110 Livingston News & Blog

A week after we called the City Economic Development Corporation to ask about the construction delays we’re happy to report that workers are digging up Boerum Place as we write this. When we spotted the backhoe and workers this morning they had already dug quite a hole, and appeared to be relocating a utility or traffic signal.

EDC was helpful in providing some more information on the plans. They said in an email that the “Boerum Place improvements will mirror that on Adams Street” and will include “milling, resurfacing the roadway, signage, streetscape elements, reconstruction of the medians and sidewalks, drainage work, landscape work, and utility work.”

EDC said work is expected to begin in late spring early summer of 2007 and should be done by late spring or summer of 2008. Looks like they may be getting a head start.

See a slightly closer shot of the workers and hole below.

• The Park Avenue of Brooklyn? Not quite yet.
• Comment below or discuss in the 110 forums.

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Schermerhorn Facade.

From Boerum Place.

North wing.

Courtyard.

Detail of the old and new facades.

Detail facing Livingston St.

View from Red Hook Lane, before the additional floors were added.

From Red Hook Lane, after additional floors were added.

• Brooklyn Petsitter: Walkie Doggie (Brooklyn Record)
• That cool mosaic house on Wyckoff Street: some Local Color (Lost City)
• Still dreaming of bringing the Brooklyn trolleys back, so we can all ride to Fairway? Parts of the system are still here: check out the remnants the old trolley stations (including one with marble doric columns), and an ancient trolley pole still standing at Cadman Plaza (Forgotten-NY)
• Brooklyn: Now Cool Enough for Jitney (The Real Estate)
• Connection to Brooklyn Bridge Park proposed–also, Brooklyn Heights to be renamed Brooklyn Heists (Brooklyn Heights Blog)

Photo from Forgotten-NY

We were impressed when we first saw the quality of the mural in the courtyard at 110. We shouldn’t have been; the muralist of this work is Richard Haas, who has a sterling resume, and whose work is in the permanent collections at the Met, MOMA, and Brooklyn Museum, to name a few.

His site features a some of his work, including an interior at the New York Public Library, two prints of the Chrysler and Empire State buildings, and my favorite, an office wall painted to resemble a window onto the city as it existed in the 1800s. Maybe the city could commission a similar work on the Brooklyn House of Detention?

• Richard Haas, 110 Livingston St.
  

The New York Sun, continuing their impressive coverage of Brooklyn development, reports that:

The Bloomberg administration is looking to boost downtown Brooklyn by naming a Brooklyn development tsar to oversee the planned growth of the city’s third largest business district.

This is a welcome development. For one thing, the new tsar would integrate the alphabet soup of civic groups that now exist in the downtown area (deep breath): the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP), Downtown Brooklyn Council (DBC), Fulton Mall Improvement Association (FMIA), MetroTech Business Improvement District (MTBID), and the BAM Local Development Corporation (BAMLDC). Whew!

The internet anagram server took all these letters–DBPDBCFMIAMTBIDBAMLDC–and spat out two important downtown issues: difficulty finding a cab, and the hot real estate market (it said: “CAB MAD, FLIP IT”). A coded message for the new tsar, perhaps?

• Mayor to Name Development Tsar to Oversee Downtown Brooklyn (NY Sun)
• Downtown Brooklyn is Booming (Brownstoner)
• Internet Anagram Server (Wordsmith.org)
• Discuss in the 110 forums.

Today it’s all transport news because 110 has its pick of just about every subway line in the city, the Transit Museum is on site, and we’re right near the Brooklyn Bridge:

• Today in Brooklyn: Brooklyn Bridge Park Transportation Study Meeting (Brooklyn Record)
• New & cool from the MTA Store: get your very own model redbird, multicolored Metrocard holders, and a metal engraved subway wallet map (MTA Transit Museum Store)
• Cue scary music: StreetFilms–Atlantic Ave.’s Unsafe Conditions (Belltel Lofts Blog)
• Park Slope one-way street controversy continues: Episode 1, Episode 2 (Gowanus Lounge)