December 20–26, 2019 Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 AWP 13
Sounding the alarm
Former C’Gardens fi rehouse to become music school
Photo by Vamos Architects
The city has secured $6.5 million to renovate the
shuttered DeGraw Street firehouse and turn it into
a music school.
City Council, and $1 million
from Borough President Eric
Adams.
The Bedford-Stuyvesant
music organization — along
with Williamsburg design
firm Vamos Architects —
plan to revamp the two-story
4,300-square-foot space to accommodate
program space,
classrooms, a recording studio,
and offices.
The group currently teaches
kids to play classical and modern
music — instructing them
in string instruments, piano,
deejay, composition, music
theory, and singing — out of
its headquarters at the Herkimer
Street community de-
velopment organization Restoration,
where it will live until
the Carroll Gardens center
opens. Educators also teach
kids remotely at 36 public
schools across the city.
The city closed the old firehouse
in 2003 and considered
selling it or turning it onto a
schoolhouse — before cutting
a deal to redevelop it into a
community center, and artist
spaces with the Brooklyn
Philharmonic in 2008.
But that scheme collapsed
when the symphony group
went bust in 2013 and the dilapidated
property remained
vacant until city art honchos
eventually stuck a deal with
the Bedford-Stuyvesant group
in 2018, according to a city
spokesman.
The building was erected in
1857 and still bears the initials
of the former Brooklyn Fire
Department from before the
Great Mistake of 1898 — when
the vibrant city of Brooklyn
became just one of five New
York City boroughs, according
to a 1892 tome dedicated
to Brooklyn’s Fire Department
History.
The big build
Giant residential complex
quickly rising in Dumbo
recent visit revealed. An additional
two stories, which will
form a tower at one corner of
the building’s base, were also
visible from the street. In June,
walls were just starting to rise,
as we reported at the time.
When all’s said and done,
the building will have underground
parking for 712
cars, a community facility
and retail space. Designed
by Morris Adjmi, the building
is prominently sited on
Jay and York streets on a hill
near a subway stop.
Partners CIM Group,
Photo by Craig Hubert
The new, block-long building in Dumbo is rising at
a rapid pace.
LIVWRK and Kushner Companies
bought the site, for decades
a parking lot, from the
Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2016
for $345 million. Kushner
Companies sold its 2.5 percent
stake in 2018.
The project is expected
to bring thousands of new
residents to Dumbo, one of
Brooklyn’s most expensive
neighborhoods, potentially
increasing the population in
the neighborhood by as much
as a third and adding extra
traffic to the already problem
plagued York Street subway
station.
Great rates like ours are always in season.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
They’re bringing it Bach
to life!
The city unveiled its $6.5
million restoration plan to
transform the long-shuttered
Engine 204 firehouse in Carroll
Gardens into a music school
Wednesday, where the former
blaze-busting hub will serve as
the new outpost for the musical
nonprofit the Noel Pointer
Foundation, according to the
organization’s head.
“I’m looking forward to
great things happening in this
space,” said Chinita Pointer.
“We’re going to fill it with
music.”
City bureaucrats with the
Department of Cultural Affairs
will oversee the redevelopment
of the 162-year-old
building on DeGraw Street
between Court and Smith
streets, and has not yet set a
start date for the restoration,
but officials anticipate the facility
to open by 2024.
The city capital funding
for the project includes
$3 million from Mayor Bill
de Blasio, $2.5 million from
By Craig Hubert
for Brooklyn Paper
Construction is moving
quickly at Dumbo’s biggest
development site, where a
massive, block-long building
has risen 10 stories.
Located at 85 Jay Street,
and called Front & York,
the eventual 21-story, 728-
unit building will be part
rental, part condo and have
two swimming pools, one set
aside for owners and one for
renters, filings show.
The main base of the building
has reached eight stories, a
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