Brooklyn Jail Finally Faces Wrecking Ball, Permits Show

BROOKLYN, NY — The Brooklyn House of Detention is finally slated for the wrecking ball, marking the first concrete step in a plan to close Rikers Island taken under Eric Adams' administration.

Permits to demolish the Atlantic Avenue jail were filed last week, nearly two years after the city shuttered the deteriorating facility as part of then-Mayor Bill de Blasio's $8.3 billion effort to replace the infamously inhumane Rikers jail complex with a network of four smaller borough-based facilities by 2027 (including a new jail on Atlantic Avenue).

The recently-filed paperwork, which requires approval from the Department of Buildings in order to move forward, is the first step of de Blasio's plan to close Rikers undertaken by the Adams administration.

On the campaign trail, Adams said he supported closing Rikers and opening smaller, borough-based facilities, but his administration's efforts to do so have been ambiguous; for instance, the current plan necessitates reducing the jail population, but Adams' tough-on-crime policies are likely to put more people behind bars in the near future.

Reached for comment a City Hall spokesperson said, "The city will continue to meet with communities, hear their concerns, and incorporate their feedback into on-going plans as we continue to move this critical process forward and finally close down Rikers once and for all."

While long-anticipated, the Brooklyn jail development has not been widely supported by neighbors, many of whom oppose the proposed jail's height, which could be as tall as 295 feet (double its current size).

As proposed, the jail would include hundreds of underground parking spaces, a ground-floor retail and community space, and about 900 beds, according to The Department of Design and Construction.

The city agency, which oversees the jail's development, told Patch in an email that the shorter part of the building will be demolished "in the spring" and the rest of the jail teardown will start "in the summer."

Streets around the jailhouse will be closed as soon as this weekend to set up construction trailers needed for the demolition, records show.

Design teams are also planning to build a temporary "swing space" at the Brooklyn jail to be used for "NYC Department of Correction’s transfers for court appearances during construction," the city said last year.

Local opposition, though, is not new for the borough-based plan, which has seen significant pushback citywide, especially in Queens, where neighbors sued the city to block the Kew Gardens jail construction plan.

The last-ditch effort was unsuccessful, and construction on that site began last year.