🚌 Improving the Bus Stop on Franklin and Fulton

🌟 Author’s Note

Hello and welcome to the 4 new advocates of the Better Block Project! Our total group of advocates is now 73 individuals who are taking action to build a better Brooklyn 🏢 

🚌 Improving the Bus Stop on Franklin and Fulton

Two weeks ago, as we were passing out fliers for our Trash Talk with DSNY, we met Isis, one of the leaders of the Brevoort-Franklin Avenue Block Association. Brevoort Place is a beautiful, small street one block over from Fulton, right next to the 🚇️ C Train stop where it intersects Franklin Avenue. I frequented this intersection daily when I lived nearby, you could usually find me at Cafe Calaca, one of the best coffee shops in NYC. We started chatting and Isis told us about a pressing issue on the block: the open drug use at the bus stop on Franklin avenue.

The bus stop and 🚇️ C Train station at Franklin Avenue have been a source of crime and illicit activity for a long time. In March 2024, a woman was stabbed at the Franklin Avenue C station. Anyone who walks by the area will attest to frequent homeless encampments and drug use. Unfortunately, the problem has become worse in recent months.

As a result of a water main installation, there is now construction storage on Franklin Avenue which is blocking one of the bus stops. This storage has created an enclosed space, which has made it easier for the drug activity to flourish. Unfortunately, in New York City, often where there are hidden, enclosed or abandoned spaces, illicit activity soon follows. We see this with drinking in front of the vacant building at 1105 Fulton, prostitution beneath a staircase on Jefferson Avenue and now drug activity at the enclosed bus stop on Fulton.

Why would the city allow them to block a bus stop? If you review the permit, Department of Transportation (DOT) typically doesn’t allow construction to block a bus stop, but they have made a specific exception here:

The result of this exception is it has made it easier for drug activity to happen that is completely obscured from view. Isis, Flo (another block member) and I walked by Friday and observed 5-7 people who looked to be using, preparing and soliciting drugs, all at 11am in the morning in broad daylight. There have been 28 separate 311 complaints since the beginning of April citing drug activity and/or homeless encampments at this exact stretch of sidewalk. The bus stop has been completely taken over, rendering it unusable for anyone on their daily commute.

🤔 How Do We Solve the Problem?

The Department of Homeless Services (DHS), NYPD, DSNY and City Council are all aware of this problem already. When auditing the site, I ran into an individual from DHS who described the groundhog day like experience she goes through to try to fix it:

• Each week, DHS approaches the individuals and helps them to nearby homeless shelters

• DSNY then cleans up the site

• The individuals typically stay at the homeless shelters for a night, only to return the following day

• 311 complaints occur and NYPD is called

• NYPD then refers the situation back to DHS, and the cycle starts again

While each agency is doing their job to solve a portion of the issue, no agency has been able to figure out how we can prevent this open drug use permanently. This is what we and the Brevoorts-Franklin Avenue block association hope to do.

Our next step is to host a walk with Councilmember Chi Osse and State Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest to raise awareness of the issue. We’ve reached out to both offices aiming to get this scheduled for either Thursday, July 24th or Tuesday, August 5th. At this walk, we plan to propose the following:

1. 🚚 Moving the construction storage in front of the bus stop, which has made it easier for drug use to occur. We hope we can lobby with DOT to reverse this specific exception they made

2. 👮 Increasing enforcement of open drug use at the bus stop

3. If enforcement is not possible, 🚌 taking down the bus shelter which provides a safe haven for the drug activity to occur. We’d ideally like to avoid this to preserve the bus stop for law abiding residents, but it’s unfortunately unusable in its current state

4. 🏠️ Provide permanent housing for the individuals at the bus stop. The NYC Comptroller’s wrote a great report on how Housing First policies can be effective in getting people off the street, and more affordable for taxpayers

After our walk, we plan to work with our elected officials across agencies in order to get one of these solutions implemented so we can solve this problem, and reclaim the bus stop for our community. If you’d like to participate in the walk or have other ideas on how to solve the problem, just reply to this email!

⏳ Where we are on the other problems we’re working on

• 🗑️ Fulton Street Trash Clean Up: We’ve sent all of our proposals to DSNY and the City Council office to improve the trash situation, and we’re waiting to hear back. Separately, we’re still working to finalize a date with the City Council’s office for a walk (and potential sidewalk chalk installation 🧑‍🎨 ) to educate residents and SMBs on how they can avoid illegal dumping. Stay tuned!

• 🏠️ Protecting Residents from Property Tax Reform: We met with Assemblymember Braunstein about Property Tax Reform this past week, who shared that any reform is unlikely to happen without the City Council or Mayoral involvement. We’re meeting with Senator Gounardes this coming week to discuss the issue, and we’ll share takeaways next week

• 🏢 Improving Vacant Properties on Fulton, Jefferson and Macon: The Stop Work Order has been rescinded on 26 Jefferson, along with their new ownership. One of our members is meeting with the contractors this weekend and we expect to learn more about the future of this property this coming week. Hopefully, this is a positive step for this property to eventually be developed and occupied once again. 1105 Fulton still continues to be a magnet for trash, and we hope to learn more about a potential resolution on our walk with HPD this week!

• 🐝 Enabling Residents to Make Their Own Tree Repairs: We’ve started outreach to City Council members that have proposed tree maintenance bills, starting with Nantasha Williams and Robert Holden. Our goal is to raise the wasp nest issue as an opportunity to introduce legislation that allows residents to do their own tree repair, potentially with reimbursement from the city from an approved vendor list. We also spoke with another block association leader that has struggled with this on Jefferson avenue, further validating this is a problem every block is facing

That’s all for this week’s update. If you like what we’re doing here, share betterblockproject.com with other community members you know who are looking to drive change in Brooklyn.

See you next week,

David