The Eminent Domain

With so much cooking in downtown Brooklyn it’s hard to know where to begin, but the current tug-of-war over the future of Admirals’ Row speaks volumes about the cognitive dissonance Brooklyn is going through, painfully.

Here’s what’s going on, as explained well in the Daily News: The Navy Yard Development Corporation is looking to develop a supermarket on the site of 10 decrepit mansions that once housed top officers of the Navy. Historic preservationists have sought, without success, to get the structures landmarked. Now the National Guard, which owns the buildings, has issued a report concluding that the buildings could be restored — at a price of nearly $20 million in all.

Now, we’re all familiar with the usual development scenario in New York City, as we’ll amply cover it on this site: Big developer proposes a project, government greases the way with rezoning and subsidies, neighbors rally to block the project. At first blush that looks like what we’ve got here. But. Brooklynites are struggling right now with the deep contradictions of the current path of downtown development, and it’ll make the Admiral’s Row saga a fascinating one to follow.

Downtown Brooklyn is a hotbed of historic preservation and its devotees, understandably so given the area’s architectural treasures. But it also cries out for greater investment in essential amenities — and while residents have been yearning for years for something as basic as a full-scale supermarket, it’s only with the arrival of wealthy new settlers that developers are taking those demands seriously (well, Bruce Ratner gave downtown the Atlantic Center Pathmark, but I don’t dare give the guy credit for anything).

So what we’ve got are some truly difficult choices, and a false zero-sum choice between preservation and progress that suggests a need to rehab how we approach historic preservation. With the bias of spending way too much time in the blogosphere, I sense a growing awareness out there that we can’t have it all — hardline historic preservation; modern shopping and amenities; housing for upper-middle-income families, never mind everyone else — and that, to fall into the passive voice for a moment, someone will have to make some tough decisions, and help conceive and broker creative win-win solutions.

I’d like to ask Brooklyn: Who do you want to make these decisions? You? Or “them”? Choice #2 is what got us Atlantic Yards, the Freedom Tower, name your favorite monstrous-and-unresponsive development here. When my intern and I were putting together the FAQ for downtown Brooklyn we were stunned to discover only one group, FUREE, actively involved in advocating to shape downtown development. (If we’ve missed anybody, please contact us at ted [at] theeminentdomain [dot] org — we want to hear from you!)

We’ll leave it to FUREE members, many of whom live in the Farragut, Walt Whitman and Navy Yard Houses, to describe their own vision and needs for the area. Look forward to hearing from them here on The Eminent Domain. But they can’t do it alone — others are also going to have to step up and thoughtfully guide those painful decisions.