In this video, Brenda Becker of Prospect: A Year in the Park and Charles Star of Hawthorne Street debate (quite civilly, considering they probably both want to scratch each other's eyes out) the pros and cons of the new 20-story glass tower slated to be built on Lincoln Road, adjacent to Prospect Park.
The glass tower, designed by Gilman Architects, will consist of two segments which will be "rotated" on top of each other, and will be the tallest building to overlook the park.
In a nutshell, Ms. Becker disapproves of the project (there goes Olmstead's vision of a building-free oasis) and Mr. Star approves of it (well, it's better than a festering rathole). Opinion on Brownstoner runs very hot both pro and con.
The video is from BCAT's A Walk Around The Blog, a cable TV show featuring Brooklyn bloggers. The show will air on BCAT (Time Warner 56 / Cablevision 69) for the next two weeks on Monday and Thursday, at 1PM and 9PM and on Friday at 3PM and 11PM.
As a resident who has lived around Prospect Park for the last 28 years, I have always been thrilled to not see buildings when standing in the middle of the meadow on the Park Slope side of the park during the summer. To tell you the truth I wouldn't mind seeing a building if I weren't reminded that people like me couldn't afford to live in it even if we saved for the next hundred years, nay thousand years.
ReplyDeleteI am not a Brooklyn-ite but I live a few avenues off Central Park in Manhattan... I spend at least 1 full day in Central Park every weekend when it's warm out and I don't mind seeing the pricey highrise towers that surround the park. The best thing about Central Park is that its design is genius. There are many, many places throughout that offer beautiful refuge from the city life without any views of buildings. Additionally, vehicles that pass through the park on the major cross-streets are rarely seen, if ever, by park-goers. There are books that can go further into detail, but Central Park has fantastic landscaping and design... if Prospect Park can learn from this then it's possible that even if a bunch of highrise buildings are erected around the park, it might not change the feeling you get when you are inside the park.
ReplyDeleteI am not a Brooklyn-ite but I live a few avenues off Central Park in Manhattan... I spend at least 1 full day in Central Park every weekend when it's warm out and I don't mind seeing the pricey highrise towers that surround the park. The best thing about Central Park is that its design is genius. There are many, many places throughout that offer beautiful refuge from the city life without any views of buildings. Additionally, vehicles that pass through the park on the major cross-streets are rarely seen, if ever, by park-goers. There are books that can go further into detail, but Central Park has fantastic landscaping and design... if Prospect Park can learn from this then it's possible that even if a bunch of highrise buildings are erected around the park, it might not change the feeling you get when you are inside the park.
ReplyDeleteMarshall let me tell you that Prospect Park was designed by the same men who designed Central Park. According to them however, they excluded every mistake that they made with Central Park. Granted PP is about half the size of CP. But you might understand that the designers had every intention of not making it like CP. For one they got rid of cross park traffic. I've been to CP many times in my 63 years. And the various towers that you might see honestly don't really bother me. But there was no intentional design on the part of the designers to hide anything as there was with PP. Don't you think that we owe to the people who designed Prospect Park to respect what they wanted? Or do we owe to another generation of wealthy magnates who think they are bigger and grander than everyone else? You don't have to answer just think about it.
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