Construction

“That’s why we got haters, that’s why we got haters
Haters everywhere we go, haters everywhere we go”

– B.o.B

Justin Davidson, writing about the architecture of Downtown Brooklyn for Curbed:

The new Lidl grocery store at 490 Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn opened its doors on Friday, May 23rd, 2025. It feels like it happened in the blink of an eye—or maybe everything seems fast in the dark shadow of the slow-moving slug that is the never-finished 9 Dekalb.

I popped into the store the other day to check out the new location and snap some pictures. Here are some first impressions:

• Prices are great, making this store a welcome edition to the neighborhood
• Selection is mid—this isn’t the type of grocery store that will have every specific item you’re looking for. However, you should be able to find most categories of items you need, just not necessarily specific brands.
• The store was full of shoppers on the Saturday I popped by. People are excited it’s now here!
• It’s larger than you might expect from the outside. It’s definitely a full-sized grocery store
• The produce section was full of fresh-looking items.

I did not do a side-by-side price comparison for specific items that can be found at competing nearby stores. So I can’t speak to the specifics of the “discount” claims. But overall it did seem to be priced competitively for the neighborhood.

I’ll definitely be curious to see how Lidl stacks up against the upcoming Fresh Grocer opening right across the street.

What’s the opposite of a Food Desert? A Food Oasis? Because that’s exactly what Downtown Brooklyn has become.

I’ll drop a few more photos at the end of this post to help celebrate the store’s opening.

Sure, the west side of Flatbush has a huge selection of new luxury apartments. But what about the east side?

Some people look at Brooklyn Tower—the supertall skyscraper in Downtown Brooklyn—and see the Tower of Sauron. To me, it’s more like a giant slug with movement so slow it’s nearly imperceptible.

Construction started in 2018 (earlier, if you count the demolition of the previous building) and residents started moving in in 2022. But slow sales caused JDS Development to default on its loan, stalling construction on this eye-catching building. Silverstein Capital Partners took over the building last summer in a $672 million foreclosure settlement and sales are re-lauching soon.

As an ode to the soon-to-be-closing Macy’s on Fulton Street in Downtown Brooklyn, Brownstoner has a wonderful article describing the history of “dazzling emporiums” that once lined these streets.

Fulton Mall, arguably the “Main Street” of Downtown Brooklyn, is about to be greener and more pedestrian friendly thanks to a joint effort between the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, the NYC Parks Department, and the city’s Department of Transportation.

Downtown Brooklyn played an important role in the underground railroad and the larger abolitionist movement. Most of those relevant neighborhood locations have been torn down (many in the past decade). But there’s one building that survived — 227 Duffield Street — and has since been granted landmark status and promised some much-needed stabilization work. Brownstoner recently spotted some construction workers at the site, meaning that work may be moving forward:

I discussed the demotion that’s happening at the triangle between Flatbush Ave, Fulton Street, and Dekalb Ave in a prior post, but didn’t have this super-cool aerial view at the time.

I know that Redsky Capital own the lot that’s at the bottom of hte photo, closer to Albee Square, but I’m not sure about the lot along Flatbush Ave. I assume they own that, too?

Saturday, February 27th, 2021. Construction on the 9 Dekalb Skyscraper rising up from the Dime Savings Bank dome. As seen from Bond Street. Photo by Dann Berg.