Soon you’ll be able to get all the artisanal soaps your heart desires at City Point. Rain, an au naturale soap, skincare, and fragrance company is opening up their first Brooklyn storefront in July.
Gold Street, between Myrtle Avenue and Willoughby Street in Downtown Brooklyn, may soon be renamed to honor Ida B. Wells, an African-American investigative journalist, teacher, feminist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Wells spent several years on Gold Street in the early 1890s (living near today’s existing Chase Bank), after her Memphis journalism offices were destroyed by white mob violence.
There’s been some activity at 300 Livingston Street. The French general store has begun building out their newest location (part of the retail component of 33 Bond Street). Calling themselves “a better bodega,” Dépanneur will be a welcomed addition to the Downtown Brooklyn lunch circuit. They’ve gained popularity in Williamsburg (their first location) and Clinton Hill with unique weekly sandwich specials that they announce on social media.
From The Raw Deal, regarding retail rents going up up up in Brooklyn:
Downtown Brooklyn’s Fulton Mall from Boerum Place to Flatbush Avenue remained the most expensive strip with average asking rent of $359 per square foot, up 10 percent from a year earlier.
I doubt anyone is surprised. With the sheer number of chain stores in our zip code, how could the rent not be that ridiculous? Not that I was expecting any mom-and-pop stores in the neighborhood.
There’s some intense construction happening at Schermerhorn and Bond, right across the street from the upcoming Chelsea Piers Fitness. No, it’s not more luxury apartments. This time, it’s a fancy new hotel.
I mean, look how fancy:
Image via Broadway CG
We’re getting a fancy gym. Chelsea Piers Fitness is coming to Downtown Brooklyn. The “showroom” is now open for new members. I heard through the rumor mill that “founding member” prices are about $150 per month, and that price will go up once the gym actually opens. That puts this gym in roughly the same category as Crunch, Equinox, or (RIP) David Barton.
Image via 80 Flatbush
The community has spoken. Well, the Brooklyn Community Board 2’s Land-Use Committee has spoken at least. And they’ve voted against the giant construction project at 80 Flatbush Ave at a meeting held Wednesday.
Unlike other, approved development projects in Downtown Brooklyn, the planned tower at 80 Flatbush met a wave of backlash from the community. A group called Block 80 Flatbush Towers formed to fight against the construction project. They’ve been vocal online, as well as covered the neighborhood with their message. With this vote, it appears as if their vote has been heard.
Construction appears to be at a standstill at 9 Dekalb Ave, the giant skyscraper coming to Downtown Brooklyn that will be twice as tall as any current building in the neighborhood.
The image is an aerial view of the construction site, with the old Dime Savings Bank in the lower right-hand corner of the image. Construction crews were hard at work removing floors of the attached building last summer/fall, but it seems like no progress has been made since then.
It can be hard to see from the street, but Macy’s old parking garage is no longer a parking garage. The first step in constructing the next skyscraper being added to Downtown Brooklyn’s skyline, at 11 Hoyt. I shot this photo from our roof on April 14th, 2018, so everyone could get a look at the current progress.
It came out last week that the promised park-above-a-parking-garage might not be going as planned.
Back in 2004, when this neighborhood was first rezoned (prompting the building frenzy that’s happening now), the city promised a one-acre public park right across from the new City Point structure. The city even approved tearing down rent stabilized buildings to make way for this new park slash parking garage.