Comments on: Kensington Update

By: Stamie

Stamie — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:23:09 +0000

Many great points have been raised. I drove around the area on Sunday (by Bergament) and was saddened by the neighborhood which looks like it’s been abandoned by all for many years. There is such a need for housing and green space and I don’t mean low-income housing. I see plenty of ads in the Daily News for low income developments. What I don’t see is middle income housing. It’s a shame many civil servants (like me) who work hard and earn $60-90,000 can’t afford to buy a home. In any other city our incomes would seem terrific but in NYC we must rent. What’s needed is Mitchell-Lama style coops where middle income folks can become homeowners and take pride in their neighborhoods by rebuilding and caring for them. There’s no such thing as too much green space, either.

By: littledebbiet

littledebbiet — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:28:25 +0000

Thanks so much for bringing all this too light and doing the hard work to find out what the developers are up too. You have great ideas that will truly benefit everybody in the neighborhood!

By: William

William — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:53:46 +0000

There is no such thing as enough greenspace. This is NYC. It can always use more parks. That area is woefully under parked.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:03:10 +0000

Felix, your comments about “hasidics” and “the west bank” are out of line. If by “the developer needs to be unbias” (unbiased?) you are suggesting that Jewish developers will build only for Jews, that’s also plain silly. Finally, the rich do not use community centers.
I have a suspicion that one subtext is that Jews are taking over Kensington and Windsor Terrace. Also silly. We always had Jews among our neighbors. When I was a student at P.S. 154, a very long time ago, the classrooms were almost empty on High Holy Days (before they became school holidays). I used to wonder, “Where is everybody?” Maybe the vacant chairs had to do with the fact that so many Catholic families sent their children to Holy Name.
I agree with you on one point: We do have an awesome park three blocks away. I do wish, though, that some of the current users of the park would cart away their garbage instead of leaving it scattered under the trees where they were sitting. When my grandmother, who had emigrated to this country as a young girl, took my cousins and me to Prospect Park for picnics in the 1950s, whatever we brought into the park that ended up as refuse, we took home to throw away. I wonder what’s so hard about that.

By: Felix

Felix — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:11:09 +0000

Hum. Developing that area is a good thing because it looks pretty sketchy. If the developer is working for the hasidics forget about making them pay for an all-inclusive community center or garden or pool. Have you heard of the west bank? If we want this area to stay part of the diverse kensington community, the developer needs to be unbias. The sad reality is that people who can afford community centers and parks are the rich and they require luxury housing. We might require some more gentrification to have those perks, until them we are lucky to have an awesome park three blocks away.

By: nathan thompson

nathan thompson — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 03:07:26 +0000

Liena thank you for summarizing this stuff. You are dead right on this area in particular not protecting itself from developers. The new buildings must come with their own parking. And the the local schools are overwhelmed specifically due to the explosion of development in the last few years. A whole new floor needs to be added to the top of PS 154. The spats between new neighbors who bought because of a school they now cannot get into have gotten nasty. And politicians when confronted seem to be afraid the developers will just stop. Maybe like the drivers on the Fort Hamilton Parkway circle, it won’t kill them to just slow down and see how they can fit into the rest of the community.