Downtown Brooklyn

Excellent Location

Downtown Brooklyn is just two subway stops from Wall Street, making Lower Manhattan closer to Downtown Brooklyn than it is to Midtown. The corporations that recently chose Downtown Brooklyn for large installa­tions - Chase Manhattan, SIAC, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns - and the several government agencies in Downtown Brooklyn - NYC Transit Authority, NYC Board of Education, NYPD Public Safety Answering Center, NYC Department of Information and Telecommunications Technology, NYC Department of Finance, NYC Fire Department and New York State’s Labor Department - are tightly linked to Lower Manhattan. From RPA’s regional perspective, Downtown Brooklyn is part of the region’s Central Business District, and this regional Central Business District is the world’s foremost global business headquarters.

Concentration of Major Activities

Downtown Brooklyn’s economy is based on solid indus­tries: the high tech support of global financial industries; the state and federal judicial systems; non-profit service organizations; city and state government headquarters and services; utilities; higher education; and retailing for a great portion of the borough. Finance is among the Tri-­State Metropolitan Region’s strongest industries, compet­ing well with other regions of the nation and world.

Five higher education institutions - Long Island University, NYC Technical College, Polytechnic University, Brooklyn Law School, St. Francis College - are within Downtown and two more are within easy access ­Pratt Institute and St. Joseph’s College. Higher education is not just a successful industry; it is a contributor to the strengths of all the other industries through cooperative research, education, training and technical assistance. For example, various centers and departments of Polytechnic University work with the financial industries, manufacturers and other businesses throughout the tri-­state area and with New York City agencies. Long Island University has a Small Business Institute that provides graduate student assistance for very small firms. NYC Technical College and Polytechnic University tailor train­ing courses for individual businesses. Many law students work in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, private law offices and Downtown’s courthouses.

Two major hospitals are on the edges of Downtown. Long Island College Hospital provides health care services to some Downtown organizations and has a satellite health center at One Red Cross Plaza. Brooklyn Hospital pro­vides services to many Brooklyn communities and is con­sidering ways to better serve Downtown organizations. Long Island University, specializing in health care educa­tion, has built a new Health Sciences Center.

Regional Transportation and Communications Hub

Downtown Brooklyn is a hub of New York City’s extensive subway system; 14 subway lines and 16 stations lie within the study area. There is also a terminal of the Long Island Railroad, which connects Downtown Brooklyn with the suburban communities of Nassau and Suffolk counties. Seventeen bus lines converge on Downtown from all over Brooklyn. In addition, licensed private van services serve Downtown. Fiber optic investments support large-scale, state-of-the-art electronic communications, primarily tied to the financial industries. Few, if any, downtowns in the world have as good transit access to surrounding areas or are as prepared for advanced computers and telecom­munication.

World-Class Arts and Cultural Institution

Several major cultural institutions are within or close to Downtown Brooklyn: The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the NYC Transit Museum. Other arts and cultural organizations include the Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Arts and Cultural Association (BACA), Rotunda Gallery, Bargemusic, The Anchorage, 653 Fulton and Arts at St. Ann’s. The Fund for the Borough of Brooklyn, which pro­motes arts, cultural and communication programming throughout the Borough, is also located in Downtown Brooklyn. The city’s largest business library is in Downtown Brooklyn, and the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library is nearby.

Significant Recent Progress and Accomplishments

A table of Recent Achievements, such as the successful development of MetroTech Center, is on page 12. Few places in the U.S. have recorded such substantial improvements in such a short time.

Committed Leadership

Downtown Brooklyn’s leaders - in education, cuiture, business and government - know each other, have estab­lished a number of cooperative arrangements, and have indicated in interviews that they would welcome more closely coordinated interaction. The Fulton Mall Improvement Association and MetroTech Business Improvement District are examples of formal organiza­tions achieving substantial improvements in Downtown conditions, and they cooperate with each other. In addition, these leaders are committed to assisting the sur­rounding communities. For example, MetroTech busi­nesses have formed the city’s first Business Advisory Committee to a local school district (#13). MetroTech Center employees provide tutoring, organize career days and bring young people into their offices for career men­toring. Several of these companies offer college scholar­ships, help upgrade technology in schools, and support the Downtown Brooklyn Training and Employment Council.

Diversity of People

The United States must adjust rapidly as our country becomes far more diverse in race and ethnicity than any nation has ever been. People seem inclined to live with this diversity without melting cultures into a sameness or allowing cultural differences to block equal economic and social opportunity. We keep our differences but play on the same team. Downtowns, then, become an important setting; that is where we all must mix to share economic opportunity even if we live separately in residential com­munities. A very diverse population already comes to Downtown Brooklyn, providing the opportunity to achieve this difficult but essential social goal.

Attractive Buildings and Public Spaces

Borough Hall Park in the center, along with several small parks and large Fort Greene Park on one edge, provide more grass, trees and bushes than most downtowns have. MetroTech Commons is a popular new public plaza. Prospect Park is 10 minutes away by subway or bus. Borough Hall, the Post Office and the Dime and Williamsburgh Savings Banks are important historic land­marks. In addition, there are many fine older office and retail buildings throughout Downtown.

Appealing Adjacent Neighborhoods

The residential neighborhoods surrounding Downtown Brooklyn include households of every income level living in historic brownstone houses as well as middle-, moder­ate- and low-income apartment buildings. These well organized, politically active neighborhoods are walk-to work communities for many Downtown Brooklyn workers.

Negative Image

Starting, as many outsiders do, with a media image of Brooklyn as old ​“inner city,” and therefore supposedly fraught with problems of poverty, crime and racial ten­sion, people can be especially sensitive to signs that those conditions exist. Studies show that fear of crime is fueled in public places by signs of neglect - graffiti, trash on the streets, aggressive peddlers, public drunkenness, empty lots, large numbers of people hanging out. Conditions in subway stations, through which about half the visitors to Downtown Brooklyn arrive, are especially important because underground confined spaces can add to fear. These physical conditions undoubtedly exagger­ate the actual danger of crime. For example, a report by the Chase Manhattan security division calls the crime rate comparable to Lower Manhattan, though it seems likely that most people perceive Brooklyn as the more dangerous. Recent surveys by Long Island University stu­dents of college students at the seven institutions in and near Downtown found they do little in Downtown other than go to school because of safety concerns.

Lack of Diverse Shopping

Downtown employees tell us they are dissatisfied with the goods and services available, and residents in sur­rounding communities say they seldom shop in Downtown Brooklyn, except at Macy’s (formerly A&S). Dissatisfaction with retailing is an obstacle to attracting more firms to Downtown Brooklyn and to keeping people Downtown for other activities. At the same time, mer­chants apparently are prospering by serving large num­bers of shoppers on Fulton Mall throughout the day. With high rents and high traffic, there is little incentive for merchants to change what seems to be working. How can Downtown employees and nearby residents be better served by retailing? (In the LIU students’ surveys of shoppers­ many of whom come from other parts of Brooklyn - 22% were dissatisfied with quality of service and 14% were dissatisfied with prices.)

National Attitudes and Economy

Two trends that are damaging down­towns across the nation are the coun­try’s anti-urban bias and the recent eco­nomic recession. The majority of American young adults - in decision-making positions now -did not grow up in cities and saw them primarily in decline. Because violent crime rates are high nationwide and particularly in cities, many people fear the informal coming together of diverse people that is the greatest asset of downtowns. Furthermore, RPA projects continuing slow growth for the Tri-State Metropolitan Region over the next decade. Conditions are in place for more rapid growth over the following decade if the region retains its world-wide leadership in financial and creative industries: its major firms already have slimmed down employment to increase efficiency. Now is the time to prepare for growth.

High New York City Costs

Most business leaders acknowledge that New York City is a high-cost place to live and do business. These costs are in part due to high taxes caused by federal and state governments leaving much of the cost of providing vital services to the city government. In the end, these costs threaten the stability of existing businesses and make it difficult to attract new business.

Threats to Transportation Infrastructure

While existing public transportation makes Downtown Brooklyn accessible, the Transit Authority still acknowl­edges that a ​“state of good repair” could not be achieved until 2002 - even if capital budgets remain at the level they have been. City-wide installation of computerized information technology (or ​“smart transit”) will take even longer. For motorists, there is the specter of the Gowanus Expressway being out of service for 6 to 8 years. Some of the one-in-four who arrive in Downtown by car com­plained of difficulty in finding parking they perceive as safe in a survey done by LIU students. The Brooklyn Museum has found that many city residents who would like to visit the museum do not come because they do not want to use the subway and there is no bus service from much of the city.

Incoherent Design

Because downtowns are designed to bring large numbers of people together, they are necessarily dense, man-made environments. To be pleasant, good design is essential both in the buildings and the spaces between them. While much of Downtown’s architecture is handsome, many buildings have been covered with ugly fronts or allowed to deteriorate. Many potentially pleasant spaces are punctuated with neglected or ugly spots. And the sev­eral sections of Downtown do not come together with an identifiable ​“sense of place.” A related problem is created by the significant distances between facilities-distances greater than people typically walk without convenient, inexpensive transit. Downtown is visually and psychologi­cally separated from some of its adjoining neighborhoods as well, such as the blocks separating Boerum Hill and Fulton Mall. Given the American bias against them, cities have to be gems to compete. Brooklyn has the raw mater­ial to be as likable as Boston, Seattle or San Francisco - ­cities that Americans like - but it will require a great deal of attention to aesthetics and design for Downtown Brooklyn to achieve this status. Among the ugly, annoy­ing and hazardous aspects of Downtown are the wide thoroughfares dividing it: Adams Street-Boerum Place, Flatbush Avenue and Cadman Plaza West.

Obsolete Office Buildings

The rapid adoption of new technology by business and government has made it difficult or impossible for many organizations to occupy old office buildings. The result­ing vacancies weaken not only the real estate market, but also the retailing and ambiance of the Court Street and Livingston Street areas. Downtown Brooklyn has several such buildings for which new uses should be found. Since obsolete buildings are a city-wide problem being addressed by municipal government primarily in Lower Manhattan, a broadening of attention to Downtown Brooklyn’s outmoded offices is essential.

Unsupportive City Policy

The city government has not demonstrated that it recog­nizes the economic importance and potential of Downtown Brooklyn. As part of the region’s Central Business District-the foundation of the Tri-State Metropolitan Region’s economy - and as a potential cen­ter for small businesses and telecommunications technol­ogy fed by the higher education institutions - Downtown Brooklyn offers a good economic development invest­ment for the city to overcome the challenges noted.

Adjacent Pockets of Poverty

There is a stark contrast between the prosperity of much of Downtown Brooklyn and pockets of poverty in some public housing developments on the edge of Downtown. For example, in the northern part of Fort Greene, across Flatbush Avenue Extension from Downtown Brooklyn, is an area where over a third of the workforce is unem­ployed, half of the residents live below the poverty line, and the crime rate is high. Fort Greene as a whole is a growing center for the arts, with strong institutions Brooklyn Hospital, Brooklyn Tech High School, Long Island University, Pratt, St. Joseph’s College and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It has a wide income range, including large numbers of high-income households and continuing renovation of historic homes by middle class families. But the community also has pockets of concentrated poverty that need to benefit from the area’s revital­ization. In particular, national studies have shown that concentrating poor families in compact areas makes it difficult for them to improve their standard of living.

The accompanying maps and tables show the study area, provide some vital statistics and illustrate the extent of the tremendous investment and growth that has occurred in Downtown over the past decade or so. Few downtowns in America can claim this amount of invest­ment and job creation and retention. The growth of Brooklyn is a sign of optimism for the entire country, a direction marker to the future. Downtown Brooklyn provides outstanding opportunities for increased investment. Not only is there existing build­ing stock that can accept new tenants, but there are sites right in and on the edge of Downtown that offer wonder­ful opportunities for new development.