Kings County Penitentiary
September 2, 2015 4:12 AM   Subscribe

The Luxury Brooklyn Apartment Complex at the Site of a Former Prison

Now a small group of community members and leaders are trying to halt the development, arguing that it sits on hallowed grounds. Perhaps, they say, the physical remains of inmates still lie buried on the property. Even if that isn't the case, they believe the earth attests to a racist history that the developers of this country have often dampened in order to keep the land profitable.


Further related items of note:
- Brooklyn Museum image of KCP in 1907

- THE KINGS COUNTY PENITENTIARY; Grave Charges Against the Keeper of the Prison. (nyt article from 1865, does not appear to be paywalled but i make no guarantees)
posted by poffin boffin (18 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Now a small group of community members and leaders are trying to halt the development, arguing that it sits on hallowed grounds.

No, not really - one person interviewed expresses a vague desire to file a lawsuit but has no actual intention of doing do.
posted by boots at 5:13 AM on September 2, 2015


Do you want vengeful ghosts? Because this is how you get vengeful ghosts.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:40 AM on September 2, 2015 [29 favorites]


Let's skip this site, and work on rehabbing more of the current prisons into luxury apartment complexes, as long as we first defund the private entities who run said prisons, so the sales of the land goes back to the respective states, counties and cities.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:46 AM on September 2, 2015 [5 favorites]


Isn't everything in New York built on land that was six things in the past?
posted by octothorpe at 6:37 AM on September 2, 2015


Less worried about angry ghosts at a former prison site, more concerned with the enormous 700-unit luxury apartment building that is going up on a flood zone on the banks of a superfund site described as "one of the nation's most extensively contaminated water bodies", that occasionally floods with raw sewage.

I'll take the ghosts, please.
posted by phooky at 6:59 AM on September 2, 2015 [7 favorites]


Looks like someone's been getting ideas from Pentridge village, Melbourne's housing development built inside the walls of one of our more notorious former prisons.
posted by threecheesetrees at 7:00 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


You'd think Australians would be used to the idea of living in a former prison.
posted by jedicus at 7:15 AM on September 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


Isn't everything in New York built on the site of a prison? No wait, that's Escape from New York. Whatever happened to that future of New York?
posted by happyroach at 7:16 AM on September 2, 2015


Do you want vengeful ghosts? Because this is how you get vengeful ghosts.

Are we sure this isn't promotion for the new Ghostbusters or something?
posted by maryr at 7:21 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


OK, so I'm not sure I got 100% of the story from TFA. If I understand correctly, It sounds to me like there are two issues:

1. The history of the site needs to be recognized because it's significant to the neighborhood and we need to stop whitewashing the city's past
2. The particular development they're going with is tone-deaf to the current community and disproportionally benefits wealthy transplants

I agree with both of these. But (and I could just be a bit dense here) I'm not sure exactly what the goals are of the people trying to halt the development. Is it to try to get a different development in with more affordable housing and retail, that fits better architecturally with surrounding buildings?

Whatever development goes in there (and SOME development WILL go in there; you;re not going to see a lot like that sit vacant), I would 100% love to see a big memorial in the lobby with information about the site's former use.

N.B. That I'm not saying the article is bad or flimsy. I'm sure there's a lot of context I don't get.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:38 AM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


And just to keep up with the usual rivalries - Boston has a luxury hotel that was a former prison and a local community college was also built on a former prison. On the other hand, we also built a waste treatment plant on former prison grounds.
posted by maryr at 7:54 AM on September 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


Isn't everything in New York built on the site of a prison? No wait, that's Escape from New York. Whatever happened to that future of New York?

Escape from New York wasn't even filmed in New York. You were looking at East St. Louis. Trust me (link is a self-link to an article I wrote on the topic).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:04 AM on September 2, 2015 [3 favorites]


Based on my extremely brief and unplanned visit to East St. Louis (no one in the car would listen to me when I told them we were about to run out of Missouri and should take that last exit...), I believe this.
posted by maryr at 8:10 AM on September 2, 2015


And just to keep up with the usual rivalries - Boston has a luxury hotel that was a former prison

And it's called Liberty! I'm not sure if that was intended to be a clever and ironic joke or a reference to the original Tea Party but it has multiple layers of meaning.
posted by theorique at 8:37 AM on September 2, 2015 [4 favorites]


oh my god that is hilarrible and i love it.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:41 AM on September 2, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think it is named after a tree? This is based on a crossword I did recently where the answer was ELM.
posted by maryr at 8:45 AM on September 2, 2015


Thanks for that link, maryr, I was wondering who's building that was.

I walk past that apartment building in gowanus / carol gardens once every few weeks. First it was just a hole, now it's getting close to done. The front looks really nice! The back looks like you have a view of the canal. And not to put too fine a point on it, the retaining wall doesn't look that amazing. Personally, I'd be more concerned about flooding from the canal than the building falling over, but either way, no thank you.
posted by Phredward at 9:59 AM on September 2, 2015


Wait, so it was a church for a 100 years before this development?
posted by I-baLL at 10:24 AM on September 2, 2015


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