It seems that the residents of Kensington are not taking news of the
recent sale of the Little Grey Barn to a developer sitting down.
Yesterday I got an e-mail from a friend who is the owner of an adorable
rowhouse in Kensington, about a community group calling itself the East Windsor Terrace
Group, that is forming to
make sure that proposed buildings stay "in context with the community
and will not put a strain on the already overburdened municipal
services." The group mourns the downsizing of the stables and worries
that it will be "squeezed and threatened by the traffic, noise, loss of
light and air that will come with all the additional proposed housing
units."
Dating back to the 19th Century, Kensington Stables is the only
remaining stable on Prospect Park. There are two barns, one containing an indoor riding ring, and a small corral adjacent to the other. They
also have the exclusive use of The Shoe and Breeze Hill, two riding
areas in the center of the park, in addition to the bridle path, which
runs from Park Circle to the southwest corner of the Long Meadow.
There are very few horse stables left in New York City. I know of
one on the Upper West Side near Central Park and one off the Belt Parkway in Queens. Back
in the 1930’s, my mother would subway over from Avenue J to the Kensington
Stables and ride English saddle in Prospect Park.
Kensington
is a mixed-use neighborhood on the edge of Prospect Park that I was
barely aware of until a few years ago, when a realtor drove me over there to see a tiny house on Caton Street. It encompasses the edge of Windsor
Terrace, parts of Ocean Parkway Coney Island Avenue and funky name
streets like Kermit and Caton that have quaint rowhouses evocative of
London. Apartment buildings, a bright turquoise modern pre-fab Baptist
church and tiny wood houses co-exist in a kind of rococo asymmetry.
Just minutes from Park Slope by car, Kensingtonians are able to take
full advantage of shopping on Seventh Avenue and Prospect Park West, as well as Coney Island Avenue. Prospect Park and the Parade Grounds are just a hop, skip, and a jump away.
Understandably, the locals are of two minds about the current
development plans. "Our neighborhood certainly needs some development,
but it does not need hundreds of new residents and no new amenities or
services," says Mandy Harris, who is one of the group. Clearly they don’t want their neighborhood overdeveloped nor
do they want it to lose its unusual and eclectic character.
The word of the moment is CONTEXTUAL. And I am loving it. I
understand it to mean that development should never be indifferent to
the historical and residential context that already exists. Bulldozing
through a neighborhood and changing its architectual and social character is a sure no no.
To be contextual means to proceed with development in a way that compliments and improves what is already there.
South South Slope, the group that is protesting the current land
grab in Greenwood Heights, also uses the C-word. On
their web site they say: "We have come together to protect the
low-scale, residential character of our neighborhood and are working to
change our present zoning to R6b. While R6b allows for new development,
it stipulates that all new construction must match the CONTEXTUAL
height of the surrounding buildings" Their biggest gripe: a luxury
building that that will block a beautiful view of the Statue of
Liberty from Battle Hill in the Green-Wood Cemetery.
In my opinion, that Battle Hill view belongs to all the residents (dead and alive) of Brooklyn
and should not just belong to someone able to pay $1 million dollars or more for a penthouse.
Brooklyn is so hot right now that greenbacks seem to be burning holes in the pockets of developers and politicians. Overdevelopment could quite possibly destroy what makes this borough such a livable place. Development that
takes into consideration the context and the history of place will be
much easier to bear.
For those who are interested in learning more about how Kensington
residents feel about this developmental incursion: On Thursday May 12 at 7:30 there is a meeting of the East Windsor Terrace
Group at the Baptist Church on 312 Coney Island Avenue, entrance on
Caton Street.
-Louise G. Crawford
FOR MORE ABOUT BROOKLYN DEVELOPMENT: SEE LETTER FROM JANE JACOBS TO MAYOR BLOOMBERG IN SCOOP DU THURSDAY.
I’m a member of the East Windsor Terrace Community Group. We are often mistaken for Kensington. Kensington begins on the south-side of Caton Ave. EWT was severed from Windsor Terrace proper by Robert Moses when he built the Prospect Expressway in the late 50s.
Thanks your kind words and support in our fight against overdevelopment. Since May, we’ve had another public hearing and secured the unanimous backing of Community Board 7. Monday, December 5th at 5:30, we have our second public hearing, this time before the Borough President at Borough hall.
We’re also working with an urban planner for all of our 7 block island. As has been noted here, the city is not planning. It’s up to the community groups to figure out how to accommodate an inadequate infrastructure.
To the person who lives in Kensington: most of Kensington is zoned 5B for two-or three story homes. If you think a lot of developement will make things cleaner, think again. You’ll have hundreds more people and the same amount of trash bins. The same amount of garbage collectors. The same amount of parking spaces. The same number of seats on the F-train. The same 100 yr. old sewage pipes. The same water pressure for flushing hundreds more toilets. More overcrowding in the schools.
Re Dirty Church st. There is a Church Street Business Association. The stores get ticketed for dirty sidewalks. Why not join or vounteer with them? Come to the Community Board meetings. Chances are there are people that are already working on that problem.
Thanks also for the person who used ‘nosey-bodies’. It reminds me of the late 30s films, when the supporting actress, wearing a hat with lacquered feathers, a frilly handkerchief pinned to her bodice, would reassure the wronged star, “Pay them no mind. Why they’re just a bunch of old nosey-bodies.”
Dave
Most of the developers in these neighborhoods are profiteers and are not just average people trying to build on their own property. Development that is out of context with the rest of the neighborhood isn’t fair to those who have lived in the neighborhood for a long time and are affected by the changes caused by the out of place developments. I live in the Greenwood Heights area, where most of the buildings are 2-3 stories high. Recently developers have been buying lots to build 8+ story buildings that not only look ridiculous next to 2-3 story homes, but also block light from the homes and yards of the surrounding buildings. People can’t even grow the same plants because of the light blocking backyards.
In addition, there has been some concern about developers lining the pockets of officials and inspectors in order to build massively large buildings on small lots – many are concerned of the potential hazards of building on lots meant only for small private homes.
As a resident and coop owner in Kensington for the past three years, I’ve noticed that we are in need of more developement in the area.
There is a lack of restaurants and stores in the area and a lack of trash pickup on Church Ave.
Church ave on Monday morning looks like hell, there should be more cleanup and tickets given out to people and businesses throwing trash in the street. Let’s say YES to developement in Kensington and let’s CLEAN IT UP!!
This issue is overdevelopment in Brooklyn. Park Slopers should take notice that we’ve managed to use our political clout to insulate ourselves from overdevelopment. As a result, residents living in our perimeter are awakening to a collective horror as developers are chomping at the bit (sorry for the horsey clich
Contexual: code word used by statist authoritarians, whose understanding of the words ‘private property’ is “you can do whatever you want with your property as long as you do what we tell you to.”
When you own a piece of property, you can choose to build whatever suits your needs and contexual fantasies.
Hopefully you will extend that same respect and courtesy to others to choose for themselves what they want to build, and not to adhere to some fluffy, idealistic asthethic that you nosy-bodies wish to inflict and enforce.
No thanks for your concern.
As a resident of Kensington, this is all a real concern for me and my family. Thanks for blogging about it.
I was in Brooklyn Heights last night doing that film and, as I always do when I visit Brooklyn, ask myself why I don’t live there – it’s got such a magical charm. But being a responsible (and not wealthy) citizen, I don’t want to contribute to any overdevelopment of the borough. I saw it happen in my hometown (Virginia) and I’d hate to see it happen anywhere else.