You’re not alone if you think the new buildings on Fourth Avenue are uninspiring. I thought there would be some effort to make the avenue a livable street, a place you’d want to walk and shop. But the new developments seems to discourage street life. Here’s an excerpt from what Streetsblog has to say on this topic. Check out the photographs and story at Streetsblog.

When the City Planning Commission upzoned Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue in 2003, it was hailed by some as a breakthrough. Borough President Marty Markowitz trumpeted Fourth Avenue as “a grand boulevard of the 21st Century.” Residential development would reshape this urban speedway, the thinking went, from a pit-stop for cabs to a stately corridor of mid-rise residences — Brooklyn’s answer to Park Avenue.

In the past two years, as the dust cleared from disputes over building heights and provisions for affordable housing, Fourth Avenue’s transformation has sped along. The first wave of new residential construction has hit the market, and dozens more properties from Flatbush Avenue to 15th Street are in various stages of development. But the early returns are discouraging for anyone who hoped to see a walkable, mixed-use district take shape here

One new apartment building, the Novo, looms fortress-like over the playground next door, while another, the Crest, greets passersby with man-sized industrial vents. A new hotel, Le Bleu (“a haven of style, elegance and fine living”), meets the sidewalk with a parking lot fit for a suburban dentist’s office.

Welcome to the new Fourth Avenue — the future of Brooklyn.