So this morning I'm standing outside of our synagogue on the corner of 81st and 4th and I overhear three women talking about how the synagogue is going to be torn down. Oh really?
I did a little investigative work and discovered that there has been talk for about 5 years to tear it down and put up condos. But talk could become a reality as inspectors are coming in today to do some preliminary work. Next week the synagogue board is having a meeting to discuss selling the building. It was a surprise to us, since we're members. When we asked if anything had been sent out to the members, we were told that letters only went out to board members. Oy.
Why not consider the synagogue for adaptive re-use?
Then I learned (and I also learned it's old news but I haven't really seen anything in the papers about it) that the Lutheran Church next door might be sold and torn down to make way for condos.
Of course there's the infamous Green Church, which will be torn and turned into condos.
And another church is up for sale at 6701 4th Avenue, to be torn down to make way for -- all together now -- condos.
Don't forget the condos going up where the old funeral home was at 76th and 4th and the luxury condos at 10002 4th street.
So what the hell is anybody doing about all of this? Is it okay that developers are coming in and tearing down churches, synagogues, and anything else they can get their hands on to build condos? What is the Bay Ridge Community Council doing about it? What is the secretive Bay Ridge Conservancy doing about it? (Try googling Bay Ridge Conservancy and see if you can come up with a website or a contact number. I couldn't. If you can please leave a comment with the link).
UPDATE: Here's the link. Thank you Anon!
Has all of the preservation energy been on the Green Church and not on the community? Will a group of preservationists bang pots outside the synagogue after it's too late to do anything?
You know how to get people involved? Spread the rumor that a cellphone tower will be placed on top of the new condo building. Hell, why not on all of them. That's what I'm starting here and now. Cellphone towers will be going up on every new condo building in Bay Ridge.
I think I'm going to start my own preservation group and call it Over-Development or Respect, or ODOR.
So here's how I envision life here in Heathenville a few years from now:
4th Avenue will be renamed the Blvd of Condos, only no one from here will be able to afford the condos because of the mortgage crisis. All of the condos will be owned by millionaires from Dubai, who got priced out of Manhattan by billionaires from Dubai.
No one will go to a religious service because there won't be any more churches, etc. We'll all have to park our cars in Staten Island because no one thought about what the impact would be on parking by adding condo building after condo building and not addressing infrastructure.
The toll to get into Staten Island by then will be about $48.00, so we'll all just leave our cars there.
We'll have to take the Staten Island Ferry into Manhattan, and since there will be no grocery stores in the Ridge, we'll pick up some food in Manhattan. But the cost of food in Manhattan will be too much so we'll take the subway into Brooklyn. But food prices overall will be so high we'll only be able to afford a loaf of bread and we'll pray fiercely that it's free scoop day at Ben and Jerry's, only it will never be free scoop day again because God will not answer our prayers because we've all stopped worshipping him.
Since we're a NORC, none of us will want to deal with the subway stairs so we'll take the B63 bus, which is the slowest bus in all of Brooklyn. It'll get us home by the following morning, just in time for us to home school our kids, because no one thought about what the impact would be on our already overcrowded schools by adding condo building after condo building.
So all in all it'll be some sweet living here in the Ridge.
Rover has more about the monopoly.
