Photo: April, 2008
What are you seeing in this photograph? Downtown Brooklyn in the foreground. Off in the distance are the neighborhoods of Prospect Heights, and Crown Heights. Towards the left you’d find Fort Greene, on the right you’d find Park Slope.
Aerial and rooftop views offer the best perspectives of neighborhoods. With views such as this, understanding the changes that have taken place is easily evident. Looking straight down, is the Fulton Street Mall. The third large business district in New York City. This view has dramatically changed since 2008.
For anyone familiar with this part of Brooklyn, The Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building is easily identifiable—the tallest building in Brooklyn as of the day & time this photo was taken. Like most skyscrapers, it very useful for mapping your location if/when you’re lost in sight of it.
Photo: August, 2021
In this photo above, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building (at right), no longer the tallest building in Brooklyn, has been surpassed by nine other buildings in the immediate neighborhood and one in another part of Brooklyn. City zoning has always protected the building from being overshadowed by other taller buildings for decades, until the 2004 Dowtown rezoning plan was passed.
At center of the photo (under construction) is the current tallest building in Brooklyn, The Brooklyn Tower. 73 floors, 150 condominiums, 425 rental units, 1073ft/327m tall. As of 2003, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (the local development corp. managing the business improvement of the neighborhood) lists 22,078 new housing units built in the neighborhood since 2003. Possibly, another 7,500+ by 2026.
Photo: June 1999
A view from atop the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Arch at Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza. This view shows that wider perspective from the opposite direction of the first photo. Which was taken nine years prior
This view is looking North up Flatbush Avenue. In the distance, the Manhattan skyline as it appeared in 1999 from Brooklyn. From the Financial District in Lower Manhattan, up to Midtown. The Twin Towers (at left), The Empire State and Chrysler Buildings (at right) in the further distance.
Supertalls weren't built yet. The Burj Khalifa building in Dubai is five years from construction start.
Billionaires Row is not yet a thing along Manhatttan's 57th Street Corridor. Situated in the distance on the right edge of this photo if it were built at this time. Just behind the Chrysler Building's Spire.
In the middle, again is the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building, which is just off of Flatbush Avenue. Again, the tallest building in Brooklyn at this time. The short buildings seen in front of the Twin Towers are both in Manhattan, and Downtown Brooklyn.
More to come…
Till next time,
Kenneth