Can Fourth Avenue Really Be Grand?

Borough President Marty Markowitz has high hopes for Fourth Avenue, the decrepit six-lane throughway notorious for speeding, traffic, litter and car repair shops. 

Markowitz’s vision is to turn Fourth Avenue’s ugly brick facades speckled with ventilation exhaust grates and parking garages into a grand “Brooklyn Boulevard” from “the Atlantic Ocean to Atlantic Avenue.” He plans to make these changes, which will create a “positive streetscape experience for pedestrians,” by amending the zoning code and replacing the Avenue’s “ugly nothing, just walls and bricks” with vibrant retail and commercial businesses. 

But can Fourth Avenue really be grand?

The 6.2 mile long raceway speeds through four neighborhoods, from Downtown Brooklyn to the Verrazano Bridge, and wears its rank of the third most dangerous avenue in Brooklyn like a badge of honor. Regardless of its inherent dangers, unsightliness and resemblance to a near-treeless asphalt desert, the Department of City Planning, the Borough President and Fourth Avenue business owners think the avenue can be saved and that change has already started to come.

On Wednesday night at a Uniform Land Use public hearing with the Department of City Planning in the Borough President’s courtroom, Markowitz expressed his belief that Fourth Avenue could be transformed into a “livable, workable, walk-able, tree-lined avenue.”

City Planning's “ was created in response to Markowitz’s call to transform the Avenue, with the goal being to turn Fourth Avenue into a “lively mixed-use neighborhood” with “a vibrant mix of commercial and community facilities” on the ground floor of the all new developments, said DCP Brooklyn office representative, Anna Slatinsky. 

Community Boards 2 and 7 previously approved the zoning map amendments, while Community Board 6 voted to approve with conditions. After Markowitz writes his approval letter, which he has 30 days to do, the plan goes before the City Planning Commission and finally, the City Council.

The district will stretch from Pacific Street in Boerum Hill to 24th Street in Sunset Park. The DCP’s proposal, presented by Slatinsky, outlined three main regulations for new and expanding developments to help create “a varied streetscape experience for pedestrians.” They are:

- 50 percent of a structure on the avenue must be devoted to commercial and retail spaces

- At least 50 percent of a structure on the avenue must have transparent facades

- No parking entrances will be allowed on Fourth Avenue unless there is no way to create access from a side street. Curb cuts will be removed and no parking will be allowed within 30-feet of any entrance.

“We think these regulations will strengthen commercial vitality of the neighborhood as a whole,” Slatinsky said at the hearing. “When you increase the quality of one business in the area it doesn’t help that one business, it spreads around. ” 

After the hearing, Markowitz expressed more support of the plan.

“I think it is shaping up to be an exciting area and one of the ways you can ensure it is exciting is making sure retail is on the ground level,” he said. “You got thousands of new people living there and more are moving in. They need places to shop, they need supermarkets, and other urban amenities. The streets need to be redone, trees need to be planted in the middle. We have a lot of plans of what it should look like.”

Markowitz added he wished the commercial enhancement had been a part of the 2003 rezoning of Fourth Avenue.

Between Bergen Street and St. Marks Place there are almost ten vacant storefronts, but there are also three bars, a pizzeria, a two-week old wine shop and two trees. Two business owners on the strip believe there is hope for the Avenue.

Juan Carlos Aguilera, the general manager of the bar , believes in Fourth Avenue’s transformation. He moved from Argentina two and a half years ago and in that time said the block changed “drastically.” With the new Nets arena coming, he said, there is no stopping Fourth Avenue.

“This will be the principal street in two years. New businesses are sprouting up everyday,” Aguilera said. “In two years it will be completely changed.” He also explained that Cherry Tree, which owns the vacant building next door and the pizzeria on the other side, is going to help the transformation by putting two more bars on each side and a recording studio in the basement. 

Across the street is the just 2-week old Il Vino Torchio wine shop. The owner, Marcelo Torchio, picked Fourth Avenue because he used to live there and hated walking to Fifth Avenue everyday. He said he knows the Avenue is getting better, but that it still has a ways to go.

“It’s changing, but they’d have to make a lot of changes. It’s far from beautiful,” Torchio said while drinking a glass of Australian Shiraz. “The New York Times had an article claiming Fourth Avenue will be the new Park Avenue. I don’t know about that, but it’s coming along.”