
Rendering of 399 Sands Street. Image credit: Steiner NYC.
Addition of manufacturing and creative space supports City goals to provide more middle-class jobs. On June 13, 2018, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, Alicia Glen, together with the Brooklyn Navy Yards and Steiner NYC, announced the beginning of construction at 399 Sands Street. The project will add manufacturing and creative office space at the 300-acre Brooklyn Navy Yard, an urban manufacturing center, and is expected to bring manufacturing jobs to the area. The project is also part of Steiner’s Admirals Row Development, a six-acre site at the southwest corner of the Navy Yard being developed for commercial and industrial use. (more…)
Working-class 19th century buildings along Vanderbilt Avenue designated as a historic district. On July 12, 2011, Landmarks voted to designate the Wallabout Historic District in the Clinton Hill area of Brooklyn. The new district encompasses approximately 55 buildings along a stretch of Vanderbilt Avenue between Myrtle and Park Avenues near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The district’s name is derived from the Belgian Walloons who settled the area in the 17th century. The district is notable for its rare conglomeration of wood-framed dwellings constructed in the mid- 19th century which largely housed Brooklyn Navy Yard workers. The area was not considered prestigious, and the laborers and tradesmen who lived there constructed less-expensive wooden buildings, rather than the brick and stone architecture that characterized other Brooklyn neighborhoods developed in the same period. The district includes Greek Revival, Italianate, and Gothic Revival architecture. (more…)

Andrew H. Kimball
Andrew H. Kimball, CEO and president of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, is responsible for overseeing the redevelopment of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a 300-acre industrial park on the Brooklyn waterfront. The not for-profit corporation manages the Navy Yard on behalf of its owner, the City.
Kimball, a New York City native, earned a bachelor’s degree in History and Government from Hamilton College in 1987. After graduation he was accepted to the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs. One of his fellowship placements focused on urban economic development policy at the New York State Urban Development Corporation (now known as the Empire State Development Corporation). The placement evolved into a full-time position where Kimball worked on streamlining ESDC’s loan and grant programs. (more…)

Image Credit: NYC DOT
One year ago, in January 2020, the Expert Panel assigned by Mayor Bill de Blasio to study the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway issued its Final Report. Mayor de Blasio in 2019 appointed the seventeen-person Expert Panel* of which I was a member, following the angry rejection of New York City DOT’s plan for reconstructing the section of the BQE adjacent to Brooklyn Heights, Dumbo and Downtown Brooklyn. City DOT presented its plan publicly September 2019. The plan caused immediate outrage. (more…)