Page 328 - Demo

Page 20 PHOENIX April 25, 1974%u2022 ; i pk '%u25a0%v mm W * Si %u00aei -%u25a0 HgnjK* 1 i. RkhAt The Start: Initial presentation of the development plan was at theAcademy of Music in 1970. Mayor Lindsay looks on whilethen-Borough President Abe Stark and then-Planning CommissionChairman Donald Elliott talk. At right is then-Economic DevelopmentAdministrator Richard Lewisohn.Private, CityPrograms ProceedOn Fiathush Av.in the forefront of the movement to rejuvenate Flatbush Avenue has been a group of Park Slopers who three years ago joined to clean up Seventh Avenue. Eventually they expanded their efforts to the intersection of Flatbush, and someone conceived the idea of building a small plaza to %u201c humanize%u201d the threshold of the community.From that idea was born the Triangle Parks Committee that eventually raised funds for the construction of four cobblestoned, gaslit, tree-covered islands along Flatbush Avenue at Schermerhorn Street, Hanson Place, Sixth Avenue, and Seventh Avenue. Others are planned.The City has decided to build two more parks at Eighth and Carlton Aves., which will be installed once the repaving of Flatbush Avenue from Fourth Avenue to Grand Army Plaza commences. (Last word was that the work has been delayed due to a shortage of steel for the curbing.) The work, which is expected to last five months, will include the installation of newsidewalks, curbing, and the planting of 50 trees.The Brooklyn Academy of Music plans to eventually landscape its triangular parking lot, and Midtown Florist has begun building a greenhouse at the end of the lot, which will be open to retail shoppers.Penny Mongin, an active member of TPFAIC, explained there are over 100 paid members and 450 interested people on the mailing list for the %u201c TriTribune,\Committee%u2019s newsletter. The informative Merchants Breakfast Series, which was begun last year by TPFAIC, will continue for three Wednesdays in May. The presentations will include a slide show on historic aspects of Flatbush Avenue; a special renovation workshop; and an outlook for the future by ODBD chairman Richard Rosan.%u201cThe motive behind the Breakfast S eries,%u201d Ms. Mongin explained, %u201c was to provide the shopkeepers with, information that might not be easily available to them. We realized that more than our triangle parks was needed to improve Flatbush Avenue, and so the Committee has set about to rally the merchants.\already responded,%u201d she said. %u201c Hy Crane, one of the owners of 271 Flatbush Avenue, has recently given the facade a new coat of paint, and has purchased a dilapidated building just off the Avenueat Park Place and Carlton Avenue, which he%u2019s planning to renovate completely.%u201cThe owner of 335 Flatbush Avenue, Martin Bernsley, has undertaken that building%u2019s rehabilitation. Triangle Stores just renovated the interior of its shop, and Goodyear painted its building in honor of its anniversary. Key Foods Supermarket recently installed a new sign while The Yama Art Company, 298 Flatbush Avenue, has slated its building for renovation.%u201c Brooklyn Union Gas last year undertook the total renovation of a group of buildings on Prospect Place just off Flatbush Avenue. The gas company named the site Cinderella II, and has sponsored the painting of buildings on the Avenue itself.%u201d Jack Pintchik announced plans last year to paint the several buildings that house his business at Bergen Street and Flatbush Avenue.Like the Atlantic Avenue Committee, the TPFAIC has hired a field-force worker, Kevin Cunningham, who is out on the thoroughfare each day, talking to merchants and getting attention for special sanitation problems.Bob Votava of ODBD and a Park Slope resident, explained that his office is currently completing a study of the development potential of Brooklyn%u2019s %u201c gateway.%u201d Along with this, a Commercial Site Survey has been distributed to the merchants, %u201c to determine, among other things, what the shopkeepers themselves know about the outlook for Flatbush Avenue and the surrounding com m unities,%u201d he said. (In another offshoot development, ODBD is reportedly drawing up a proposal for the planting of trees along a section of Fourth Avenue, beginning at Atlantic Avenue and the placement of trees in planters on the islands in the center of the thoroughfare.In musing about the relationship between the extensive redevelopment slated for downtown Brooklyn an