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| An artist's rendering, via NY YIMBY |
The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC)
has approved plans for a 75 unit building -- an ugly one IMHO -- on the lawn of the adjacent historic Dean Sage Mansion in our Crown Heights neighborhood (839 St. Marks Avenue). The building, which sits directly across from the popular Brooklyn Children's Museum and Brower Park and down the block from P.S. 289 grade school, will have 45 units set aside for mentally ill residents, in addition to 30 more affordable housing units.
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| Google Maps currently of Dean Sage Mansion |
The development was met with great displeasure by some neighbors, including Derrick Hilbertz and Jen Catto, representing block associations on St. Marks and Dean respectively, who were among those raising objections at recent meetings of the Landmarks Commission and the Crown Heights North Association. Catto and Hilbertz tell me the matter was given short shrift at two such meetings in recent weeks and the project appears to have steamrolled through.
Hilbertz spearheaded efforts to block the development, including authoring an impassioned letter to the LPC on behalf of the St Marks Independent Block Association. Most of the case he made in the letter decried the blow to the historic nature of the block, known 100 years ago as "Millionaire's Row" (per
a 2010 article on Brownstoner featuring the block and the Dean Sage Mansion). Here is an excerpt from Hilbertz's letter to the LPC:
The Dean Sage Mansion - and its original, formal garden - is indeed one of the very last of the freestanding mansions that once defined the entire area: a unique and first-rate example of exactly this described ‘sense of place’ of Crown Heights North, and itself a form of ‘endangered species’
The mansion and its grounds are owned by the Institute for Community Living (ICL), which currently houses 48 mentally ill residents there. The new building is an expansion of that housing facility. Presently, residents have access to a large gated lawn for their private outdoor use. With the new building taking up virtually all of that lawn space, it seems inevitable that residents will avail themselves of the beautiful public space of Brower Park, directly across the street from the facility, behind the Brooklyn Children's Museum.
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There it is, pinned, right across from Brooklyn Children's Museum,
Brower Park and PS 289 |
I mean no disrespect to the mentally ill. And, sure, NIMBY and all that. But to expand specialized housing to accommodate
~100* mentally ill residents, and, in the course of which, removing all of their private outdoor space, and the building being situated directly across from a foremost Brooklyn children's institution, and a park with many child-friendly features (skate ramps, climbing equipment, basketball courts, playgrounds, sports field), and a grade school not 300 yards down the street, it seems reasonable to question the wisdom of the project in that location. Yet, as far as I'm aware, the matter has received scant press attention to date outside of local online real estate coverage.
According to Hilbertz and Catto, however, it sounds like a done deal, save civil litigation.
UPDATED 5/16/16:
I notice this morning that a search of "Institute for Community Living" on Google News pulls up stories of three separate murders of residents that happened in ICL facilities in recent years (
2012 at the location on St. Marks,
2013 in Boerum Hill, and
earlier this year in East NY), as well as a missing person report for a resident of the St. Marks facility from
a few weeks ago.)
* NOTE: Since posting this, a member of Community Board 8, with knowledge of the proposal, wrote to suggest that the expansion will not double the number of units set aside for mentally ill residents from 48 to 48+45, as I'd indicated, but rather the new 45 will replace the old 48 set aside for the mentally ill. Details still to be confirmed.
The Crown Heights Community Mediation Center and its "Save our Streets" (S.O.S.) initiative are sponsoring their sixth annual "Arts to End Violence" gallery exhibition of local artists -- kids, amateurs, professionals -- "committed to anti-violence, community building, peace, survival, healing, and making gun violence unacceptable in our city."
