friday October 16th.)

The New York City Planning Commission, as the next step in the just recently commenced public approval process to sell and drastically shrink a major publicly owned asset, the Brooklyn Heights Library, the central destination library in downtown Brooklyn, will hold a hearing where the Commission will take public testimony as to whether the library should be sold and shrunk, whether the proposed transaction resulting in great public loss and little net cash (perhaps none or less than zero) should be allowed to proceed.

The hearings now being being held pursuant to ULURP, the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure are the first ever public hearings about whether to sell and shrink a major public library like this.  In fact, although public assets (like our hospitals and public housing are under attack), hearings like this about the proposed dispositions of major public assets are relatively rare.

Setting the stage for the City Planning Commission:

*    Brooklyn Borough President Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, after a similar hearing disapproved the sale and shrinkage of the library (with conditions).  See:

PRESS RELEASE- PRESIDENT OF THE BOROUGH OF BROOKLYN Eric L. ADAMS: BP ADAMS UNVEILS RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS LIBRARY

Brooklyn Daily Eagle:  Brooklyn BP Adams 'disapproves with conditions' Brooklyn Heights Library development, By Mary Frost, September 9, 2015.

The Brooklyn Borough Presidents’s press release said: “My recommendations for the future of the Brooklyn Heights Branch, which have been guided by the thousands of Brooklynites whose feedback I have considered in recent weeks.”

More than 2000 testimonies submitted through Citizens Defending Libraries

Citizens Defending Libraries was the conduit of more than 2,000 testimonies (see picture) from individual members of the public.  Read more about that here:

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams Still Taking Testimony On Whether Brooklyn Heights Library, Brooklyn’s Central Destination Library In Downtown Brooklyn Should Be Sold And Shrunk
   
We thank the Borough President for considering them.

*   Brooklyn Community Board held three meetings culminating in a vote on Wednesday July 15 2015, where about half the members of Brooklyn’s Community Board 2 voted to approve the sale and shrinkage of the library.  The way in which Brooklyn’s Community Board 2 conducted its hearings was suspect and something of an embarrassment.  Very important: The Land Use Committee voted not to approve the project in a vote that should be respected.

See:

Brooklyn Community Board 2 Votes To Sell and Shrink Brooklyn Heights Library, Largely In the Dark, With Much Manipulation And Strong-Arming In Background- Developer’s Says He’s “Super-duper Excited” And Thankful

Here again for entry into your calendar:

TUESDAY, September 22, 10:00am – 3:30pm (estimated)- VERY IMPORTANT!
City Planning Commission hearing on proposed sale and shrinkage of Brooklyn Heights Library
22 Reade Street
New York, NY 10007

Written (not Emailed) Testimony:

Written testimony as a practical matter, will get less exposure will probably be given less weight.

The Planning Commission is, we understand, probably accepting written testimony until Monday, October 5, 2015.  It says it wants 15 copies of each testimony and that it does not want emailed testimony.)  As a practical matter we are also told that a pouch goes out to all the members at 3:00 PM of Friday containing testimony received soon enough before that.

Testimony be delivered or arrive by mail at:

City Planning Commission hearing
22 Reade Street
New York, NY 10007
Attn: Yvette V. Gruel
Calendar Information Office - Room 2E (Regarding o proposed sale and shrinkage of Brooklyn Heights Library- ULURP C150399 PPK)

The Tuesday hearing will be in the daytime, so people who can make it to testify in the daytime are especially important to having a win here.  Getting there early for a seat in the main hearing room (versus the overflow room) is advised.

The Planning Commission may have underestimated public interest in this item and doing so has scheduled the hearing for a Jewish Holiday which will be a problem for people if testimony runs as long as it might.  (If you come and have to leave for this reason explain and document that you want to come back on another day to testify orally,)

The commission is requesting that any written testimony be delivered or mailed on actual paper (not emailed or digitally provided) and that at least 15 such physical copies be provided.  (That’s a challenge for us submitting our 2,000+ individual testimonies, at least a page each, plus the hundreds of extra pages we have.)

The commission suggests not submitting written testimony before the day of the oral hearing (because it is likely to get lost).  You can submit written testimony within 10 days after the hearing (sooner is better) and the Commissioner’s vote will not occur before that.

The commissioners are listed below at the bottom of this page.  You may want to use what influence you have with them to make sure they vote against the proposed sale and shrinkage of the library.  Also, five of the commissioners are accountable to the five Borough Presidents who should encourage them to vote the right way on this (a message we can communicate).  Several of the commissioners, like Michelle de la Uz (appointed by the Public Advocate), have been involved in selling off libraries and should recuse themselves (consider themselves ineligible to vote).

Here is a helpful form (originally for the Brooklyn Borough President hearing) you can use to submit testimony plus text you can adopt and a link you can send to your friends here: Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams Still Taking Testimony On Whether Brooklyn Heights Library, Brooklyn’s Central Destination Library In Downtown Brooklyn Should Be Sold And Shrunk 

This form can be printed (save the image first) and used as an aid in submitting testimony.-  See also the bullet point text below from the form that you can use and adapt in your own writing.

Testimony submitted in writing at least avoids the problem that the time limit for oral testimony is very short.

Here in TEXT form is a checklist of reasons (from the above form) you can include when you testify that you are against the sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights Library:

•    The library, which I understand has a probable value of over $120 million, is being sold for absurdly little.

•    The BPL has been extraordinarily non-transparent in all ways including keeping its plan to sell this library secret since 2007 (or before) and refusing to publicly disclose  its "strategic real estate plan" revealing what libraries it wants to turn into real estate deals next.

•     We should not be shrinking this library, especially down to just one-third size, especially since it was just enlarged and completely upgraded in 1993 at considerable public expense and sacrifice.

•     It is impossible to guarantee that any proceeds from the sale (which all go to the city) would ever come back to be spent on libraries and, even if they were, the net amount is paltry, perhaps close to or even less than zero.

•     The library is a sturdy beautifully designed building with space that can easily be put to good many good uses in different ways.

•    The library's "Business and Career" functions should not be moved out of the Downtown Brooklyn business district, especially when it is growing.

•    We should not be selling off our public infrastructure to private developers, especially educational infrastructure when, for example, our schools are not keeping pace with new development.

•    It is discriminatory and anti-democratic to turn libraries into real estate boondoggles.

•    I don't like that Mayor de Blasio was taking money from the development team that was chosen while their application was pending. (Developers he said were "lurking right behind the curtain . .  very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties.")

•    Stuck in the bottom of a residential, privately owned building, we won't ever be able to enlarge this library to correct this shrinkage or accommodate growth.

•    Selling libraries to developers "because they are underfunded" creates a perverse incentive to underfund libraries, exactly what we have witnessed.

•    The library is being shrunk down to a preordained size without bothering to design a new library first or figure out how many books it should hold.

•    I want lots of books in our libraries and this plan gets rid of them.

•    Selling this public asset so cheaply will lead to sell-offs of our other assets including sale of more libraries.

•    We can't sell off our libraries for a few so-called "affordable" housing units, especially when these units "poor door" style are insultingly far away and we are, at the same time, shedding 14,000 truly affordable NYCHA public housing units using the same tactics and excuses employed to sell libraries.

•    A private school (Saint Ann's) is benefitting in a significant and undisclosed amount from the loss that the public will suffer if the library is sold and shrunk (and may even get more from the sale than the city and BPL will net).

•    I don't believe the fairy tales the BPL is telling about how it `can't fix' library air conditioning.  (I wouldn't sell my home for this reason!)

•    No extra space will be built at the Grand Army Plaza Library to house any shift of the "Business and Career" functions to that location and there are no designs or cost estimations for how to cram those functions in.

•    Library use and circulation of physical books is up dramatically and our libraries should grow and be funded to accommodate that.

•    This plan is a short-sighted sacrifice of an irreplaceable asset, inexcusable for a wealthy city like ours.

•    We should have learned from the Donnell Library sale debacle (that this sale is modeled on!) how terrible mistakes like this are.

•    The environmental repercussions of this project have not been adequately considered and assessed.

•    Civilizations that dismantle their libraries generally fail.

•    ALL OF THE ABOVE!

Here is the list of city planning commissioners and information about them:

    1.   Carl Weisbrod, Chairman-- Mayor's appointee.  Appointed by de Blasio.  Formerly worked fro Trinity Church handling their real estate, a parish church in the Episcopal Diocese of New York. While Mr. Weiesbrod was with Trinity, a major part of the 34th Street Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) was sold to the  Episcopal Church’s Church Pension Group (”The Church Pension Group”) as part of a series of linked real estate deals with the NYPL that appear to have the possibility of progressing still further.
    2.    Kenneth J. Knuckles, Esq., Vice Chairman- Mayor's appointee.  Appointed by Bloomberg.
    3.    Rayann Besser  Appointee of the Staten Island Borough President (currently James Oddo).  Appointed by James Molinaro.
    4.    Irwin G. Cantor, P.E.- Appointee of Queens Borough President (currently Melinda Katz) Appointed by Helen Marshall.
    5.    Alfred C. Cerullo, III - Mayor's appointee.  Appointed by Bloomberg.
    6.    Cheryl Cohen Effron - Mayor's appointee.  Appointed by de Blasio.
    7.    Michelle de la Uz- Appointee of the Public Advocate (currently Tish James).  Appointed by de Blasio.  Is actively involved in the sale of libraries and a transaction (with the Sunset Park Library) where her organization, the Fifth Avenue Committee, expects to benefit directly from the sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library.
    8.    Joseph Douek- Appointee of Brooklyn Borough President (currently Eric Adams who opposes the library sale and shrinkage) Appointed by Marty Markowitz.  The library is being sold for shrinkage by the city through the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC).  Mr. Doueck was Brooklyn's representative to the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) Board of Directors and served on the EDC board while the library sale was in progress.  Additionally, around this time, at least one individual went from EDC to the Brooklyn Public Library as staff to handle the sale.  In addition, at the same time the head of EDC was on the Brooklyn Public Library board of trustees.
    9.    Richard W. Eaddy - Mayor's appointee.  Appointed by Bloomberg.
    10.    Anna Hayes Levin- Appointee of Manhattan Borough President (currently Gale Brewer).  Appointed by Gale Brewer.
    11.    Orlando Marín- Appointee of Bronx Borough President (currently Ruben Diaz Jr.).  Appointed by Ruben Diaz Jr.
    12.    Larisa Ortiz, - Mayor's appointee.  Appointed by de Blasio.
    13.    Vacant- (Since July 1, 2015)- de Blasio

* * * *
One quick easy step that can boost the effect of those testifying against sale and shrinkage of this library (and other NYC) libraries is to make sure that you and everyone you know has signed the Citizens Defending Libraries petition to Mayor de Blasio.  It will also make sure that you get updates from us about all matters related to the hearing.  (Many people who signed the Citizens Defending Libraries petition addressed to Mayor Bloomberg have not caught up with signing this new petition.)

In July 2013 Mr. de Blasio standing with us on the steps of the 42nd Central Reference Library called for a halt to the sale of this and other libraries saying: "It’s public land and public facilities and public value under threat. . . and once again we see, lurking right behind the curtain, real estate developers who are very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties."



Notwithstanding, Mr. de Blasio was soon thereafter getting money sent to him by the development team for this project while their application to acquire the library property was pending.

Here is the petition to Mr. de Blasio.  Please share it broadly:

Mayor de Blasio: Rescue Our Libraries from Developer Destruction

  
* * * *

The notice of the hearing from the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office (which may be helpful until we get an equivalent from City Planning) reads in pertinent part as follows:

OFFICE OF THE BROOKLYN BOROUGH PRESIDENT

Uniform Land Use Review Procedure

Public Hearing

Notice is hereby given that, pursuant to Sections 197-c of the New York City Charter, the Brooklyn Borough President will hold a public hearing on the following matters in the Borough President's Courtroom, Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201, commencing at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, August 18th, 2015.

CALENDER ITEM 1— 150399 PPK / 150400 PQK
An application submitted by the Brooklyn Public Library and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS):

    1.    pursuant to Section 197-c of the New York City Charter, for the disposition of one city-owned property located at 1 Clinton Street (aka 280 Cadman Plaza West); Block 239, Lot 16, pursuant to zoning;

    2.    pursuant to Section 197-c of the New York City Charter, for the acquisition of property located at 1 Clinton Street (aka 280 Cadman Plaza West); Block 239, Lot 16, pursuant to zoning;

to redevelop the premises (total of 36 floors and approximate height of 416ft) to include an improved 21,500sf Brooklyn Public Library branch, approximately 139 dwelling units comprising approximately 277,981sf of residential floor area, approximately 19,800sf of community facility space, a below-grade public parking facility with approximately 45 accessory parking spaces, and 630sf of retail.

Note: To request a sign language interpreter, or request TTD services, call Mr. Richard Bearak at 718-802-4057 before the hearing.

* * * *

(Note that the building’s extra tall ceilings mean the building’s approximate height of 416ft stated above is the equivalent of a more standard 41-story building.)

What do people need to know about the proposed sale for a relative pittance (perhaps actually netting cash close to or less than zero) this sturdy, historic, recently enlarged and upgraded library, shrinking it down from 63,000 square feet to 21,000 square feet or that vicinity?

The following two links will assist:

•        PRESS RELEASE & NEWS ADVISORY- Forewarned and Forearmed Brooklyn Community Board 2 Votes Wednesday, July 15th On Proposed Fire Sale of Major Public Asset, Central Destination Library In Downtown Brooklyn

•        Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee June 17, 2015: ULURP Hearing- First Hearing About Whether To Sell & Shrink Downtowns’s Brooklyn Heights Library (Tillary & Clinton)

For those of you who may not want to click through for more information, here are some highlighted concerns:

1.    The mistake of shrinking this library (last enlarged with public expense and sacrifice Oct.1993) down to just one-third size* can never be corrected, nor can the “replacement” library, stuck in the bottom of a luxury residential tower, ever grow with the neighborhood, CBD, borough or city.  Though this shrinkage is to a preordained size no replacement library has been designed and no estimation at all has been done of how many books it should hold.

        (* 63,000 square feet to just 21,000 square feet.)

2.    The BPL is selling a sturdy, readily adaptable library in good shape, together with its land and development rights worth over $100 million to the public in order to net next to nothing in a transaction that may even incur a net cash loss.  Further, there is no assurance that the paltry sums, if any, gleaned from the sale, all going to the city, would ever subsequently go to libraries.  Libraries, highly valued by the public, cost relatively little to fund, but this sale is apt to encourage further underfunding like this.

3.    This sale would sacrifice one more public asset (an education-supporting one at that) to build yet another new, huge residential tower that would further burden the public infrastructure such as PS8, already at 140% capacity.

4.    The gentrifying aspects of this project are unmistakable with a public asset democratically serving everyone equally being shut down, lower income patrons coming to the neighborhood kicked out, and so-called “affordable” housing units built “poor door” style at a far remove from Brooklyn’s burgeoning downtown and upper crust Brooklyn Heights.

5.    The developer has refused to say how much of a payday the private Saint Ann’s School is getting from the public’s sale and shrinkage of the library, because that’s a “private” transaction, even though it’s driving this public one.  Shouldn’t Saint Ann’s be paying the BPL?  (It may likely get more from this sale than the BPL is getting.)

6.    This sale sets the unfortunate precedent for serially underfunding and selling off other libraries (per the BPL strategic real estate plan) and other public assets (like public housing) setting a template for how public assets can be picked off one-by-one.  This developer is making hundreds of millions of dollars: The incentives for other such deals will always be there.  If we can’t stop them at libraries . . .

7.    It’s improper that while the developer’s application for this project was pending Bill de Blasio was taking money sent to him by its development team, in his words: “lurking right behind the curtain . .  very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties.”