Readers: It’s a sign of progress
COURIER LIFE, NOV. 29-DEC. 5, 2019 29
It’s a “Welcome” addition!
Builders replaced the iconic
“Watchtower” sign that once greeted
travelers heading over the Brooklyn
Bridge with a new sign that reads
“Welcome” on Monday.
The rooftop marquee sits atop the
Jehovah’s Witnesses’s former headquarters
turned offi ce-and-retail
complex in Brooklyn Heights, where
it will salute work-a-day New Yorkers
— and, not to mention, potential
tenants of the bougie new commercial
tower — as they cross the borough’s
namesake span, according to
a rep for the landlord.
“Seen from Lower Manhattan
and greeting travelers as they cross
the Brooklyn Bridge, ‘Welcome’ embodies
the message to our tenants
and the entire city that Panorama
is a vital part of the transformed
Brooklyn waterfront and reinforces
the idea that Brooklyn is an inviting
place for companies to set up shop,”
said the principal of investments at
CIM Group Jason Schreiber in a
prepared statement.
Readers had a lot to say online:
The light and clock is what told
those of us working in towers over the
East River that the 2003 blackout was
on.
Shadrach Stanleigh
It needs to say, “WE’RE FULL.”
K.D. Isaacs
I love it.
Sheila Hall
A huge improvement.
Tal Barzilai from Pleasantville,
NY
Finally something they did right.
Donald Kaplan
Wonderful. The watchtower is fear
mongering and they have been gone
for years now. I understand the historical
value of the sign, but developers
dont seem to care at all and fi nally,
their callousness has worked in our favor.
Good riddance, Watchtower.
Haydée Vélez-Colón
It should have said “BROOKLYN”
in Dodgers font.
Eddie Villegas
Change to, “Get the hell out to de-
Blasio.”
Frankie J Campos
Here come the cars!
Residents living around the Pacifi
c Park mega-development in
Prospect Heights are wary of a
new 455-space parking garage being
built near the Barclays Center
arena, claiming developers and
their allies in state government
have failed to prepare the neighborhood
for the infl ux of hundreds of
additional cars.
“You’re degrading that environment
— without developing a plan,”
said Prospect Heights resident Peter
Krashes.
Manhattan development fi rm TF
Cornerstone is working in partnership
with Empire State Development
— the state’s economic-development
arm — to install the massive, subterranean
lot beneath two upcoming
residential towers located on Dean
Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt
avenues. The new garage would
be accessible via the single entrance
to an existing 303-space parking facility
located near Carlton Avenue,
and would cause traffi c on the already
narrow, one-way artery to
devolve into gridlock, according to
residents at a community meeting
on Tuesday.
Readers spoke up online:
This garage should ease the problem
of on-street parking being used
up by visitors to the arena. The garage
will prevent people from circling
and circling looking for parking. The
circling is what clogs the streets and
makes it look like there are more cars
than there actually are. On one hand,
advocates say we should get cars off
the streets and into garages and then
they fi ght against garages. There are
very few garages in the area. If they
want to keep cars off the streets these
garages should be very inexpensive.
Lucy Koteen
As someone who lives within 4
blocks of the Arena on the Park Slope
side, we are already inundated with
cars taking advantage of free on-street
parking, aggressively circling, blocking
driveways and hydrants – in spite
of the many public transportation options
available. I don’t see that stopping
unless the city increases meter
schedules and costs. As someone who
needs a car for work, it has become almost
impossible to fi nd street or garage
parking. Most of the garages in the
area have been replaced with apartment
buildings. I would be thrilled to
see MORE garages for Arena visitors.
Helen Kay Cohen
Yo, NIMBYs: The cars are already
here. The traffi c is already here. Denying
them parking will not make them
go away.
John Paul Weidenbusch
They are just doing their job? Not
purposely blocking the bike lane?
They only this everywhere. They have
a hard job. It just happens to be in the
bike lane. Why are bikers never happy
and complain and whine about everything?
Christina Tairi from Bensonhurst
30% of traffi c is just people looking
for parking. So maybe it will actually
help traffi c.
Rachel Goldstein
Let’s push the CB to make this net
neutral and have fewer free public
parking spaces on the street where
we can have more bike lanes and sidewalks.
Moses
Conrad
Welcome to NYC.
Tamar Gru
The MTA stinks!
Years of negligence and “serious
fl aws” in inspection techniques led
to the high-profi le, partial ceiling
collapse in the Brooklyn Borough
Hall station last year, according to
a new audit.
The report issued Tuesday from
the MTA’s inspector general found
that the transit authority had identifi
ed the defects that led to the collapse
two years earlier, in 2016. But
inspectors failed to grasp the seriousness
of the degradation because
of a lack of expertise in inspecting
the decorative terra cotta tiles
adorning the century-old station.
But the MTA had also been
aware for nearly a decade that it
didn’t have the proper knowledge to
assess those more uncommon subway
fi xtures; the inspector general
released two previous audits on the
matter—once in 2010 and again in
2012—following a similar collapse
of brick ceiling of the 181st Street
station in Washington Heights.
“It is extremely fortunate that
no one was seriously injured in the
Borough Hall ceiling collapse last
June,” said MTA Inspector General
Carolyn Pokorny in a statement.
“Had the recommendations issued
in our 2010 report been fully implemented,
it is likely that the extensive
station damage and costly repairs
could have been reduced, if not prevented.”
Pokorny’s offi ce found the MTA
inspectors falsely determined that
immediate repairs were not required
at the Borough Hall station—
despite repeatedly noting its
deteriorating ceiling.
Readers spoke out online:
These stations leak like a sieve
when it rains. Cracks in the ceilings.
Surprised it doesn’t happen more often.
Marianne Davis Seltzberg
Keep raising the fare and lining the
pockets of unnecessary offi ce managers.
That’s the MTA way.
Deacon Anthony Mammoliti
Borough Hall, no less...
Charlie Conard
They don’t care about us.
Donald Kaplan
Seriously? Negligence? in the greatest
city in the world? LMAO. Vee
Maybe if deBlasio and Cuomo
weren’t so busy giving money to illegal
aliens and deBliwsio’s lover, the subway
could have been fi xed.
Frank Puydak
Hey, 100 year old system. Not a bad
record.
Seamus McHenry
The biggest problem is that the
MTA is not legally accountable to NYC
residents or the State or City governments.
It’s a private corporation run
by a Board of Directors. It has clearly
never given one rat’s ass about it’s ridership,
their needs, their concerns
or their well-being. I would hazard a
guess that independent scrutiny of expenditures
would show a great deal of
very carless appropriations and maybe
some mis-appropriations as well. How
can a city like New York have its entire
transit system run by a private entity???
Utter madness.
Naomi Zurcher
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