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Red Hook Locals Divided Over Plan to Add Dance Studios to Public Library

By Nikhita Venugopal | July 25, 2014 3:12pm | Updated on July 28, 2014 8:39am
 Community Board 6 held a public hearing Thursday night to discuss a contentious plan to convert about half of Red Hook Library into two studio spaces run by a nonprofit organization.
CB6's Public Hearing on Red Hook Public Library's Renovation
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RED HOOK — A plan to renovate the neighborhood’s public library by adding dance studios has created a rift in the community —with some claiming it’s a sign the neighborhood is turning too “tony.”

Brooklyn Public Library is negotiating a $1.8 million renovation to its 7,500-square-foot Red Hook branch that would convert roughly half the main library room into dance and rehearsal studios for artists.

BPL is hoping to partner with Spaceworks, a nonprofit group and initiative of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, which would run the studios. The group is “dedicated to expanding the supply of long-term, affordable rehearsal and studio space for artists.” and currently operates two artist workspaces in Long Island City and Gowanus.

Spaceworks would fund $650,000 of the total $1.835 million renovation, and the City Council would provide the remaining $1.185 million.

But the studios would invade a free and public space where adults and children come to read and learn, said locals who opposed the plan.

Several residents, many of whom are tenants of the Red Hook Houses, spoke out against the Spaceworks proposal at Community Board 6's landmarks and land use public hearing Thursday night. The library, located at 7 Wolcott St., sits across the street from the NYCHA buildings, which represent Brooklyn’s largest public housing complex.

“Red Hook has become very tony in the last couple of years,” Toni Khadijah James, a resident of Red Hook Houses West, said at the meeting.

James, whose mother was a BPL librarian at the Central Library near Grand Army Plaza, fondly remembered visiting the branch after school and spending her afternoons surrounded by books.

“I knew what it brought me,” she said.

Critics of the plan asked how dance studios bolster literacy and reading.

“Isn’t that taking away from what we come to library for in the first place?” said Yasmin Rahman, who lives in Red Hook.

Under the plan, the community would get 10 hours of free use of the space every week.

Red Hook Public Library, which suffered extensive damage during Hurricane Sandy, was “long overdue” for a full renovation, officials said. Conversations surrounding the partnership between Spaceworks and BPL began a couple of years ago.

BPL had already briefed a laundry list of groups based in Red Hook, including both tenants association of NYCHA’s Red Hook Houses, Falconworks Artists Group and Dance Theater Etcetera, two local performing arts organizations.

The proposal allows for Cora Dance, a Red Hook dance school and studio, to provide 100 hours of free programming in the new studios during the first year.

Shannon Hummel, Cora’s founder and artistic director, highlighted the school’s affordable pay-what-you-can classes, a model she hoped to expand into the new space. 

“I need support as well to support my community back,” Hummel said.

Along with the “rehearsal and multi-purpose rooms,” the renovation would also add dedicated children’s space, a new toddler area, reading rooms, new furniture and a dozen new computers. The improvements would include a new HVAC system, lighting, security systems, and self-checkout and check-in technology, officials said.

The construction is slated to begin in the next six months and would close the branch for about eight months from the start date. A library official said the renovation could still continue without Spaceworks’ studios, but the nonprofit’s additional funding would be lost.

The public meeting, which took place at the library, brought many emotional voices but no clear resolution from the CB6 committee. The committee previously approved the plan, but the executive board asked for more public comment and kicked it back to them this month. The panel appeared to change its tune Thursday night.

“Seventy-five-hundred square-feet cut in half is not a big library,” CB6 member Jerry Armer noted.

The committee voted to have a second public hearing with more discussion and deliberation.