Anchors Away

While trying to distract myself from the fact that Bighead and I are still waiting to hear about the status of our application (and trying not to fret about the fact that because we’ve left a deposit that we will lose if we withdraw our application which makes it financially impossible for us to look at other places because we can’t afford to lose our deposit… and so we’re feeling sort of stuck here watching the weeks [going on 2 now] tick by while being told by our broker to be patient [to which I reply: We’ve been exceedingly patient. Two weeks of waiting in NYC’s rental market is a v.e.r.y. long time. Suck it.] as if our lease weren’t expiring soon.) I stumbled across these photos of Admiral’s Row in the NYTimes.

And then I got interested. Wikipedia has this little blurb about it and then… I came across this blog post (and its linked article) about the current controversy. Interesting right?

I must say that I tend to come down on the side of the Pratt students. The idea of spending the money to give each side a little bit of what they want resonates with me much more so that demolishing the buildings to put up one honking market or restoring the buildings but leaving them essentially impractical as historical landmarks.

Not, that historical landmarks are impractical but that it is impractical not to make use of the space for resources that a community so desperately wants and needs. Also, I believe that Brooklyn (and the City at large) is better served by a marriage of the pre-existing architectural and historical sentiment and modern needs and desires. You don’t have to rip out and tear up the old to have the new. Especially not at the detriment of a community’s clear sense of style.