Earlier this week, Brownstoner had an update on the progress of the Karl Fischer building at 305 McGuinness Boulevard near the Pulaski Bridge. Today, we bring you an update on the progress of his five-story building on Diamond Street, which is not beloved by our Greenpoint correspondent. She describes it as “a masterpiece,” but not […]

[Read more →]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we’re willing to consider the fact that we’re simply the wrong beholder in the case of this buiding at 126 Fourth Avenue (at Baltic). In fact, we kind of liked it better when it was hidden behind scaffolding and netting. The building sits where an Exxon […]

[Read more →]

The rendering of the Heavy Metal Building in Carroll Gardens, aka 360 Smith Street, which is among the things that agitated neighbors and provoked a variety of reactions, is back online. Not long after there were bad reactions to the rendering (which had been posted for a long time), it was pulled from the Scarano […]

[Read more →]

Is Wikipedia the neighborhood and development battleground of the future? Maybe. We say this because the Wikipedia page about architect Robert M. Scarano has become the subject of a weird tug of war between the architect (or his associates or supporters), his opponents and, increasingly, supporters and detractors of Council Member Bill de Blasio. The […]

[Read more →]

Don’t look now, but it seems that the State Education Department says that it’s “working closely” with the city’s Department of Buildings on the subject of architect Robert Scarano. Word comes via the office of City Council Member Bill de Blasio, which relates a letter from the Education Department that says: Please be advised that […]

[Read more →]

We don’ t know who, exactly, has been working on Robert Scarano’s Wikipedia page, but we have a funny feeling that it’s someone that lives in or near Carroll Gardens. Why? Recent additions to the constantly changing, shall we say, ScaraWiki, concern the controversy surrounding his building at 360 Smith Street and the effort by […]

[Read more →]

The name Robert Scarano has appeared here so many times in the last several weeks and the Brooklyn architect has had a rally called held in opposition to his work. City Council Member Bill de Blasio is singling him out as a “bad actor” and has called for him to be relieved of his professional […]

[Read more →]

Don’t look for the Battle of 360 Smith Street–the fight about a building adjacent to the Second Place entrance of the Carroll Street subway stop that would be designed by Robert Scarano and built by developer Billy Stein–to quiet down any time soon. Plans for the building, and the strategy for fighting to change it, […]

[Read more →]

Last year, around this time, we posted about a building that we dubbed the Sub-Zero Building because it bore an odd resemblance to everyone’s favorite high-end kitchen appliances. The Sub-Zero Building is in Greenpoint and finished with a shiny metallic finish. Some people like it. Some people don’t. We were wandering Williamsburg a couple of […]

[Read more →]

Carroll Gardens residents will be talking about the Battle of 360 Smith Street at a meeting of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association tonight. It should be a spirited discussion, with residents trying to work out their expectations for the building, particularly its height along both Second Street and Second Place, and the future of the […]

[Read more →]

Behold 69 Maspeth Avenue in Williamsburg. (The building on the right.) It is not ornate like some of the other crappy Brooklyn buildings that we have previously showcased as exemplary specimens. No, 69 Maspeth stops you in your tracks because it is so utilitarian and without pretense. This is a building that screams, “I don’t […]

[Read more →]

Some Carroll Gardens residents say they are disapppointed that yesterday’s rally on Smith Street was more about architect Robert Scarano than about the building he is designing in their neighborhood. One resident wrote to say: There was both some gratitude that [City Council Member Bill] de Blasio wants to point his finger at Scarano (who […]

[Read more →]

Significant news on the 360 Smith Street front after some residents met with the developer, William Stein. If you’ve been following the story, the neighborhood has been in a mini-revolt for nearly two weeks about a building designed by Robert Scarano that would go at Second Place and Smith Street. GL first reported the story […]

[Read more →]

The Battle of 360 Smith Street will heat up again tomorrow (Wednesday, 6/6) with a rally at 12:30 that is being organized by Council Member Bill de Blasio. (We’ve gotten four press release emails about the rally, not counting emails that have simply mentioned it.) Although architect Robert Scarano is said to have redesigned the […]

[Read more →]

These renderings, which went up on Curbed late yesterday afternoon, may be some of the most depressing we’ve ever seen. A Curbed reader commented that the project they represent is dead and, if so, that’s a good thing. We’ve joke more than once about how Ikea represented the New Jerseyfication of the Red Hook waterfront, […]

[Read more →]

Another development overnight in the Battle of 360 Smith Street. That’s the Carroll Gardens development sight that has sparked a noisy neighborhood revolt over the size and design of a proposed building and led to a rally that will take place on Wednesday, June 6 at 12:30. As it turns out, some of the signage […]

[Read more →]

One begins to get the sense that this is not a good time to be an architect who can be used as the poster boy for everything that is wrong with Brooklyn development. When a Carroll Gardens resident leading the charge against the controversial Heavy Metal Big Red Brick Building on Smith Street passed along […]

[Read more →]

As we’ve reported, architect Robert Scarano is apparently changing the exterior design of his building at Second Place and Smith Street from metal to red brick. However, Carroll Gardens residents say their opposition is as much about the scale of the eight-story building in the neighborhood of two- and three-story brownstones as it is about […]

[Read more →]

We were going to feature this building as a “What Were They Thinking?” entry, but realized that the issue with it isn’t so much its over-the-top ugliness, as the fact that it’s sandwiched between two other buildings in a most unpleasant way. Don’t get us wrong, 422 Prospect Avenue in the South Slope is pretty […]

[Read more →]

That sound you hear at the on Smith Street near the Carroll Street subway stop? It’s the noise of the community organizing to try to seriously change a building planned for Smith Street and Second Place. The image above is a rendering someone in the neighborhood created and put on a flyer showing how what […]

[Read more →]

That building that could rise at Smith Street and Second Place in Carroll Gardens has, um, struck quite a chord in the neighborhood. First, we got an email from our original tipster noting common ownership of the lot at 360 Smith Street where the eight-story Heavy Metal Building designed by architect Robert Scarano would go […]

[Read more →]

What can one say about this sort of palatial look, which was photographed for us by our Greenpoint correspondent, and all that Fedders action on Leonard Street in Greenpoint? The pink brick with the serious maroon decorative element? The ground-level garages with the metal doors? The only thing we can say is: What were they […]

[Read more →]

Our Greenpoint correspondent sent the image of this building rising at 130 Diamond Street. It’s a Karl Fischer Architects project, which indicates that his prodigious output is spreading to Greenpoint. The building is five stories and will have ten units. It certainly looks big compared to its relatively diminutive neighbors. No rendering available, unfortunately.

[Read more →]

When we got an email the other day from someone trying to rally opposition to a new development on Smith Street and 2nd Place we immediately realized they were talking about a building whose rendering has been posted for a long time. The plans have been filed and were just disapproved, but that could only […]

[Read more →]

One of the things we love about Brooklyn are the contrasts that it offers, particularly between the new luxe condo version and the old non-luxe edition. Our Greenpoint correspondent, who knows a good, absurd juxtaposition when she sees one, offers us this one from Kingsland Avenue, which is in a corner of Brooklyn east of […]

[Read more →]