Bedford Ave Armory to add Rec Center?

We actually created a poll to gauge community support for the intake-recreation center. Weigh in: http://nostrandpark.com/2010/02/05/can-an-intake-center-and-a-recreation-center-coexist/

All neighborhoods in New York should shoulder some portion of the City’s social service burden.

Some neighborhoods may need to shoulder more than their fair share, for a variety of economic and logistical reasons.

No neighborhood, however, should have to shoulder a wildly disproportionate share of these services.

The location of an intake center at Bedford-Atlantic would dramatically over-burden Crown Heights North.

The location of an intake center at Bedford-Atlantic would dramatically diminish the quality and accessibility of services for the homeless.

All neighborhoods should have appropriate access to parks and recreational facilities.

Crown Heights North and Bed-Stuy currently are underserved by parks and recreational facilities.

The City should implement the plan to build recreational facilities at these two locations.

Recreational facilities have been successfully co-located with certain types of homeless shelters, but not with intake centers, a homeless service that is uniquely ill-suited to such co-location.

so the armory is already a homeless shelter? is that correct?

It's really important to be able to distinguish between different kinds of shelters. For instance:

SHELTER A: 70 bed facility for women serving 150 women per year.
SHELTER B: 400 bed intake/assessment shelter serving appr. 14,000 men per year.

Shelter A is currently collocated with the rec center at the Park Slope Armory.
Shelter B is what the City has been trying to force into the Bedford-Atlantic Armory.

In recent years, and currently, Bedford-Atlantic has housed an assessment shelter, housing appr. 200 - 300 men at any given time, but with lower turnover than an intake center would have (nowhere near 14,000). Moving an intake center to Bedford-Atlantic would lead to a dramatic rise in the number of men coming through the neighborhood, as the Armory became the main place for men to go to seek emergency shelter for all of New York City.

All of which begs the question: why does the City want to put an intake center here in Crown Heights? The current intake center for homless men is located in the East 30's. This location has two key advantages. 1. It's in midtown, where a lot of hopeless men congregate, near the main entry points for homeless into the city, Grand Central and Port Authority bus terminal and 2) its near Bellevue, Manhattan's main public health facility. For a needy population with many health issues, both physical and mental, this makes a lot of sense.

Does Crown Heights have either of these advantages? Clearly not. Our only hospitals, both private, Jewish/Interfaih and St. Mary's, have both been closed. Nor is Bed-Atlantic near any transit hubs where homeless men might enter the city.

The only reason answer to the question is that Crown Heights in its recent history has been a compliant host. Because of its high level of immigrant population, many folks in Crown Heights are not involved in the political process because they plan to eventually return to their native land or are here illegally. As a result, Crown Heights has the highest absolute number of supportive housing facilities per acres in the entire borough, as noted in a study undertaken by the Crown Heights Revitalization Movement.
Where should an intake center be located in Brooklyn?
Well, assuming that each borough should have its own intake center, not an unfair premise, the logical place would be near our largest public health complex, just as the intake center in Manhattan is.
Of course, in our case, this is Kings County medical, a huge complex located in Prospect Lefferts/South Crown Heights. This community is of course the recipient of tons of great paying jobs provided at the public expense. Furthermore, the public mental health facility located in the complex was closed years ago and continues to sit vacant and unused.
I think you can see where I'm headed.
But you have to ask: if I, just an average citizen, can figure this out, why can't our electeds? And why aren't they doing anything about it???????
And who's fault is that anyways really ?????????
As citizens, I think its our job to through the bums out if they can't provide good leadership.
But what do YOU think?

Chekhovian wrote:
doesn't the city get some decent revenue from renting the space to film producers? seems like it's been used for a lot of films. i'm not trying to make the spineless case that it'd be cooler to have a colossal film set in our neighborhood than an intake center; but in terms of economics, it seems like the city could see some benefit in having production companies rent the space in addition to its current use as a homeless shelter.

There are two armories on Bedford. Are you referring to the armory in CH south on Bedford between Union and President?

i was referring to the one on atlantic where i thought a number of films had been shot. synecdoche, for example. i could be wrong.

Mister Softee wrote: I'm pretty sure Synecdoche was actually shot in the one up on Union. You can tell by the shape of the building - curved like a hanger. I liked that movie.

You must have great taste in movies.

Hey Whynot, the Daily News link you posted goes to an old story from 2009. Can you repost the one from this week?