Skyboxes

It occurs to me that some readers might be perplexed by the apparent disconnect between my stated location (Chocolate City, U.S.A.) and the regional topics I choose to discuss (all-Brooklyn, all the time).

There is a very simple reasoning behind this: Washington is an absurdly boring place. True, I see more people getting arrested on your average Tuesday than I did for entire months at a time in New York, but I doubt very much that crime reporting would suit me. Then there are the Nationals -- today DCist says they're finally getting their due -- but I'm a Mets fan who, unlike David Brooks, won't make the switch that easily. For the most part, nothing worth noting happens here.

But one thing about D.C. that I have found surprising is the sheer pace of residential development here. Take, for example, the block of 14th Street between Church and Q Streets NW. Every single lot on both sides of the street is either being developed, was recently developed, or soon will be. And this in an area that had remained largely stagnant since the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the subsequent riots.

Even from a distance, the D.C. real estate juggernaut is palpable due to the large number of cranes dotting the skyline. "Skyline," I say, as though Washington has one. Aside from the Capital dome, the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral, the eye registers nothing but an 8-story datum line across the horizon like a line of park benches.

Brooklyn, however, does have a discernable skyline, and one that has been changing slowly but surely over the last five or ten years. It is now going to be changing a lot more, it would seem.

Now, I'm no diehard fan of Frank Gehry. I don't like Jay-Z, Bruce Ratner, or the Nets very much either. But I can endorse the Atlantic Terminal development because it is, perhaps, my only chance to prove that my contempt for the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) crowds is more than idle posturing. Development should be considered a positive thing, so long as it is well executed, and large cities like Brooklyn represent at least one context in which development should not be considered the enemy.

Consider this: it has taken the 14th Street and U Street corridors almost 40 years to emerge from the funk of the civil rights era, and investment in the neighborhood has so far yielded little besides luxury condos. The Atlantic terminal area of Brooklyn has been awaiting redevelopment for some 50 years, ever since the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. The opportunity for legitimate commercial and residential development there should be considered independently of its impact on the skyline.