Shady Greenpoint Loft Proves Gentrification Really Can Ruin Brooklyn
- Angel Franco/New York Times
Apparently the building lies in the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Industrial Business Zone, which was specifically created to prevent useful industrial spaces from being put to nonindustrial purposes such as, say, unsafe and overpriced housing units. This, in addition to a long history of renting without a certificate of occupancy, violating stop work orders and various safety violations (including plastering over emergency fire sprinklers) has earned the building a deservedly terrible reputation among locals and activists alike. In 2009, the building was deemed so unfit that all residents were immediately evicted and the building itself padlocked.
And, in spite of all this, and having been built illegally by its original owners with a permit for a hotel (as opposed to a loft space), the building has been surprisingly hard for the city to shut down. For now, tentants have applied for coverage under the “loft law” on the basis that the building was continuously occupied for a 12-month stretch between 2008 and 2009. A Building Department spokesperson said, “The agency will work with the loft board on this situation to try to legalize the conditions.” 239 Banker’s current managers also claim that the building’s highly publicized problems were the work of negligent past owners and that everything is now “100 percent up to code,” so perhaps things are actually improving.
Which is good, I guess. Personally, in addition to the roommate thing, I’m not really dying to live in a loft — I’m too fond of doors for that — but the whole idea of re-appropriating otherwise languishing spaces to provide cheap housing has always been a good one. What’s gone on in these lofts doesn’t resemble that process in the slightest, but still, if people truly want to live there, the government’s hands are tied by “loft law,” and there’s a notable absence of companies clamoring for the opportunity to actually use the factory space, we may as well let Oliver and his friends have their expensive day in the sun.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.