August 18, 2003: Vol. 26, No. 33
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del.icio.usSome stories won’t go away, even after 25 years.
Take, for instance, the massive Watchtower building on the waterfront at 360 Furman St. Before the Jehovah’s Witnesses acquired it in the 1980s, it housed a potpourri of made-in-USA manufacturers for whom time was running out. Heights-rooted developer Bruce Eichner imagined it as a residential conversion; after confrontations with opponents who would not accept the fact that the end was near for productive enterprises east of China, it was suggested that the building be split — residential on the water side, manufacturing facing the land. Tired of negotiating, Eichner sold out, and the manufacturers, as well as potential Heights residents, were locked out.
Now that the million-square-foot building is on the market again, we’re likely to hear plenty of schemes for its reuse. But if proponents of the Brooklyn Bridge Park — who are presumed to covet at least part of the property for their commercially anchored project — overplay their hand, we may end up with this wonderful building slipping into another deeply private domain, where public waterfront access will be a fast-evaporating dream.
• • •
The first big “scoop” for The Brooklyn Paper came just a few weeks into our run, in 1978. We’d stand outside Downtown’s major office buildings distributing papers as the daytimers poured into the area. But at 66 Court St., one of the strip’s big-five office buildings, we discovered that hardly anyone was going in. The building, in fact, was being emptied in advance of a sale. But it wasn’t just any sale — this was to be a commercial condominium conversion, an unusual notion at the time, particularly for so large a building.
We could easily have approached the story as a feel-good real estate piece, as other newspapers did, that would illustrate the strength of our market. Instead, we considered the characters involved, discovering that the developer was a smooth-talking convicted con man who was about to go to jail for a real estate swindle in Philadelphia. The man applied lots of charm, begging our editor not to run the story. In view of his impending incarceration, he was anxious to tie up the deal immediately. The U.S. attorney for the Philadelphia area was interested to hear what the man was up to in Brooklyn.
We ran the story; the deal died.
• • •
Sixty-six Court St., as a residential conversion, was renamed 75 Livingston St. The sponsor saddled its co-operators with lots of problems and not enough cash. But two problems stood out — one that fell from the sky, and the other the result of their own shortsightedness.
In the years since the conversion, two people were killed by debris which fell from the building. The result of the first accident, in which a young lawyer died, is the city law requiring systematic inspection of building exteriors and the concurrent erection of scaffolding until approvals are won, a boon for the scaffolding business.
The self-inflected wound came on the building’s west side, which faces Manhattan. Towering above Brooklyn Heights, the views from the building’s middle-to-upper floors was spectacular.
The small lot that abutted the building on the Manhattan side was no wider than a big driveway; the co-op refused to buy it when the lot’s owner put it on the market, convinced they’d keep their views for free.
The 75 Livingston owners were cocky — until the lot was sold to the Witnesses, who erected a “sliver” building, blocking their views.
©2003 The Brooklyn Paper
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