Washington/Bergen Liquor Store Exterior Work is Shameful

I'm so angry about this I can hardly see straight. Over the past week, the owner of One Liquor Warehouse (aka Arena Wines) at 633 Washington Ave at Bergen has taken the beautiful old brick industrial building and turned it into yet another shapeless, grout slathered box.

Without (apparently) a building permit or even a sidewalk shed, he's had a dodgy work crew remove the distintive brick peaks from the existing parapet, add a few rows of cinder blocks in its place (with only a bit of caution tape protecting pedestrians), and in the past couple days has begun covering the two-tone brick facade with smooth concrete grout.

This was a solid, distinctive building inherent to the neighborhood's character, ruined forever by a landlord's ignorance. One only needs to look diagonally across the intersection to the Saint Catherine bar to see how to preserve and add value to a building. Instead we've ghettoized another Washington Ave storefront.

Shame on you.

Attached files

That's a shame. Why would they do that?

I'm kinda surprised that this property has remained one story.

It would not surprise me if these changes were in advance of it being listed on the market.

It would then be either "altered" to gain several stories, or town down and constructed as a new building.

...In Manhattan, when you see buildings this short, it is often because they have sold their development rights (aka "air rights") to a nearby, tall building.

Boooo. I totally agree - this is a shame. I am boycotting this liquor store.

Work continued on Sunday - perhaps to avoid DOB scrutiny?

Attached files

Have you called 311 to complain / report them?

There is a current open complaint about this work. It's a week old. It doesn't show any sign of being actioned, but it has been assigned to the Brooklyn DOB.

http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/OverviewForComplaintServlet?requestid=2&vlcompdetlkey=0001624526