Tag Archives: Seventh Avenue

Civics and Urban Life

City Council Approves Park Slope Historic District Expansion in South Slope

Park Slope’s historic district just got BIGGER.

New York’s City Council voted today to approve an expansion of the Park Slope Historic District, making it the largest historic district in the city. The City Council vote affirms the Landmarks Preservation Commission approval on April 17, 2012.

This expansion will include 580 buildings  from approximately 7th Street to 15th Street (including the 7th Avenue frontage), 7th Avenue to 8th Avenue, and along 15th Street from 8th Avenue to Prospect Park West (including the western side of Bartel Pritchard Square). A map of the expansion is available at the LPC website.

The extension also includes the former Ansonia Clock Works factory, once the world’s largest clock manufacturer, as well as homes built for its workers.

Here is a statement from the Council:

“The Council’s action not only celebrates a storied part of the city’s industrial past, but the sensitive adaptive reuse of the factory complex and its contribution towards the vitality and historic character of the area,” the Park Slope Civic Council said in an issued statement. “The Civic Council is united in our desire to maintain the neighborhood’s quality of life and to ensure that it is preserved for future generations of Park Slope residents and visitors alike to enjoy.”

 

 

Civics and Urban Life

Update: Fire on Roof of Good Footing Building on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope

At approximately 1:30 PM, Eliot Wagner of Now I’ve Heard Everything called to tell me there was a serious fire in the 4-story building, which houses Good Footing Adventure, an athletic shoe store next door to the post office on Seventh Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Streets.

I was in the Cocoa Bar so I ran over to check out the situation.

At 1:47, I spoke to one of the firefighters who told me that  the fire was on the roof. By the time I got there the fire was out. According to other sources, it took 16 minutes to put the fire out. There were no injuries and the occupants of the building can, as of 1:47 PM return to the building. but because of water damage to the entire building, tenents won’t be returning anytime soon.

A large number of fire trucks and a few ambulances were on the street. An eyewitness said she saw flames emanating from the roof of the building about a half hour ago.

At 3:15 or so, one of the employees of Good Footing told me that the fire was on the roof where there is a deck. I asked if there was a barbecue grill up there but he didn’t know. There is extensive damage to the shop and its merchandise due to  the water used by the firefighters.

Firefighters put out the fire on the roof And the owner of Good Footing and his employees will begin to clean up the mess. After the ceiling stops dripping, that is.

Seventh Avenue was closed to traffic from 4th Street to 2nd Street for an hour or more.

A few minutes ago, I stepped into the shop, which smelled of fire and dankness. Water was dripping from the ceiling and everyone looked extremely dispirited.

What a mess.

 

Civics and Urban Life

Real-Time Bus Arrival and Location Info for the B61 Bus

Help is on the way for the riders of the B61 bus. I got to know a little bit about riding the bus in Park Slope when I was commuting to the city for court reporting classes. Because I had that heavy (HEAVY) backpack, I would wait for the bus on the corner of Third Street and Seventh Avenue and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

I saw the same people every day and some days we got mighty impatient. There was always someone standing way out in the middle street looking southward for the bus. “Is that a bus,” we’d ask.

Truth of the matter, it was almost always more prudent—and faster—to just walk to the subway at Grand Army Plaza or Flatbush Avenue. But sometimes you just want to take a bus.

On cold winter mornings, there was always such relief when the bus finally arrived. On most mornings there was just plain relief that there was a bus at all.

Well, some exciting changes are  afoot for riders of the B61 bus.

City Councilmember Brad Lander’s press guy sent out a release yesterday about the debut of something called BusTime on the B61 bus, making it the second bus in Brooklyn with the system that provides real-time bus arrival and location information. You an learn how the system works here.

The system, which is already in use for the B63 bus on Fifth and Atlantic Avenues, uses GPS devices on buses, which lets bus riders use their cell phones and computers to find out where the next buses to arrive on a route actually are.

I will say that it sounds like a big improvement over standing out in the middle of the street, risking injury, to check on whether there’s a bus coming. Especially for those of us who need distance glasses and can barely see two blocks away. Quite often a van or a truck looked like a bus and I (and others) got our hopes up.

There are other planned improvements to the B61 bus, as well.

· More frequent buses in the PM rush hour, increasing the average headway from ten to nine minutes.

· More reliable service at all hours resulting from:

o An increase in the amount of time the bus has to make the run and to recover at the end of the route.

o A change in the location of the bus driver shift change from the middle of the line to the end of the line.

Lander says: “Bus Time is a great step forward for B61 bus riders, who are looking for more reliable bus service. The MTA has brought Bus Time to the B61 at our urging and I look forward to taking further steps to making the line a great bus for the neighborhoods it serves.”