A UFO from Planet Sprawl is about to land on Park Slope, Brooklyn. No, I'm not talking about Frank Gehry's torqued, titanium basketball arena. It's a smaller project, though still a neat microcosm of the development issues roiling Brooklyn these days. In January, Commerce Bank breaks ground on a new "store" at 5th Avenue and 1st Street.

"America's Most Convenient Bank" is the quintessential corporate steamroller with a cancerous business plan. By 2009 the bank plans to have grown from 300 branches and $30 billion assets to 700 branches and $104 billion."

Vernon Hill, the bank's president, is part owner of 45 Burger Kings in the Philadelphia area and looks to the fast food business and retail giants like Home Depot, McDonald's, Starbucks, and Wal-Mart as the models for his banking business. For this, he is lionized as a major innovator.

The Park Slope branch will cover more than three-quarters of a block and look exactly like a branch you'd find in a New Jersey strip mall. A one-story industrial box surrounded by asphalt and dotted with shrubbery, it will blare its presence via a giant, illuminated plastic sign on a steel pole. Most unusual for a thriving, pedestrian shopping street, the bank will offer three "convenient drive-thru" lanes. Very convenient. If you're in a car.

Unlike the century-old buildings that line 5th Ave., this building, with its glass panels, white brick and metallic roof, is unlikely to last any longer than the bank's 20-year lease on the lot. Unlike the solid, high-ceiling banks of old, Commerce Bank gives the impression that it is just passing through, sucking assets out of the community as efficiently as possible, like a motorist in a drive-thru on his way to somewhere else.

The building is not just an issue of esthetics or style. It's an issue of public safety, urban environment and, ultimately, integrity. Fifth Ave. supports a bus line, bike lanes, many delivery trucks and an ever-increasing volume of motor-vehicle traffic. Primarily, though, 5th Ave. is a pedestrian shopping corridor. It is a genuine, functioning Main St., the likes of which have mostly been obliterated in much of the rest of the country.

The economic vitality of the local merchants and the quality of life of the neighborhoods surrounding 5th Ave. depend upon the safety and convenience of pedestrians. By encouraging motorists to detour into the neighborhood and then drive across a busy sidewalk, Vernon Hill's drive-thru will, without question, create greater traffic congestion and, all too likely, get someone hurt or killed.

Now that Brooklyn is hot property, big corporations, developers and retailers want in. That's fine as long as everyone remembers that places like 5th Ave. were resuscitated by moms 'n' pops. If left to their own devices, outfits like Commerce Bank will happily turn New York City into an unlivable, car-choked, drive-thru wasteland. That is what they've done to much of the rest of America. Now they want to do that here as well. How convenient.


3:06 PM | Link |