On Tuesday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the 16th site from its former 95-item backlog of items from before 2010. The former Williamsburgh Trust Company Building at 177 South 5th Street, in Williamsburg, has now been designated a landmark. Additionally, two more Brooklyn structures are now on the path to designation.
Williamsburg-based Jen Urban View Development has filed applications for a four-story, eight-unit residential building at 45 Troutman Street, in western Bushwick. It will measure 5,500 square feet and its residential units should average 687.5 square feet apiece, indicative of rental apartments. There will be two units per floor, although the top two apartments on the fourth floor will also feature space in an upper penthouse level. Woody Chen’s Elmhurst-based Infocus Design & Planning is the architect of record. The 25-foot-wide, 2,500-square-foot property is currently occupied by a two-story townhouse. Demolition permits haven’t been filed. The Myrtle Avenue stop on the J, M, and Z trains is two blocks away.
Bushwick and Williamsburg have already started bracing for the MTA to shutdown the L train for 18 months starting in 2019, and many investors are looking elsewhere for development sites. But at the southern edge of the neighborhood, near the J train, new construction is still chugging along. New building applications were filed yesterday to build a seven-story residential building at 1010 Bushwick Avenue, between Grove and Linden streets at the southern edge of Bushwick.
Mild suffering for a long time or significant hardship for a shorter time. Those were the choices faced by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority when it came to post-Hurricane Sandy repairs on the L train tunnel under the East River. The MTA has opted for the latter option.
A hospitality haven is rapidly rising at the northern fringe of Long Island City, in an area that overlaps into Dutch Kills to the east and Ravenswood to the west. Despite its convenient location just minutes away from Midtown via subway, the neighborhood north of Queens Plaza was largely ignored by the city and developers for most of the 20th century. During that time, local street character ranged from quiet residential enclaves to fenced-off commercial and industrial facilities to seedy, crime-ridden nooks that the casual visitor best stay away from. Since Long Island City has become one of the city’s hottest neighborhoods, a dozen hotels sprung up within its northern portion, with several more currently in progress. Upon completion, the 10-story one at 29-12 40th Avenue, which will be run by a yet-to-be-announced operator, would bring 75 rooms to the booming neighborhood.