4th Ave: The Boulevard of Broken Dreams

You FIPSters may or may not know this, but 4th Avenue was originally designed to be Brooklyn's answer to Manhattan's posh Park Avenue. This was an epic fail, however, as the Brooklyn dumbasses forgot to plant trees down the middle and flank it with swanky residences. Instead, they ran the Broadway BMT line underneath and made it the EXTRA wide multi-lane monstrosity most of us have come to know as the place where one might see life flash before his or her eyes.

But fear not, FIPSters. Marty's on it like a gay man in a speedo dancing on a Midori-sponsored pride parade float. According to the New York Post, our Borough Prez introduced a measure to the Planning Department that will turn 4th Avenue into his highness's personal vision of "a magnificent ‘Brooklyn Boulevard'.” Do I hear a song coming on, Marty?

The plan came out of a public forum the Park Slope Civic Council held last year. And what did they find? Tell us please, Park Slope Patch:

Mainly, they found the avenue was badly in need of beautification, traffic-calming measures, and, perhaps most importantly, commerce.

Genius! I hope the Masters of the Obvious didn't spend any of the tax payers' money coming up with that golden nugget.

And so the result was this haut new plan which covers Atlantic Avenue to 24th Street. It states that all new developments have to devote half of their space to retail and the other half to either offices, lobbies or community centers.  And parking lots will no long be allowed on ground floors so we don't have to deal with those ugly-ass vents. I for one wish that someone would put a clause up in there saying that all new developments  can't look like over-priced, boxy, pre-fab towers of shit thrown up in a couple months so they can sit empty waiting to be turned over to renters. Am I the only one who thinks that crappy buildings like the Argyle or Hotel Le Bleu are an eyesore?

The idea is to make 4th Avenue more of a neighborhood and less like the Thunderdome. Those in support of the new initiative have cited previous successes on 5th Avenue. But here's my little bitch slap to all this Jane Jacobification: 4th Avenue will never be a real neighborhood street. Why? Um, how about the racing traffic that makes it virtually impossibly to cross without staring down the barrel of death?