Greenpoint, October, 2015

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

A Row and a Row

Ever mindful of your aesthetic experience, the DOT graciously provides this apology as you approach Fort Greene and Downtown Brooklyn from the east. Well, it's not exactly Il Duomo seen from the Piazzale Michelangelo in Florence...

What lies beyond?
The real view is actually obscured by trees and guardrails: Admiral's Row of the Brooklyn Navy Yards. 10 houses, some built as early as 1864, plus a timber shed used for drying the hardwood that would become masts for sailing vessels, the subject of a battle (on land rather than at sea) between preservationists and the Navy Yard Development Corporation.

A plan is afoot to preserve one of the houses and the timber shed and raze the rest for development. You can check out some beautiful images of what has been lost and remains to be lost on Joseph Chung's blog from which the photo below has been liberated.
Courtesy Joseph Chung
(BTW: Run the words Brooklyn Navy Yard together and you get an interesting consonant pattern.)


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