BOYS HIGH TO MEET WRECKING BALL
Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Boys High School, the oldest public high school in Brooklyn, is slated for demolition later this year. The structure, located at 832 Marcy Avenue, will be replaced with a 300-unit glass and steel affordable and market-rate apartment building. Formerly regarded as an “historic and architecturally notable public school,” the building recently suffered minor structural problems and was regarded by the Department of Buildings as “too-outmoded for any corrections to be made.” A developer has moved in quietly to purchase the building for $33.9 million – a new record for this section of Brooklyn – and will begin the tear-down process, likely in September. The company, Brooklandia Investments, is an investment firm with headquarters in New Zealand which prides itself on its speed of construction. “We are here for the community,” noted Brooklandia’s Thorin Oakenshield, in a statement yesterday. “We have consulted with numerous other development and building firms, as well as city planners, in order to take the pulse, so to speak, for what the locals want in their neighborhood – the consensus was amazing – residents want top-notch modern apartment buildings. “This,” Oakenshield stated, “we are prepared to deliver on.” The speed with which this deal occurred and the cloak of secrecy under which the Department of Buildings declared the 125-year-old structure unstable has amazed some local residents who felt that they were not informed of the future for the building. “It’s been here since I was a kid. I used to go to that school,” said one […]
