S3 | E7 | Sue Donoghue, Prospect Park

Announcer (00:01):
Hey BK with Ofer Cohen.

Sue Donoghue (00:03):
I really think that transformation I've seen in Prospect Park and having it now be a place that is such a Mecca and people do feel comfortable coming at all hours, really mirrors the transformation of Brooklyn.

Ofer Cohen (00:16):
Sue Donoghue, the president of the Prospect Park Alliance. Thanks for being here this morning. You had a long commute to come to our office. Tell us about it.

Sue Donoghue (00:25):
Wasn't too bad actually. It was a nice walk and it's a great thing about living and working in Brooklyn is that you can walk most places.

Ofer Cohen (00:32):
What are we, five blocks from? Prospect Park? Six blocks?

Sue Donoghue (00:36):
Yeah. Not so many. Yeah.

Ofer Cohen (00:38):
So you know, Prospect Park has always been, I used to live like right here on Bergen street for many years and I, you know, spent a tremendous amount of time at Prospect Park. You know, bike ran there until I earned my ankle biked until I got my Peloton. took my kids there a lot. How did you get to work at the park?

Sue Donoghue (01:03):
It's a good question Ofer and it was a bit of a circuitous path actually. right prior to taking this job as president of the Prospect Park Alliance, I worked in the Bloomberg administration. And prior to that I actually worked on wall street, which is interesting, not your typical path. So I, I decided between kid number two and number three that I really could not keep doing that job. It involved a lot of travel, a lot of travel to the West coast and really didn't have the psychic gratification, that I was looking for. So I left that and actually went back to graduate school and got a masters, at NYU in public administration. And when I was just about the end of that program, I was hired by city hall to go to the parks department and oversee the planYC, initiatives at the parks department.

Ofer Cohen (01:58):
So when you worked for the Bloomberg administration, you lived in Brooklyn already?

Sue Donoghue (02:02):
I did, yeah. We moved to Brooklyn in 96 actually. I was, working in living downtown, we decided to buy and back then Brooklyn was actually a little bit more affordable and so, and my husband had been born and raised in Brooklyn Heights and so we, our first place we bought was in Brooklyn Heights and it was great because I could actually sometimes walk to work or definitely walk home from work and it was a great first place to live.

Ofer Cohen (02:31):
Did you move to Park Slope when you took the job at Prospect Park?

Sue Donoghue (02:35):
No, actually, interestingly enough we moved to Park Slope. A couple of things prompted that. we had our second boy and if, you know, when you have two young boys, you really need to get them out and run them like puppies and at that time, Brooklyn Heights didn't have, you know, didn't have Brooklyn bridge park and it had a great playground but we needed space. And the other thing that's interesting is, my second, I had a right after 9/11 living in Brooklyn Heights, you know, around 9/11, was difficult. It was really intense. There was soot, there was, it was a difficult place to be for sure. And I'll never forget, we were walking down to the promenade after it had happened and I was very pregnant because my second was born in November and a policeman stopped and he got out of the car and he gave me an air mask. He said, what are you doing out and you should have this cause I was pregnant. And so that weekend after we actually went to Prospect Park, I knew enough, I had never been there. and we sat in Prospect Park and I had a, you know, a two year old, and was very pregnant and it was absolutely beautiful. and it did feel special. It was, and to think back now, it's kind of ironic, right? But it was a real turning point. You know, my husband had kind of been saying, we should look at park slope. We should look at, moving to that area. And I thought, Oh my God, we're gonna move farther into Brooklyn. And then you go there and you spend time. And, it really worked in terms of our family and our kids and it was, it was beautiful to have the park right there. So in 2002, we moved to Park Slope. I took the Prospect's Alliance job after the, after the end of the Bloomberg administration. So I've been in the Alliance job, since 2014 so I worked through the end of the Bloomberg administration and then was hired to run the Prospect Park Alliance.

Ofer Cohen (04:31):
and that was just a perfect transition being working on, you know, transforming public spaces and parks.

Sue Donoghue (04:39):
Absolutely the Prospect Park Alliance is actually a public private partnership with the city. So we work in the park, they alliances there in the park under a license agreement with the city. And so we work hand in hand with the parks department. And so my experience working in city government was certainly really helpful. My experience with parks and the understanding and recognizing the importance of parks to communities was really helpful. and I, you know, obviously had a love of the park and knew the importance both personally as a mom and for my own kids, but certainly knew the importance of a great big public park to the well being of a community and of the bar. Really you think about it, you know, Prospect Park sits in the middle of what would be the third largest city if it was a city right in America. And, the role that Prospect Park plays, you just said it yourself. I mean, people, it's a daily, daily, amenity for people and it's so important.

Ofer Cohen (05:41):
And yet so many people, including myself, and I'm sure you at some point take parks especially prospect park for granted, right? It's just there. It's a city amenity, right? It doesn't give us much any way, you know, shitty subway and a great park. Right? And then nobody's really thinking, Oh, this is, something I should invest in, or this is something that needs any kind of thoughtful leadership or just tell me about it.

Sue Donoghue (06:09):
Yeah, absolutely. It's such a good point. I do think that we do tend to take parks for granted. It is at those moments like I described, you know, after a significant event, people flock to their parks. Like my experience going to Prospect Park is not unlike after 9/11 central park became a gathering place as a place where people go to commune when they want to be with others in a great environment. but you're right, I do think people tend to take it for granted. different from when the Alliance started 30 years ago in 1987 it was very much neighborhood and community driven because of the parks were in terrible disrepair. They had been largely abandoned by the city. They really were lacking investment. We had, it's hard to imagine now, but we had boarded up buildings and parts of the park that people absolutely would not go into. And it was the neighbors around the park, a lot of moms and parents who said, this is crazy. We have this beautiful, beautiful park that people are not using. And so that's really what spurred, the city. The first thing that they did was they appointed a park administrator of Central Park and of Prospect Park to say we need someone local and on the ground to be building interest and be building support. I still have that title of park administrator. So I'm president of the Alliance and park administrator and the Alliance, the nonprofit organization was formed with the eye towards getting individuals, getting neighbors, getting community organizations involved in really taking back and supporting the park. And, I really think that transformation you've seen in Prospect Park and having it now be a place that is such a Mecca and people do feel comfortable coming at all hours really mirrors the transformation of Brooklyn, right?.

Ofer Cohen (08:00):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, there's so many. I mean, I remember just biking or running through it over the years. I mean, there's so many like nook and crannies and there's so many things that you kind of, Oh, I've never actually seen this. Or I'm like, once you kinda get off the main path, but I remember a stat about the biggest lawn in the par.

Sue Donoghue (08:24):
Exactly contains the largest uninterrupted open space of any park in the country. It's over a mile along that long meadow. that was it. You know, the really cool thing about Prospect Park is it's all manmade. It was created, by visionary park designers. The same individuals who created central park created Prospect Park. The Prospect Park was created 10 years later. So we like to say that, you know, Olmsted and Vaux got their start in central park and they really go it right in Prospect Park in 1865 actually.

Ofer Cohen (09:00):
And what was the, what was that land before?

Sue Donoghue (09:02):
It was, it was pretty much open space. There hadn't, there wasn't that much development beyond, where you know, where Prospect Park starts. But when you think about it, it's so visionary, right? To take 585 acres and they, they were visionary. They did foresee that Brooklyn was going to be growing and that, that it would need a defined open space. Really for the masses to enjoy.

Ofer Cohen (09:28):
And I think about it, the waterfront was so heavily utilized by industry.

Sue Donoghue (09:35):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And it was also, you know, the streets where, you know, there wasn't the plumbing and the, you know, that there is, so the streets were in a pleasant place to walk and wander, you know, to have green space and open lawns and a meddow , you know, they really saw it as integral to the quality of life of a growing, bustling city, much as it still is today.

Ofer Cohen (09:59):
What is your favorite, maybe hard to name your favorite child? What was your favorite place within the park?

Sue Donoghue (10:09):
That is such an interesting question. I think for me, my favorite place in the park is absolutely walking the paths in the Woodlands, in the ravine where it's quiet, where we have waterfalls, where we, where you can absolutely forget that you are in New York city. You know, I mean, and that's really the beauty of Prospect Park, right? You can get lost in it. You can, there's, you don't see big buildings, you and, and given, you know, some of the work we've done in the restoration and bringing back the water chorus and recreating the waterfalls are a part of the original design. You can feel like you're in Vermont or New Hampshire, you can really get lost, which in a busy bustling city with a lot of concrete where we all, you know, exist in our day to day, that's incredibly important. It has proven physical and health benefits, right? It's incredible that we can provide that for people,

Ofer Cohen (11:07):
But if too many people know how special it is, it won't be special anymore. In other words, you're going to go on through, go through the path and it's going to be packed.

Sue Donoghue (11:16):
Right. I know. Luckily that's where a couple of things that having 585 acres is a good thing. We can spread people out and we already, today we see over 10 million visits. It's to the park every year. I mean that's extraordinary. And, there are parts of it definitely the Long meadow places where it feels crowded, but there still is plenty of space where you can get lost and you know, take those paths and those meandering walks, I still do it.

Ofer Cohen (11:44):
You still find your way and basically get lost?

Sue Donoghue (11:48):
Absolutely. Yes. I mean, I like to, it's a way that I, take people out to better understand the park is, is wonder some of those paths and show people some of those things. so it's very much a part of my, role and just introducing and building support for the park because people are often floored that we have that, that you have those kind of spaces that are so isolated, that are so quiet and that are so restorative. So, a big part of my, you know, when I'm looking to build support or frankly, donations for the park is to take people to those areas and help them to understand that, you know, all that Prospect Park contains.

Ofer Cohen (12:32):
You've touched on a point of, you know, raising private money. Some people would say, well, isn't that the cities job and why do we need private contributions to support a part?

Sue Donoghue (12:47):
Yeah, I get that a lot. I do. And it's something that, we do, talk readily about, and you know, my answer to that is really, I wish there was enough of a tax base and enough money to go around to support everything, right? It's like, Oh, my kids were in public school and we still did things to support the school. you really need that. that public support too. And it's that combination of public and private that really helps parks to thrive. And it's a very local, impetus. You know, people are using the park every day. They see the benefits of the park and it is, I think we're stronger always with that, that the combination of public and private supporting a great public amenity.

Ofer Cohen (13:38):
Right. And, and the city is currently funding, one or two interesting projects.

Sue Donoghue (13:47):
Yes, absolutely. so working in conjunction with the city, we are, opening up, the Flatbush side of the park. So along Flatbush Avenue from Grand Army down to the zoo. there was a long stretch of open space, a sidewalk that has historically been in disrepair that we've now redone. It's beautiful. It's a big wide sidewalk with trees planted and green on either side. And we're putting a big new entrance there. So really across from BBG, the Brooklyn Botanic garden, putting a big new entrance there. because it goes back to what you were saying before Ofer, as you know, one of the biggest challenges now, we went from 30 years ago, people not using the park, 2 million or so users to now over 10, and how can we make sure that we're having opening up access to all parts of the park. So in that Northeast corner, we have some, big open areas that are, you know, that aren't as well utilize that people are, they're just adjacent to or just in from Grand army Plaza. And yet people don't know they exist or don't utilize them. So we'd need to spread people out. We need to provide more open space.

Ofer Cohen (14:55):
So much development, above market rate and affordable housing is happening on that side of the park. You want to try to encourage people to come in through that door instead of going around.

Sue Donoghue (15:09):
Right, right. We're seeing so much growth, right? Prospect, Lefferts and Flatbush and , the areas to the, you know, East of the park and we wanna we wanna open up the park and be welcoming and accessible. It's a big part of what we're looking to do is continue as the borough changes and as the neighborhoods change, make sure we're continuing to be welcoming and opening and accessible.

Ofer Cohen (15:34):
That new entrance is opening when?

Sue Donoghue (15:36):
Hopefully in September and we're making great progress and really, you know, to highlight the importance of, you know, what a park does for a neighborhood and a community. So we're going to have this new entrance. D O T is putting a bike lane along Flatbush, which is great, which will help bring more people. They're going to have a crosswalk on Flatbush there. So it will help to both ease, access to an ease, commuting to get to that entrance. And then we'll have this new entrance and I'll have a beautiful public Plaza where we'll definitely want to have. there'll be a, there'll be a citi bike, there'll be a lot for a gathering place for families. And then for us, where you come in there is, it's called the former Rose garden big open space. And it's really what we have our sights on for the next big campaign for the park in terms of our restoration.

Ofer Cohen (16:30):
So obviously, yeah, I mean the transformation of the city and Brooklyn as a whole, but especially the park, much more safe over the last 30 years. But what do you guys do to kind of keep that, extending those summer hours a little bit further down to.

Sue Donoghue (16:49):
Well, so what, what, for those of us who've been involved in parks for a long time, what you see is what really enhances the safety of open space of natural areas is people in programming. Right? The more people there are, the less likelihood of, you know, sorted or illicit activity. So that's why so much of our work is about restoring and opening areas and making them, whether it be lighting or pathways or providing interesting programming and amenities.

Ofer Cohen (17:24):
What are some of the other projects that are sort of, keeping you up at night right now?

Sue Donoghue (17:31):
Well, it's an ongoing, effort as you can well imagine. we are, we received a good amount of funding for grand army Plaza, which is really, it was envisioned as the formal grand entrance to the park. And, so luckily we received some funding from the mayor to, redo the arch, that, was really suffering from, some water damage actually leaking from the roof. And so, it was a necessity that we be able to renovate that. But that is such an iconic piece of, you know, Brooklyn.

Ofer Cohen (18:09):
What are some, some of the other pockets that you feel like you didn't even get to deal with? Things you'd really need? I mean, not right now, but maybe start raising private awareness.

Sue Donoghue (18:22):
There's many. we created this really interesting out of actually fallen trees from Sandy, this natural play area just in from that is a beautiful historic structure called the children's pool that in its original incarnation and vision was to be like the sailboat Lake and in central park beautiful pools with Bella strouds. And it now looks like an old ruin. It's been just over grown and but wonderful amenity with a lot of potential. So we have our sights set on that very much as part of our restoration of this area is really bringing that back and it's so beautiful. It's like a little secret garden. It has actually, some of the most unique, trees and tree specimens of anywhere else in the park. It's just was a very specifically, created area that, has really fallen into disrepair and we're anxious to be able to bring that back for the public for sure. It's so beautiful.

Ofer Cohen (19:28):
It's like just talking to you makes me want to just like run to get out of the office, run through the park and start walking around.

Sue Donoghue (19:38):
Exactly, and you should. It's really, it's so important. There's a study that came out recently that said two hours in nature is is you know, good for your health. You should try this two hours a week out in open space.

Ofer Cohen (19:54):
It's much easier. It's much easier to do it in the summer, but in the winter you kind of have to like gear up. I love the park in the snow. We didn't really get a lot of snow this season, this winter so far, but I just love it over there and the snow.

Sue Donoghue (20:12):
I actually really love it in the winter in general cause you really, you see different things that you wouldn't be otherwise because of canopy cover. It's actually, it's, it's so beautiful to see.

Ofer Cohen (20:23):
In a way it's more meditative. Right?

Sue Donoghue (20:26):
Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Ofer Cohen (20:28):
There's less of a likelihood you bump into someone you know

Sue Donoghue (20:32):
A little quieter Yup. Absolutely. But that's what amazing thing too is we find now that Park's busy, you know, 12 months of the year, I do used to be that there are quiet periods, but now people are running and biking and using the park all year round.

Ofer Cohen (20:47):
In the summer, I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on in the summer.. Give me some of the highlights, some things that you like.

Sue Donoghue (20:54):
I mean, we have a great partnership with BRIC celebrate Brooklyn and that concert series is really phenomenal.

Ofer Cohen (21:01):
I missed the Lizzo show.

Sue Donoghue (21:03):
Oh my gosh. It's so great. I know, I know. It was wonderful. That was with bustle. They did this great. Yeah. they've done the last couple of years we had Lizzo, we had Janell Monet an , Lakeside ends up being a great venue. You can put a stage and you have the backdrop of the Lake. It's gorgeous. but also at the Lakeside center all summer we have this free water play area, the splash pad that has just been tremendous, and has really activated that side of the park. And, families come and just camp out all day and it's great cause it's just free and open and kids love it and just run around and these and, you know, water. It's really great. Yeah, it's been wonderful.

Ofer Cohen (21:46):
I remember you telling me about some, issues with, people that are kind of living in tree houses in the park, I found it fascinating.

Sue Donoghue (21:54):
There's no doubt that the homeless crisis in the city, plays out in a really, really, significant degree in the park. It, you know, it does, it provides cover, it provides homes for people. and it's a challenge. And so we have a very regular, every two weeks, a whole operation going out and, working with the homeless, offering services, and, and letting people know it's not safe and we need to, we're going to have to come at some point and be able to, you know, take some clean up some of these things. So, it's, it's a real, it's a real challenge. And you're, you know, I'm concerned about it both from the health and well being of every new Yorker and also challenges for park goers and for our staff and, and people safety.

Ofer Cohen (22:51):
Do you feel like the trajectory of Central Park and Prospect Park are following a similar trajectory?

Sue Donoghue (22:58):
You know, it's such an interesting question Ofer. Prospect Park, the thing that we really value and, relish is the fact that it really is a neighborhood. It's a community park. We, we refer to it as Brooklyn's backyard. and that is, I think that's what makes it special and what really sets it apart from a central park and a lot of other places. It is where people come for their family reunions and their barbecues and whereas central park is much more tourists heavy, you know, whereas we see over 10 million visitors a year, they see 40 million visitors a year. so the impacts that they're dealing with are different and , in some senses greater. I think we really cherish and want to maintain that sense of it being really a community park and really for, the people of Brooklyn.

Ofer Cohen (23:53):
Is there anything that you feel like people should know about that that we didnt cover?

Sue Donoghue (23:58):
No, I do just think that people need to think of it as, not just a nice to have that it is really critical infrastructure, just as important as streets and roads and maintaining, other critical infrastructure in the city. People have chosen to live and raise their families. you know, in a big city like Brooklyn, it's incredibly important to have that green and open space if we didn't have Prospect Park. Imagine that, right.

Ofer Cohen (24:27):
I feel like, you know, every time I talk about Brooklyn and sort of looking at the map, like it's just like, it's just, it's really the heart of, it's really the heart of Brooklyn. So, we typically, and I know you've been a listener of the show because you tell me from time to time, we typically, I typically ask, at the end of the show will tell me something nobody knows about it. You, and I'm sure you've had some time to think about it. So it's not completely unprompted.

Sue Donoghue (24:54):
Something that nobody knows about me.

Ofer Cohen (24:59):
We only know you walking in the woods all by yourself.

Sue Donoghue (25:00):
I generally have company, but sometimes I do like to walk by myself. that, that I was a fierce, field hockey player back in the day. And that competitiveness and that, you know, competitive sport kind of thing is I think what drives me today and also drives my interest in, you know, staying fit and running. And you know, that, correlation between exercise and being healthy is, is critical to, you know, how we operate.

Ofer Cohen (25:40):
You still play hockey?

Sue Donoghue (25:41):
I don't play field hockey, you know, but I still, you know, you know, I run, I exercise a lot because it's, you know, kind of in the genes. I think it's like, it's what helps me to be able to manage my day to day.

Ofer Cohen (25:54):
That's very cool. Sue thank you so much.

Sue Donoghue (25:57):
It's been good to be here. Thanks so much.

S3 | E6 | Steve Hindy, Brooklyn Brewery

Announcer (00:00):
Hey BK with Ofer Cohen.

Steve Hindy (00:01):
A lot of people questioned naming it Brooklyn, including like lifelong Brooklyn people. They said, really? You're going to call it Brooklyn.

Ofer Cohen (00:11):
Today I talked to Steve Hindy, cofounder and co-chairman of Brooklyn Brewery, one of the largest craft beer makers and United States and an international success story. Steve and his neighbor Tom Potter, founded the company in 1988 pulling a dream to bring brewing back to Brooklyn. Steve had just returned to New York from the Middle East where he had worked as a war correspondent and had learned about about homebrewing, always a pioneer and a risk taker. Steve and his family moved to Gowanus an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn. As you'll hear, Steve and Tom add faith into Brooklyn brand from the very beginning they built a brewery in Williamsburg, which would later become one of Brooklyn sports established neighborhoods. Steve Hindy, welcome to Hey BK.

Steve Hindy (00:49):
Thank you.

Ofer Cohen (00:50):
How did you get here today? I mean, you're not, you don't live too far from here, right?

Steve Hindy (00:54):
Right. I'm about a couple of miles away in Gowanus. So I rode my bike and they're like 30 mile an hour winds out there. So going down wind was fantastic, but against the wind was difficult. And the other way.

Ofer Cohen (01:10):
How long have you been in the Gowanus?

Steve Hindy (01:12):
We bought a house in Gowanus 26 years ago. It's a wood frame house built in 1840. It was one of the first houses in that part of Brooklyn. Uh, originally a two story farmhouse.

Ofer Cohen (01:28):
That was very pioneering of you.

Steve Hindy (01:30):
Well, we've always kind of been on the pioneering side. When we moved to New York in the, like 1974 we lived on the upper West side. And, our friends on the East side were afraid to come and see us, because of the crime on the West side. And then we just fell in love with this house and, in Gowanus. I mean, it was irresistible. It just such a cool old house. And, um, a lot of our friends thought we were crazy.

Ofer Cohen (02:02):
So this is just around the time you started brewing beer, right?

Steve Hindy (02:07):
I mean, yeah, I started, brewing beer like around 1984, when I came back to New York and then, together with my downstairs neighbor Tom Potter. Eventually I persuaded him to quit his job and start a brewery with me and, that we sold our first beer in March of 1988.

Ofer Cohen (02:31):
Wait we're cutting the, the whole famous story of you being a journalist in the middle East?

Steve Hindy (02:37):
Yeah, that was my first, life. I majored in English in college. and then I tried, teaching high school English. I almost had a nervous breakdown. It's the hardest thing I ever did in my life. I couldn't wait to get out of there. And I went to work for a newspaper in upstate New York and I enjoyed, reporting and, and playing that role. And then, I got my big chance a job with associated press in Newark, New Jersey. My wife and I split up and I got up my head. I wanted to cover a war. So I studied Arabic and said I wanted to go to Beirut. Where the civil war was going on. And I learned there aren't too many people who want to run off to cover Wars. So a year after volunteering I landed did in Beirut as the middle East correspondent for AP.

Ofer Cohen (03:30):
Beirut in the 80s was, was a kind of a very dangerous place.

Steve Hindy (03:34):
Yeah. I got there in February 79 and actually I was sent to Iran shortly after that to cover the end of the revolution and the hostage, a story. Then I got expelled from Iran. I went back in the next year when the Iraqi army invaded Iran. I was with the Iraqi army and covered the Iran Iraq war. My ex wife came to visit me, and we ended up getting remarried in Beirut during the war and we had our first child, having a baby and Beirut was kind of crazy. Uh, so AP transferred me to Cairo, and I got to Cairo just in time to be sitting behind president Sadat of Egypt when he was assassinated. I was in the grandstand, behind him, close enough.

Ofer Cohen (04:32):
Uh, that's kind of intense. And before we get into your first brewing experience, do you ever miss it?

Steve Hindy (04:37):
Well, people who do that their whole lives, tend to have not very functional, relationships with other people. Uh, so, actually AP wanted me to go to the Philippines next, but we had had our second child in Cairo, and Ellen, my second wife, who's also my first wife, said, no way. I'm going to the Philippines. I'm not taking these children to Manila. I'm going home. I hope you come with me. Uh, if not, you know, good bye. Right. So I gave it up and came back to New York. Uh, but in Cairo I met Americans who worked at the embassy, in Cairo, who had been posted in Saudi Arabia, Islamic law, no alcoholic beverages in Saudi Arabia. And they were avid homebrewers. And it was the first time I ever learned you can make beer in your, in your kitchen. So when I came back to New York, I went to work for Newsday, but I was kind of bored being an editor. So that the idea of starting a brewery, I'd always kind of dreamed of, starting a business, even though I had no background in business, whatever. And I started reading about these small breweries that were starting up, mostly on the West coast and also about the history of brewing in Brooklyn. You know, Brooklyn was a major brewing center really up through like the 70s, when Brooklyn became part of New York city in 1898. There were 48 breweries in Brooklyn. Mostly German lager breweries. It was 1986 when the Mets were on their way to the world series. So my neighbor Tom Potter and I would watch the kids and we had this beat up black and white TV and we watch the Mets. And then I started trying to convince Tom, we should, start a brewery. He worked at a bank and had an MBA and it always kind of dreamed of starting a business. So Tom, we got to start a brewery. You know, Brooklyn, it's part of the history here. Well, we'll create a beer that ties into that history. And he thought I was crazy. He had done, he had studied the beer industry and business school and he knew that the big guys were getting bigger and bigger and a little regional breweries were falling to the wayside pretty much every year. But I told him, we're not going to compete with a Budweiser Coors or Miller. We're going to compete with the imports, we're going to create import quality beer, we're going to price it with the imports. And that's the niche we're going after. At that time, imports were 2% of the U S market, so not a big thing. Uh, but it was pretty big in New York city. So I thought that was the way to go.

Ofer Cohen (07:40):
But on that first napkin where you guys drew, your business plan, you could not have anticipated Brooklyn brewery beer being so big and so widely distributed.

Steve Hindy (07:52):
Well, no, not, I mean, our original plan stated our goal was to get 3% of the Brooklyn market, which at that time would have been like a $6 million company or something like that. And our public goal was to bring brewing back to Brooklyn. Uh, so that was the mission. Yeah.

Ofer Cohen (08:18):
Now everywhere you go in the world, you see, you know, I was just in Asia and like in Japan and in Bangkok you see Brooklyn t-shirts and, and the Brooklyn brand is so wildly successful and established. But when in 1986 when you decided to name it Brooklyn Brewery, and when you came up with the logo and the name, you had no idea you're going to be the first guy to make Brooklyn famous in the world. Right.

Steve Hindy (08:43):
I mean, a lot of people questioned naming it Brooklyn, including like lifelong Brooklyn people. They said, really? You're going to call it Brooklyn? You know, I believed that is like this mythical place. I'm, I'm not from Brooklyn. I'm, I'm, I was born in West Virginia, grew up in Ohio. Um, actually the first time I came to New York city was 1957. I was eight years old. I came with my mother and grandmother for the Billy Graham crusades and mom and grandma got saved seven nights in a row at Madison square garden. I fell asleep every night and we went to the last Brooklyn Dodger game at Ebbets field, which was, and I was just completely captivated by New York. It's like, I gotta be, I gotta be in this place. I want to be part of this.

Ofer Cohen (09:37):
You know, a lot of people in the 80s were getting out of Brooklyn.

Steve Hindy (09:41):
Yeah. Know Brooklyn. I mean, it's always fascinated me. Uh, you know, my grandfather on my father's side immigrated from Syria in the 1890s and he lived in Brooklyn, for a time. He ended up in West Virginia. Somehow I think it had to do with some, you know, village connection from Lebanon. But, um, you know, New York is so big. Brooklyn has a kind of character, which is very unique I think. And New York is kind of like a lot of other big international cities. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love New York, but, Brooklyn, is, has more character. It's Brooklyn is like the heart of New York. I think so. Uh, I mean, yeah, it had to be Brooklyn. I wasn't going to make New York Lager, people who've done that since then, and it's just kind of nebulous compared to Brooklyn. Right.

Ofer Cohen (10:52):
So it was, it was not, there was, like you were fully committed. You had a visceral connection to a place and to a name and to, you know, there was not an a question, Oh, what should we name this? This is, you knew I'm starting a brewery. He convinced with a lot of charisma and probably some beer, your partner through joining you and actually kind of formalize it a little bit and then you just went for it.

Steve Hindy (11:18):
Well, I should say I got a lot of encouragement from Milton Glaser. Uh, our designer, um, Milton is the guy who did the, I love New York logo. He's a founder of New York magazine. And, I, I interviewed about 30 different design firms. I wanted to call the company Brooklyn Eagle beer after the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper because of my background as a journalist. Uh, and, I got very frustrated talking to small design firms because nobody was giving me guidance. Uh, so actually my wife said to me, why don't you call the best designers in New York? The only designer I knew anything about was Milton Glaser. But when I called his office, the woman who answered the phone said, do you know who Milton is? And I said, well, yeah, I hear he's pretty good. I want to talk to him. She said, he doesn't just talk to anyone who calls here. And I said, well, I'm president of Brooklyn Brewery. And she said, exactly who, who the hell ever heard of Brooklyn Brewery? So she totally blew me off. And I called her every day for like a week from the newspaper. I was determined to meet him. And finally she said, you're not going to give up, are you? I said, no, I want to talk to Milton Glaser. And she said, okay, here he is. Put Milton on the phone kind of blurted out the idea and he said, Oh boy, that sounds like fun, you know, come and see me. So amazing. Melton agreed to be our designer and we could never afford him. I mean, he's like six figures to get started on something. And , he agreed to take stock, in the company and then we would pay him hourly for his work. It wasn't cheap. He just, he loved the idea of, bringing brewing back to Brooklyn. And he said, first of all, look, we got Brooklyn here. Nobody's claiming Brooklyn. There are no consumer goods named after Brooklyn. Let's claim Brooklyn. So forget the Eagle. Ditch the bird, you know, let's, let's just focus on Brooklyn, Brooklyn beer, Brooklyn lager, Brooklyn brewery. Yeah. Brilliant. Um, and actually in very early on on an idea that then became, you know, very successful. So we met with him a few days later and he unveiled the logo and I looked at it and I said, that's it. And he said, don't say a word. Take it home. Put it on your kitchen table, show it to your wife. Don't show it to a lot of people, just live with it a little. And so I did. And, you know, it began to sink in the simple beauty of that, that be, and how it can kind of evoke the Brooklyn Dodgers. But it didn't really, there was never a B like that on the Dodger uniform. It said Dodgers in script, and that B is kind of the same script, but I run into old timers all, all the time who say that's the old Dodgers B and I don't argue with him. It's like, Oh yeah, that's it. But actually there was no be like that.

Ofer Cohen (14:30):
That's fascinating. So the known, you know, Brooklyn brewery location in Williamsburg was not your first, or was it?

Steve Hindy (14:39):
So in the beginning we did not build a brewery. We contracted to produce the beer in Utica, New York. And our original plan was to build a brewery on day one. But, we met a woman, an entrepreneur who lived on our block called Sophia Collier. And Sophia, started a company called Soho natural soda. And it was really like the first, you know, what became the new age beverage category. Uh, she was selling her company to Seagram's for $30 million when we started out. So we were pretty impressed by Sophia. And we ask her for advice and she said, Oh, this is a great logo. The beers really cool. It's very different than mainstream beer and that's good. But she said, you know, the key to this is distribution and it's not going to succeed unless you distribute your own beer. And I remember saying, you know, distribute beer in New York city, you know, I can hardly afford my car insurance, so I'm going to have trucks, you know. What about parking tickets? What about the mafia? You know, I mean, all of our investors were concerned about the mafia. And she said, yeah, there are a lot of problems out there, but, I'm telling you, nobody's gonna pay any attention to you when you're small and this is the only way you're going to get gone. So then we decided to contract a produce the beer upstate and truck it to Brooklyn. We had a warehouse in Bushwick, which was, you know, pretty scary. And then we built a brewery in 1995 we opened in, in 96, um, mayor Giuliani came and cut the ribbon for the opening. So why not just continue with the Utica? No, we wanted to have a brewery in Brooklyn. Uh, you know, the name of the company is Brooklyn Brewery. That was our, I mean, a lot of people thought we were, you know, it was just, some kind of scam, to, to claim the name Brooklyn without having a brewery. So we were committed to build beer. Yeah. Yeah. But we did build a brewery that was an adventure too. By that time, we were big enough that, it may, you cannot build a brewery of the size we needed in New York city. I mean, you could, but you could also take all your money over to the East river and throw it in the river, you know. And so we continued to brew, in Utica and now we own a piece of, of that brewery in Utica. We still brew there. Uh, the brewery in Brooklyn makes about 80, 000 barrels, which is really good size. I mean it's far bigger. It's probably bigger than all the small breweries that operate in Brooklyn today. Um, you know, a microbrewery is like fewer than 15,000 barrels. So 80,000 barrels is a pretty good size, brewery.

Ofer Cohen (17:47):
And the one in Utica is making everything else, all other or do you have more?

Steve Hindy (17:52):
No, it's the one in Utica is, is mainly making Brooklyn Lager because that's a big brand. That's a big, a big volume. But now we also brew Brooklyn Lager in Stockholm and Tokyo and Melbourne. Australia. Carlsberg, Sweden, in Japan. It's Kiran. Actually the question you asked in the beginning about becoming an international brand, a global craft beer, that was not part of our plan at all. But what I've learned about business is you create a brand, a consumer brand, and it almost has a life where it does have a life of its own. You know, it becomes part of life. And we've followed that brand, all over the world. We didn't take it all over the world. The brand took us all over the world.

Ofer Cohen (18:58):
I'm in a, it's almost like, I feel like I'm asking you a question about your children. How much of your, how much do you think of the success overseas, is because of the beer itself versus the, the Brooklyn Brewery or the Brooklyn Beer? The Brooklyn lagger name?

Steve Hindy (19:12):
Yeah, I'll put it this way. Are all our competitors, Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada anchor, they all export beer. Brooklyn is the biggest craft beer export. So the name is huge. Uh, you know, the beer is good beer. It's quality beer. We've won a lot of awards for it, but the name is the magic. Uh, the name is the reason, you know, you can find our beer all over the world.

Ofer Cohen (19:48):
Uh, you mentioned microbreweries. And over the last, I would say probably a decade, as a lot of those industrial neighborhoods become, you know, more of a hub of creativity and sort of new, kind of artisinal old products. And as I think, you know, Brooklyn is becoming more of a foodie kind of destination. There's a bunch of microbreweries in Brooklyn or that came from Brooklyn or was starting in Brooklyn. And how much, how much of that do you take credit for and how, how involved are you, are people coming to you for advice? Are you mentoring them or like how, how do you look at them as competitors?

Steve Hindy (20:30):
Well there are 11 breweries within a mile of my house in Gowanus and I know them all. Uh, actually I got them all to, to donate beer for the Gowanus canal Conservancy fundraiser, for the last two years. I know a lot of the guys, a lot of, some of the guys who used to work for us, so you know, I know them well. Tom and I wrote a book called beer school that tells a whole story of a Brooklyn Brewery. All the adventures we had. And I can't tell you how many craft brewers here and around the world have read that book, and learned from it. Uh, it's really, it's, it's kind of a business, more a business book than a beer book. It tells about the, you know, the ordeal of starting starting a business. There were 20 startups in the first say, 15 years of Brooklyn Brewery that failed in New York city. Most of them failed because of the inability to get their beer distributed. Um, so distribution was a really hard thing to do, but I think it, it's the reason I'm sitting here talking about our success,today and I think now there are, there may be 20 breweries in Brooklyn now, and, like you said, Brooklyn is a very different place today than it was 30 years ago. And there's a market for all those new breweries.

Ofer Cohen (22:08):
There's a lot of serendipity here. Like the neighbor, the neighbor with a Soho soda. I mean, you know, between Milton and her, right? These are the two best things.

Steve Hindy (22:18):
Yep. Right. You're right. When I tell this story, I talk about how early on there were a couple of things we did that turned out to be gold. It turned out to be critically important to our success. We had no idea that these were the reasons.

Ofer Cohen (22:37):
Yeah. I mean, you obviously live in Brooklyn and your entire business was a big part of your business. Started here, your company, Brooklyn. And when, when you see of how much change has happened in Brooklyn over the last, um, let's say 15 years, so how does it make you feel visa VI the transformation that your personal transformation and the transformation of your company?

Steve Hindy (23:02):
Well, you know, that book, beer school, mayor Bloomberg wrote a forward to the book for me and in it he said that Brooklyn Brewery helped make Williamsburg hip and that Brooklyn Brewery deserves some credit for the Renaissance in, in Brooklyn. And, I'm, I'm proud of that. I know that, you know, I know that gentrification is kind of the flip side of that and, maybe it hasn't been, the transformation is not been great for everybody, but I think Brooklyn is a lot healthier today than it was 30 years ago. There are more opportunities, there are more people investing in Brooklyn. And, you know, I think that's, that's a good thing. One of the interesting things that happened to us very early is that, you know, Spike Lee's movie, do the right thing, came out and Spike put Brooklyn Lager in in the movie and there's a scene where Ozzie Davis goes into a deli in Bed-Stuy and he's looking for Miller high life and , he looks in the cooler and the only thing in the cooler is Miller Light and Brooklyn lager. And he says to the Korean deli owner, you know, where the Miller high life and the deli owner says beer in cooler, you know, they just insist on that. Anyway, Spike did that, you know, normally filmmakers, charge breweries a lot of money to, to put there. Well, we donate beer to Spikes opening parties and , it was so cool to you go to those with public enemy and, and , you know, Eddie Murphy was there and it was super cool. And then we got to know him over the years. And you know, he, he did a lot of really good things here in Brooklyn, I think. And for Brooklyn.

Ofer Cohen (25:22):
You know, I don't know if you've listened to some of the other episodes, but I typically ask at the end of the show, if you can tell us something, something new that nobody else knows about you.

Steve Hindy (25:36):
Well, not too many people know that, I came here when I was eight years old for the Billy Graham crusades. But, let's see, what can I say? Actually, I have one a war story I'd like to tell you about. So you lived in Israel?

Ofer Cohen (25:53):
I grew up in Israel. I was born and grew up in Israel.

Steve Hindy (25:55):
Okay. So you'll know a little bit about this story. So in 1980, I was in South Lebanon with the Irish battalion of the United nations peacekeeping for us, and we were abducted by a militia group. Actually you remember the South Lebanon army sodhadad died and the, the, quisling Israeli supported border zone there where Israel supported this militia, those militia men abducted us and they, it turned out to be a revenge thing. There had been a battle between the Irish battalion and this militia. They killed a militia man. So the guy who abducted us was brother of the kid who was killed and he wanted to revenge on the Irish. So he shot one of the Irishman who was with us three times and then they took away two of the other Irishmen who were found hours later, they'd been tortured and killed. Uh, it was just a horrible, horrible story. I reported the thing and of course the Israelis went crazy because saying, you know, we didn't have anything to do with this. Well, you trained and paid these guys, so you know, you've kind of got to take some responsibility. But, I wrote it and it, you know, it, it, the story carried on for a few days and that was the end of it. 35 years later, I'm sitting at my office in, Williamsburg. And the woman who answers the phone comes in and says, Steve, there's, Homeland security agents, who want to come and see you. And I said, well, okay, then I'll put them on. So I get on the phone and a guy says, we'd like to come and see you. And I said, well, of course when he said, well, how about now? And I said, okay. So they show up like about half hour later, two guys sit down in my office and they said, you were involved in an incident in Lebanon 35 years ago in which Irish were Irish militia, soldiers were killed. And I said, yeah. They said, well, we think the guy who abducted you is living in Detroit, running an ice cream truck, selling ice cream to children. And he applied for American citizenship. We investigated him and we found he entered the U S illegally with false papers. And we found your stories about the killings. So we're wondering if you could identify him. And they showed me headshots of like 50 Arab men. And I said, I think that's him. And he said, yep, that's him. Would you testify against him? And I said, yes. So I gave a deposition a few days later in Manhattan at their office on camera describing what happened that day. Then they went to Ireland and they interviewed the Irishman who was shot by this guy and he too identified him. So they arrested the guy and deported him to Lebanon. And he's now at this very moment in jail, in Beirut on trial, accused of double murder of the two Irishmen, attempted murder. The third guy. And I was subpoenaed to testify, in Beirut. And my journalist friends in Beirut told me, do not come here because, this family is a big family and they know that you are involved in getting him arrested.

Ofer Cohen (29:34):
And you're here in the studio without out security, right?

Steve Hindy (29:37):
Here in Brooklyn without security. Isn't that incredible? I, as a journalist, you know, you're right. A lot of stories and nothing ever happens, right? You write a story and you think, wow, this town's gonna explode when they read this story.

Ofer Cohen (29:53):
Thank you so much.

Steve Hindy (29:54):
You're welcome.

S3 | E5 | Jill Eisenhard, Red Hook Initiative

Announcer:                        00:00                     Hey BK with Ofer Cohen.

Jill Eisenhard:                     00:03                     You know, part of the motivator and people have said like this work is really hard. Like why have you done it for so long is that it's hope.

Ofer Cohen:                       00:10                     I'm Ofer Cohen and this is Hey BK, the podcast about the people behind the Brooklyn transformation in this episode, I speak with Jill Eisenhard, the founder and executive director of the Red Hook initiative. Jill has recently announced that she's stepping down from the nonprofit she founded back in 2002. In our conversation, she looks back at her work in Red Hook, one of the last industrial neighborhoods on the Brooklyn waterfront. Red Hook is home to the city's second largest public housing complex with nearly 10,000 residents in 32 buildings. The NYCHA housing complex and Red Hook is riddled with problems from crumbling infrastructure to mold. These problems were only made worse when Hurricane Sandy hit Red Hook in 2012 most of Red Hook's residents are low income and African-American. According to Jill, the median family income in that public housing complex is $23,000 for a family of four. In the past 18 years, RHI has grown to serve more than 6,000 people with a budget of over $4 million. Not only does it help the young people with job training and afterschool programs, but it also has a larger vision to empower the community from within to create social change. Jill, Eisenhard.

Jill Eisenhard:                     01:12                     So I am from a place that's about as opposite from Red Hook Brooklyn is, could possibly be. I grew up in Western New York, a very, very small town had we had an Apple farm. I showed sheep, at the County fair. That's what you did when you were from, that part of the country. I had never been to New York City until I was in my twenties. My father had never come here until he was in his fifties is like, Oh, it took me 54 years to come here and it will take me 54 years to come back again.

Ofer Cohen:                       01:43                     And what brought you here?

Jill Eisenhard:                     01:44                     I came to visit a cousin and said I would never live here. But, um, someone, the hospital in Brooklyn had found my resume through some online portal, which I still am confused, not like it was that special, um, at that stage in my life. And I was called for an interview as like, ah, it's a good excuse to visit my cousin and I'll go to the interview. And then, um, it ended up being a job that I was interested in. And so I, um, told my mother I was moving to New York city and she didn't speak for about three days.

Ofer Cohen:                       02:17                     How did it start?

Jill Eisenhard:                     02:18                     So I tell people that I'm an accidental founder. I never intended to start an organization. And in 2002, I was a health educator at Long Island college hospital in Downtown Brooklyn. And, part of my job as a health educator was to go out into different neighborhoods and teach women about women's health. And I always felt like there was something wrong with the model where it would come out as an expert from the hospital into communities where I wasn't from there. I didn't look like the people who were there. And I was coming in having some kind of an expert status to tell people what to do. And so there was an opportunity to write a grant and I said, I want to change this model and I'd rather educate women from the neighborhood to become the experts who are teaching their peers. And so I wrote that grant and then I resigned from the hospital and went to do youth development work. And six months later they called me and they said, we have a $50,000 check sitting here for your idea and none of us are going to do it. And I said, well, it'll just be a year and I'll do it at night and on the weekend. And that was 18 years ago. Um, and so things from there just really became very organic. I initially hired 10 women who lived in public housing. I trained them to be health educators. All in Red Hook. And we got donated space, which especially now is really hard to imagine happening in Brooklyn, but we needed space. The police athletic league had a daycare. Someone said, I think they have extra rooms. So I went to the headquarters in Manhattan and I walked in and I said, I have money to hire women. And this man, literally, I don't think he even knew my last name, said it sounds like a great project. Opened his drawer, pulled out a key, handed it to me and said good luck. And we were basically in space for the first six years that we weren't paying for. There was no lease. We had our own entrance onto the street. Um, and it kind of magically expanded. Like we had run out of space and we looked at a door and we're like, based on how the walls go, what's behind that door and magically opened it and found another room. And I think over the 18 years, things like that have always happened where when you needed something, suddenly the Avenue would become available.

Ofer Cohen:                       04:40                     That's incredible.

Jill Eisenhard:                     04:41                     Yeah.

Ofer Cohen:                       04:42                     Let's talk a little bit more of, you know, the moment where you realize that the current systems don't work and you essentially basically felt like you want to make an impact. But I mean, kind of downplaying it a little bit.

Jill Eisenhard:                     04:56                     Yeah. I mean, I think I came in originally with this focus on women's health education. And in that first year or so, part of what started to happen is that people would walk in the door once we had this space and would say, I know you're doing women's health, but I need a resume. Or a 15 year old would come in in the middle of the day and we'd say, why are you not in school? And they would say, Oh, I don't go to school anymore. And so suddenly the needs started to become visible. And my own learning was that health is, is a piece. And if you don't have a foundation of, of housing and food and a steady income, health is very secondary. And so I think early on I learned a lesson of just listening to the community and knowing that community will ask for what it needs on its own. Um, and so by listening to that, I think our model quickly evolved to be focused on youth development. And as we started to do that, just recognized, um, if you're doing direct service and tutoring or, health information or counseling, but you're not actually addressing the systems, we will just do that forever. So we have, really three program areas. Uh, the first is our youth programs. So we're serving about 500 young people a year who are all from the neighborhood. And that's, um, anyone from sixth grade to age 24. And so there, a young person can walk in in sixth grade and be coming to an afterschool program that's led by someone from the neighborhood. When they get to high school, they're coming in and saying, Oh, I'm now 14. I have working papers. I need a job. And so we have met that need by creating positions. We employ, about 80 young people at a time, over in the summer it goes up. So over a hundred, high school students, throughout the year. And they're on our payroll. They're earning a paycheck. Um, lots of different things. They're trained to be peer health educators. They're trained to be peer counselors, um, youth organizers. They're looking at all the issues in the neighborhood and they're becoming specialists to then educate their peers or educating their family. We now have a young woman who started out in that program and she's finishing her master's degree at Hunter college school of social work and started out, she's like, it basically been a counselor since I was 15 years old. Our peer health education program, we had a young person who started out in that who's now at the Department of Education doing citywide program programs in health. So I think for a lot of young people getting a job at RHI thats serving their community also becomes the pathway to their future progression as an adult.

Ofer Cohen:                       07:38                     So I'm 15 years old and I come to Red Hook Initiative and I mean, you know, I'm being trained to help my peers and I'm being employed to help my peers in Red Hook Initiative is funding that.

Jill Eisenhard:                     07:53                     Yes, that right. We're paying them as an employee. And at the same time we're saying everyone who works here has a professional development plan. And so your professional development plan is a 15 year old is that you have to graduate from high school. And so the graduation rate in the neighborhood is around 60% and our young people are graduating at a rate of 95%. Um, and so that's the, the first piece of our model. So at any point in time, a young person from the neighborhood can walk into RHI and really get what they need. Many of them do start at sixth grade and are with us until age 24. Some of them kind of come and go when there's something that they need around work or emotional health or educational outcomes. And we have usually more young people than were we're able to have slots for particularly for the employment place.

Ofer Cohen:                       08:41                     So they're on a wait list?

Jill Eisenhard:                     08:41                     Yup. Yeah. Right.

Ofer Cohen:                       08:42                     So that's where the extra funding can help?

Jill Eisenhard:                     08:42                     Yes.

Ofer Cohen:                       08:42                     Because the need is much greater than what you can provide?

Jill Eisenhard:                     08:49                     And some of it is also space. So last year we, and I'll get to the second part of our model, but took on the two farms that are in Red Hook and they have come under our umbrella. We've rebranded as Red Hook farms. And so it's Brooklyn's largest urban farm. It's right next to the Ikea. Um, it's about a three acre space with an acre and a half that's active production of produce. And then there's another one acre spot on a NYCHA facility. And so young people also have jobs working on the farm, growing food, distributing that food to their neighbors. Red Hook doesn't have their, it's classified in, in department of health language as being a food desert.

Ofer Cohen:                       09:28                     So it sounds like kind of a radical model, right? This is more empowering from within and through the community and the peer group and collaboration. But like how did you guys come up with this model and is there other examples for it?

Jill Eisenhard:                     09:43                     There aren't lot of other examples So the, the youth development pieces are first core. And the second part is I think where we become more radical as you just said, is that we do organizing and advocacy and a lot of the groups, especially the bigger social service agencies throughout New York city, they just do the direct service. And I think the organizing and advocacy that we do is where the social chain starts to happen. And so some examples of that work, you know, NYCHA, especially after Hurricane Sandy, the repairs, I mean, people don't realize it's been seven years, they're still temporary boilers. Um, a lot of the FEMA money has an actually made it there yet. There's still all kinds of Sandy related things that have not been, repaired or fixed. And one of the things that's been happening, is that people don't have cooking gas. And so last year, for example, there are families that started to come to us and said, we haven't been able to cook for three or four months. And it took our organization organizing, people calling NYCHA, calling the press to actually get that story in just for people to have cooking gas. The same has been true with heat. Red Hook is top on the list for mold. We brought in a team from UC Berkeley who like looked at all the mold that had happened particularly after Hurricane Sandy. So it's really been residents who are driving that work. And so what RHI does is we are offering this space for them and the tools and connections to resources like a research Institute like UC Berkeley, but it's really the people who are driving, this is the need we go out of our way to make sure that they're the voices that are talking to press or I'm going to testify about something. For the young people, a great example of that is that two summers ago there was an increase in violence in the neighborhood and as a result of that, there is an increase in policing. And so a lot of the young men in particular were coming to RHI and saying, you have to help us. We don't feel safe in this neighborhood. @e feel like police are following us and we just kind of felt like we don't have expertise in gun violence. This is a little bit out of our range of what we know what to do with. And they kept coming. And so we said, Oh, this is a moment of community asking and we need to respond. And so we got some funding, and employed 12 young adults who did their own research and said, what is the story of violence, in this neighborhood and what are the roots of it? And they put together, they worked with a professor from Brooklyn college and the public science project. So there was real, like a real research presence. They're now known and people, researchers have come to them to talk about their model. They present to the Department of Health. Like a lot of the things that are coming out of their report are now showing up citywide and trying to figure out, looking at all of those issues. And so I think that's the place where it becomes a little more radical is saying like, this isn't a top down model. This is just giving community members, the tools and the opportunity to tell their own story and they have their own solution.

Ofer Cohen:                       12:56                     So, as I'm listening to you, I mean, what comes to mind is this sort of like, why, you know, if there's so many issues in public housing, why is it a nonprofits organization's job to fix all these issues?

Jill Eisenhard:                     13:11                     Yeah, great question. We asked that all the time. I mean, I think to the, the one thing when I was very young, when I accidentally started this organization and had actually only lived in New York City for two years, and I think if I'd been here for a little longer, I never would have even tried to have done this or just would've felt like that. What could I do? And I think, um, but you know, part of the motivator and people have said like, this work is really hard. Like why have you done it for so long? Is that, and this is gonna sound. I mean it's hope, like understanding and seeing it's just incredible to see what happens when people are given the space and the opportunity. I got a note two days ago, a young person who had been a part of our program who was connected, with a company, and got a job in basically in the construction field, and is now moving his family out of public housing after a few years. I've had young people come in with offer letters from jobs when they're like, here's my offer letter and I'm like, you have a retirement plan. I don't have a retirement plan or seeing people being the first from their family to graduate from college and knowing like, I don't think a lot of people try to give us credit for things like that and like, this is 100% that the young person showing up in doing it but I think it's the access to opportunity. I think that's the part that feels hopeful is that the human spirit is amazing and I think having done this for 18 years, it's, there's just an opportunity to see all these things that can happen. And that when residents come together to talk about public housing, they love their neighborhood, they love their building, they love their community. And people are like, I don't want to, I don't want public housing to go away. I don't want to move out of public housing. I just want it to be adequate. Like I wanted to be healthy and safe and not wondering if there's lead in the walls or mold growing on my children's skin, which actually happened in one house because of the situation there. And so I think that the drive is to really say, what would this city be without public housing? I mean, the majority of people who live in NYCHA work for the DOE, they work for NYCHA. They're in city jobs, like NYCHA residents are running the city. And I think as we look at what's happening, and the financial crisis that NYCHA is facing and, and I think people need to really understand who's living there and what, what that, leap would be if that isn't. And I think we have seen people who feel like I now make enough money where I can't, like I almost make too much money to live in NYCHA and there is a gap and I, there isn't anywhere to move in between. And so we've seen a lot of people moving to Pennsylvania moving back down South of just feeling like there isn't space for me in this city if I've succeeded enough to, to move beyond, the public housing or section eight or section nine options that are here.

Ofer Cohen:                       16:29                     Like, can, NYCHA fix all these issues from within can actually NYCHA with the right leadership and funding for that matter.

Jill Eisenhard:                     16:38                     Yeah, I mean the money is significant. I mean the Red Hook on the East side of the Red Hook houses, those buildings were built in 1938 and there hasn't been a significant upgrade. So any building that's been, around for that long and hasn't actually been cared for in the right way, there's a real question about how, you know, how healthy and strong, like what's the infrastructure of this building, how long is it really going to last and where does the, where, what is the smart investment and what does that look like? Um, and so I don't know. I mean, I think that the NYCHA, what happens with NYCHA is a significant one. I think within our organizing work, there are so many things that are playing out in the neighborhood right now. There's the port authority parcel that everyone's kind of wondering, is it, you know, is it going to be sold and if it's going to be sold, what, what's the plan? There's the governor's proposal for the subway, subway line, to come. There's the BQX all of the ball fields in Red Hook right now are closed for lead contamination. So there's a parks, open parks department conversation around what's happening with this space. There's also a current, I feel like I'm reading every possible list of what could be happening in a neighborhood in New York City. And it's all happening in Red Hook. There's a current, conversation about districting um, related to education in the elementary schools that are in the neighborhood. And so I think from our point of view, we're really just working to figure out how can residents know about all these conversations and where is there an opportunity for them to really be the ones who are speaking up and driving and saying what they want.

Ofer Cohen:                       18:23                     It's very interesting. So the question is sort of philosophically 25 years ahead, public housing is not going anywhere. The needs just getting bigger. Like what do you, how do you connect these two?

Jill Eisenhard:                     18:37                     I mean, I think it used to be that NYCHA actually ran community centers and did some form of direct service and I think that was a big mistake, that they need to be a landlord. They need to focus on the things related to being a landlord and that other groups should be doing the social services and the supports that happen. I do think that it's important that different housing communities have something like an RHI that is present and that are partnering and we do partner with NYCHA. And sometimes it's that we're really holding them accountable by issuing your report or going to the press. And sometimes we're saying like, let's work together on this.

Ofer Cohen:                       19:15                     Well, and there are people, you know, there are people in my industry, that think that the city should not be in the business of owning and managing a housing.

Jill Eisenhard:                     19:25                     The thing about it continuing to be held with the city is that I think there's some level of, control over making sure that it's staying low income or affordable or whatever term that you want to call. And I think that if it all becomes privatized, that there's going to be concern of like, what does that ultimately mean for the 400,000 people that are living there now, if those, you know, if markets start to drive those what is that, what's the longterm question? So I think the idea of it staying public is really focused on ensuring that it continues to be there for families who are at the, at the beginning of the spectrum of what they can afford.

Ofer Cohen:                       20:12                     So you touched a couple of times on Sandy. Tell me about that night and that morning.

Jill Eisenhard:                     20:17                     This is interesting. This is kind of, most people don't know this. I actually had had, surgery three days before Sandy. We just had our annual benefit and I said, this is actually, I need to have this surgery. And this was going to be a great time going to like take a week and a half off and, really like not be checking my email, not working. I'm just going to have the surgery and recover and I'll be back. And then I'm on day three, Sandy hit. And so that night I was just, you know, getting tons and tons of text messages and I'm thinking like, our building is ruined. All of our technology's ruined. I'm sure no one thought to like pick our server up off of the floor. Um, and the next morning people started telling me, everything's fine. I didn't believe it. I'm like, they want me to rest. And so they're not telling me the truth. Like there's no way that everything's fine, you know, looking at the news. And it was true and no one understands why it was the only building in Red Hook that like, it's as if nothing had happened, the phones are working, the lights were on, everything was fully intact. And so that next morning I got a call from a staff member and she's like, Hey, is it okay to open the building like none of us have? And at that point, no one knew how bad it was. Right? It's like, you know, just the next morning the sun is out. It's like, Oh, it'll all probably be fine by five o'clock today. And the water was gone by then. I was like, of course, of course you should be there. And so they started calling staff. And people started coming in and then people started saying, Hey, I need to charge my phone. Can I come? We can't cook. The occupy, the group that became occupy Sandy people came in and said, can we use your kitchen to like cook soup? People are going to need dinner tonight. And from there it just became full on the headquarters. And I was home. I had a, long crazy story, I was on incredible pain medication. I had tubes coming out, I had a tumor taken out of my leg and, was working like 14 to 16 hours a day for like weeks after that but never actually set foot in Red Hook until the power was back on.

Ofer Cohen:                       22:35                     It was a pivotal moment for Red Hook, but it was a pivotal moment for the organization too, in a way.

Jill Eisenhard:                     22:40                     Yes. I mean, there were people who came in, during the storm or right after the storm to make a donation and they were like, I live a mile away. I had no idea that you were here. And some of those people became longterm supporters. There are people who donated $5,000 in the time of crisis. And then once they learned what we were about are now donating $50,000. And so I think for us, you know, at the point that Sandy happened, we were 10 years old and we had that we're like, no one knows about us. We need a PR campaign. Of course we didn't have a director of development and we don't have communications team or PR people. So in retrospect it was like, Oh, we got, you know, through a storm. We actually had the PR campaign, I mean the number of journalists and TV crews and everyone that was coming through responding to Sandy and for people who realize, wait a minute, this group has actually been around for 10 years. They didn't just pop up during the storm. That really helps to us to kind of move to the next level.

Ofer Cohen:                       23:42                     Very interesting. So I typically ask if he listened my show, I typically ask, is there anything that the public doesn't know about you? So you did mention the surgery, which I didn't know. Is there anything else that the public doesn't know?

Jill Eisenhard:                     23:56                     So when we when I brought the question to my board about taking on the farm in Red Hook, they were like, what in the world do we know about farming? Like, why would we do that? And I said, well, here are all the reasons why, and if that's not enough to give you confidence, I do not, you probably do not know this about me, but I'm the 1989 New York state junior horticulture champion, at which point they just said, of course you are. And then we kind of proceeded with that. So yeah, that's been, something that as a teenager was really fun and I never thought would matter again, but has given lots of credibility as we've added the farm to our portfolio.

S2 | E7 | Jared Della Valle & AJ Pires, Alloy

Narrator:  
Hey Bk with Ofer Cohen.

AJ Pires:
People are starting to abandon Manhattan in its entirety and live entirely in Brooklyn.

Ofer Cohen:
AJ Pires and Jared Della Valle traveled to the HeyBK studio from DUMBO, their home base since they started back in 2006. Welcome to HeyBK AJ and Jared principles of Alloy development. I had a horrible commute this morning to  Prospect Heights. You know, tell us about a little bit.

Jared Della Valle:
Getting here? I had to sit next to AJ in the car. I was looking for a different experience rather than sitting across the table from him at work.

Ofer Cohen:
AJ and Jared finish each other's sentences and are clearly in sync. As you'll hear. And the partners of cofounders of Aloe and have a unique approach. AJ and Jared, have taken on Brooklyn and made their mark throughout with a responsible and thoughtful projects.

AJ Pires:
We got to the same place in a little bit different paths. And I went to architecture school to make buildings because I thought that's where you go to learn how to make buildings. And I got disillusioned pretty quickly from the way that that field talks about their successes, which is often about, you know, I achieve this from the client or I was able to manipulate this and get this design done. And it was all about kind of leveraging design in a service model to get things done. And it just seemed very obvious like, oh I don't, I don't want to be in the service profession. I want to be over there making decisions. I want to do this work. Like I want to tackle the problems and do the design work. But like can't you do both? And through a mutual friend, through sheer luck we were introduced and Jared was, you know, I think that's a thing architect develop where like we can, that's a thing. I was like, yeah, that's a thing I've been studying. I think you know, let's do that thing.

Ofer Cohen:
So together they decided to do their thing, blending real estate and architecture. They formed an open office with a collaborative approach that considers both the design and overall impact on the city.

AJ Pires:
I think there's a kind of a simple exercise, at least that I do in my own head, which is, okay hey, there's the opportunity, there's this site, there's going to be 13,000 decisions that need to be made to get to the end at the end end end. Really at the end, two years after everything is done. When somebody describes the three sentences of what the project is and you stand across the street and point added what did it achieve, right? What, what is the opportunity and the best simplest of ways. And I think the impact is increasingly becoming one of the key criteria and value sense that the architecture up at the beauty of it is also for me continuing to be kind of one of the foundational principles of our site selection and project selection, which is can we make something beautiful in the built environment? I don't know what you think. Yeah.

Jared Della Valle:
I mean we're distorting the use of the word value in our practice. I think coming from architectural lense economics has never driven that industry. And,  you know, we are thinking about all of the alternative value sets and how to leverage our capacity with real estate to create alternative values like community connection or political, you know, opportunities or the community benefits in general. Right. And,  yeah, I think our projects need to be financeable, but at the same time, we’re adding in this additional layer of criteria about alternative values. That's super important to us.

Ofer Cohen:
Well, they only take on a few projects at a time. The bulk of their focus has been in Dumbo and they both live in buildings that they designed and developed.

AJ Pires:
No, I think just knowing that, knowing the place right in the ins and outs and who the people in your neighborhood are and what's happening on this corner and that corner. It's just, you know, we have a lot of comfort in the risk because we feel like, okay, I really, I understand this place.

Ofer Cohen:
I understand that dumbo became more and more lucrative as an investment or capital destination. But you know, do you still love Dumbo as much as you love that? And the grittier, you know, it was a little more intimate.

Jared Della Valle:
They were literally wild dogs there when I moved into the neighborhood and my family moved there in 2001, 2002 and in a little bit post-September 11th, they moved from Chelsea and their most beautiful times and the neighborhood were like this time: of the year of February. They would not be a single car parked on the street. It'd be snow on the ground. And it was just like otherworldly. And I miss those moments of solitude,  in the neighborhood, but it was also completely starved. And with my family and committing to a place and the resources, you know, David and Jed have done an amazing job kind of curating the neighborhood and we love being neighbors with them and participating and engaging and a thoughtful future that we don't collaborate. I think we share a value set about what it is and Regina and her work at the park, which is really kind of created a new neighborhood. So I feel ownership of the place candidly after this many years. And I think my wife and kids similarly are proud to have been part of the history, of that place. And, I  love it and I can never foresee moving.  From there it's home.

AJ Pires:
I was in Fort Greene for seven or eight years before I moved to Dumbo and you know, my wife and I started our family in Fort Greene and we did the strollers through the brownstone neighborhoods and go into the playgrounds. And, and that was difficult to leave as DUMBO’ a different neighborhood. It's more mixed-use. There's more office space, and, it's busier and there's more going on. There's tourism and certainly, with the park opened, it can be weekends there where it's really crowded. , but it's also more exciting. And it's funny, as my kids get older, it's a little bit more aligned, right? Cause there's, there's more stuff going on, right. And so like, everything, it changes. I'm sure five years from now it'll be even different than there'll be other things we couldn't even imagine. And the neighborhood and, you know, it's a physical form. The fact that it's constrained by the river and the infrastructure of the bridges will forever be there. And that is really one of the kind of remarkable and memorable moments of living in the neighborhood. And so,  I think that's sustainable.

Ofer Cohen:
Their first big development was a loft conversion on water street, but ha and Jared expand beyond Dumbo. They remain focused on what they describe is northwest, Brooklyn.

Jared Della Valle:
We have this quality of life thing, right? Written in 2008, 2009 or like just being a developer in New York attack, started to expand and to also be in the real estate broker and also having a construction company. And so the immediacy of the projects to our office became incredibly valuable to the culture and success of execution, which is we'll go to the job site twice a day, three times a day between everybody in our office, maybe five times a day. And we're looking to make sure that we can execute quickly and really understand everything. And, that market intimacy is hard to get a feel for and other places. And so, you know, sometimes we even joke about it, it's like this is a great site and we'll be in Long Island City or something like that. And it's like, this is an amazing site. But man, that's gonna take like two and a half hours out of our day to come here. I don't, I don't want to do that. And there's a degree of selfishness with that.

AJ Pires:
There's also though, we've always been very aligned and I think everybody in the office is about what we're doing and what the legacy is, which is, you know, I always use the anecdote, like I kind of, you know, 15, 20 years from now, I want to walk around and with, my mom or my daughter and pointed the 12 buildings we've done and be proud about each one. It's not about how much a dollar is we're making or ego in that way, right? It's about the legacy of the thing and the built environment and the impact that thing had at the people who live with it and use it and encounter it and all of that. And so that does require the discipline of saying, no, whatever that quote is, right. The success is defined by what you say no to is, is absolutely true for the model. And it is sometimes it's, you know, I'm not going to say I don't second guess things where it's like, God, we could have done that and then we would have done this

Ofer Cohen:
Would you say that you have more moments of regretting not seizing an opportunity versus, you know?

Jared Della Valle:
Oh, those are so rare. I mean, we're hardly reflective. I mean, everything is perspective. There's only maybe been one or two deals in our history where we're like, shit, that was stupid were you lost for $50,000 and you know, a week on closing timing where it was like, right. You know, why didn't we do that? But when you look back at the time, there was a reason it was a reason, you know? And, yeah, we're so careful about it, but it's not how I spend our time. I'm so proud of our work.

Ofer Cohen:

I get what you big picture are proud of, but to the point about walking around Brooklyn and being proud of specific projects so far, what would be the thing?

Jared Della Valle:
I love them all. No, I  have to say I think, One John Street is recognizable and part of the Brooklyn Skyline and the amount of,  personal recognition and connection to our company has been kind of overwhelming you know, I hear it every day.  I ride over the bridge and blah, blah, blah, and I saw your building. It's the best building in Brooklyn. And you know, we get a lot of that from our architecture peer set, which is validating because it was really uncomfortable moment when I was stopping producing and it worked for others where I had to actually say I quit architecture. Right. And we’re like, oh, so you don't care and you know what's happening and how is that going to go? Why'd you quit architecture and why are you being a mean developer? And, and so, you know, our participation in the architectural community has been kind of important. One of the most rewarding moments of our career. We had at recent landmarks hearing where we were: presenting 168 Plymouth and the interim commissioner said, I don't think there's another owner or architect in the city who's had more of a positive impact on a neighborhood.  Then you guys. And it was, it was awesome. It was an incredible moment.

AJ Pires:
I started crying, just started crying.

Jared Della Valle:
It was really a moment of recognition of feeling like the imprint and the subtlety and the small choices we're making and the execution and certainty if that outcome is, recognizable as a place. And so for us, we walked out of that meeting like completely elated

Ofer Cohen:
Recently, they've taken on a bigger challenge, a larger mixed-use project in one of Downtown Brooklyn busiest corridors on Flatbush avenue.

AJ Pires:
Like all things right. It was the part intention and part luck and circumstance. We didn't acquire our first piece of property there with the intention to develop what we're currently developing, and so through. And that was four years ago now, and you know, the opportunity with the RFP that the city led to make public schools and to do just a much more complicated phase mixed-use development was just kind of too good to pass up. Right? It was like what you get. We get to do public infrastructure like schools and you know, there was a big affordable housing upon its cultural component that we added. And it, it was the same, skillset that we applied, which is the project became a lot more complicated, you know, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle on an irregular site in a mixed context. And it required a lot of, iteration and a lot of design thinking to come up with a plan that, you know, met a lot of criteria and kind of achieved whatever it is looking to achieve.

Jared Della Valle:
The complexity of that site and the political landscape and the sensitivity to the other neighborhoods was, an incredible like complete mind fuck for a long time, you know, and, I think we enjoyed, it was going to say the discussion, it was incredibly rewarding to have the 150 meetings we had. And to think through the problems and to accept the community is our client and to think through what a successful outcome could be. It was, yeah, it's a period of our history as a company that I'm exceptionally proud of.

AJ Pires:
I know our work there is not done and we won't be judged until that project is complete. And we follow through on a lot of the, you know, intent that we've described. Right. And that's, that's always the case with development. You're spending most of the time, whether it's with your internal team or your partners or communities or whatever, talking about something that doesn't exist yet. Right. And when it's done, the work is over to a certain extent and so, it's, you know, it'll be that judgment that will be the most, I think rewarding eight years from now or whenever that's going to be

Ofer Cohen:
AJ and Jared create innovative designs. I went back to that initial question, what are they architects or developers when filling out forms? How do they describe themselves?

Jared Della Valle:
If I'm, if I'm speaking publicly, which happens often, I say I make buildings and people understand that that's the kind of most accurate version of it. If I'm, you know, filling out a form that's like an application for something, it's usually architect first and it's a line of credit. He's back,

AJ Pires:
You know, we don't fit into either of the kind of guilds, right? Right. And we go to the architectural things and although it's less, less happening now because people know us more, but people think we're real estate developer, you guys just want to make money and you ate design and putting, you know, and that, and then we go to the real estate events, right? And it's like you're just a fucking architect and you know, you just want to spend my money and you don't understand anything and you can't do math and

AJ Pires:
I mean, you know, we're spending more time, I think trying to, push on both fronts, which is the architectural practice and needs more advocacy around ways to gain more agency. And how things are made in the city. And you know, it's a tough service profession. It's incredibly difficult and you know, both of us are on boards of organization. What we're trying to push on that front. And similarly, the real estate development community needs a lot of pushing relative to the candidly the ethics of what the responsibilities are of a developer. And you know, I think, that's one of the things that, is important to recognize that, you know, as people recognize bill, no, that's a nice building. How'd you do that? We should be trying to do our part to articulate that there are alternative paths. Right. And to set an example,

Ofer Cohen:
It's kind of like a, a combined DNA in a way. It's not like two different things that you're trying to meld together.

AJ Pires:
There are, you know, it's funny, one of the things that does definitely happen in the past 10 years as we've noticed that there are more real estate development companies that have architectural practices in house, right? But that is still church and state and they're just, they have a division that's in house and do the kind of the earliest point like it's, it is one conversation that is happening simultaneously around what does the value of that and can we build it and will people, is that legible to a broader market and what's the impact where I like it that all of that stuff on the table at the same time is how we work and that's I think possible for other people to get there through just accepting the criteria,

Ofer Cohen:
The connection to Brooklyn I'm in, can you see yourself doing this any out of town? In the world, in America?

Jared Della Valle:
Not at all. Nope. Why? We see a million opportunities and people that are always asking, you know, would you develop here and would you develop there? And our business, again, it's about taking a risk and it's like the intimacy and connection to place and the nuance about knowing that I'm this corner, this is happening in six months that's completely devoid and not having a connection to the process of the making is also an,

Aj Pires:
It's also, it's where, where I am and where you are, which is our kids are going to school here and this is where we live. And so I want to invest capital, right? My, not my dollars but like my industry capital and effecting the place in which I live, right? Like it's to do it in suburban Cleveland, you know, I have no attachment is, you know, what's the meaning?

Jared Della Valle:
But it's also the excitement and the value proposition of, you know, the culture of this place, right? Like there is a collective spirit here and you know, I share the value set. We can have disagreements about urban issues, but, the value set about urban issues.

Ofer Cohen:
What urban issues?

Jared Della Valle:
If we can believe in a different future. Right? And it's a part of that spirit of place that I've really come to enjoy and appreciate and culture. I like participating in and, and, yeah, I don't have that connection to any other place.

Ofer Cohen:
The one thing you would change about the city?

Jared Della Valle:
I think, some of the social equity issues that come up as, as they relate to housing, is an extraordinary challenge if people need to deal with more head-on. And I think that's hard for our industry to do. You know, we're both developers and perceived as rich white guys. Right? And so the challenge of really connecting and being genuine about making meaningful change and you know, how to participate in creating social equity, opportunities is the thing I'd like to do most. And I don't know that everybody shares that value set all of the time.so that's more of a cultural shift. And I think, you know, I think, it's obviously more present today, but I still don't know how many people take it on as a meaningful issue to address. That's a hope for the future. Call it.

AJ Pires:
I think the thing that I'm excited about, which I think is already happening, cause I certainly see it amongst the people that I encounter is, people are starting to abandon Manhattan in its entirety and live entirely in Brooklyn and they go to Manhattan to completely just do a pit stop at a cultural moment or, right, It's not part of their life at all. And you know, they're raising their family here, their kids are going to school here. They eat out here, they work here. They, it's just, and more and more I encounter right people where they're like, yeah, I know. I never go to Manhattan, I don't know the last time I went there. Right. And the more that happens, I think the more, not like there's not enough pride now in Brooklyn, but the more it just kind of starts to create its own real power of momentum, and that's what you're seeing and you know, big companies choosing to like move their entire offices to Brooklyn. Right? And we've had people who show up that are new to New York City as a whole, five Boroughs who are shopping for homes and they're like, I'm just looking in Brooklyn. I'm actually not looking at Manhattan and all, I'm just looking here. Right. And that's kind of amazing. Right. And I think, you know, 5years, 10 years, 20 years, right. It's going to be, it's not just that the center of gravity is shifting. It will be its own center of gravity, you know?

Ofer Cohen:
So we typically, and if you listened to some of these shows, we typically handle this like awkward question.

AJ Pires:
Well, I think it's been weird that we're in our underwear this whole time. At least strange.

Ofer Cohen:
I know. I typically ask, can you tell us something that nobody else knows about you? But I can ask it separately. I can ask you together.

Jared Della Valle:
I've been asking AJ this question for the last 13 years. Never told me anything new. We were, we were trying to think of what to say to the answer of that question way over here. And it's like, no, I'm tired of you. I know everything there is to know,  I think people are always expecting us to sort of a show some side of being just pure capitalist or something at the end of the day. Right. But you know, this shit is real to enjoy. Yeah. I think we both really care about what it is that we're doing and kind of, I don't know how to answer it any other way is, the question is there are no secrets. There is nothing that nobody doesn't know and we're prepared to share just about anything.

AJ Pires:
I play guitar, which I have a played since it was a little kid. , and I only play for myself. I like, nobody ever hears me play guitar. Seriously. It's like my one piece of zen therapy, like whatever, you know, just like picking out songs consistently for like 25 years .

Ofer Cohen:
Wow. You're so lucky. I was trying to get back into playing guitars I play when I was a teenager, but I haven't been able, this was last year. I haven't been able to really get back into it.

AJ Pires:
I would play with it, but I don't, I don't play with anybody. When, when do you have talked to play? Somebody was in early in the morning and sometimes you know, and at the end of the day, you're so lucky. Yeah. That's amazing.

Ofer Cohen:
You're so lucky. Yeah. That's amazing. See, AJ actually had an answer for us.

Jared Della Valle:
I knew that already,

Ofer Cohen:
Oh, you knew that? Yeah, no, I get it.

Narrator:  
Hey Bk with Ofer Cohen.

AJ Pires:
People are starting to abandon Manhattan in its entirety and live entirely in Brooklyn.

Ofer Cohen:
AJ Pires and Jared Della Valle traveled to the HeyBK studio from DUMBO, their home base since they started back in 2006. Welcome to HeyBK AJ and Jared principles of Alloy development. I had a horrible commute this morning to  Prospect Heights. You know, tell us about a little bit.

Jared Della Valle:
Getting here? I had to sit next to AJ in the car. I was looking for a different experience rather than sitting across the table from him at work.

Ofer Cohen:
AJ and Jared finish each other's sentences and are clearly in sync. As you'll hear. And the partners of cofounders of Aloe and have a unique approach. AJ and Jared, have taken on Brooklyn and made their mark throughout with a responsible and thoughtful projects.

AJ Pires:
We got to the same place in a little bit different paths. And I went to architecture school to make buildings because I thought that's where you go to learn how to make buildings. And I got disillusioned pretty quickly from the way that that field talks about their successes, which is often about, you know, I achieve this from the client or I was able to manipulate this and get this design done. And it was all about kind of leveraging design in a service model to get things done. And it just seemed very obvious like, oh I don't, I don't want to be in the service profession. I want to be over there making decisions. I want to do this work. Like I want to tackle the problems and do the design work. But like can't you do both? And through a mutual friend, through sheer luck we were introduced and Jared was, you know, I think that's a thing architect develop where like we can, that's a thing. I was like, yeah, that's a thing I've been studying. I think you know, let's do that thing.

 Ofer Cohen:
So together they decided to do their thing, blending real estate and architecture. They formed an open office with a collaborative approach that considers both the design and overall impact on the city.

AJ Pires:
I think there's a kind of a simple exercise, at least that I do in my own head, which is, okay hey, there's the opportunity, there's this site, there's going to be 13,000 decisions that need to be made to get to the end at the end end end. Really at the end, two years after everything is done. When somebody describes the three sentences of what the project is and you stand across the street and point added what did it achieve, right? What, what is the opportunity and the best simplest of ways. And I think the impact is increasingly becoming one of the key criteria and value sense that the architecture up at the beauty of it is also for me continuing to be kind of one of the foundational principles of our site selection and project selection, which is can we make something beautiful in the built environment? I don't know what you think. Yeah.

 Jared Della Valle:
I mean we're distorting the use of the word value in our practice. I think coming from architectural lense economics has never driven that industry. And,  you know, we are thinking about all of the alternative value sets and how to leverage our capacity with real estate to create alternative values like community connection or political, you know, opportunities or the community benefits in general. Right. And,  yeah, I think our projects need to be financeable, but at the same time, we’re adding in this additional layer of criteria about alternative values. That's super important to us.

Ofer Cohen:
Well, they only take on a few projects at a time. The bulk of their focus has been in Dumbo and they both live in buildings that they designed and developed.

AJ Pires:
No, I think just knowing that, knowing the place right in the ins and outs and who the people in your neighborhood are and what's happening on this corner and that corner. It's just, you know, we have a lot of comfort in the risk because we feel like, okay, I really, I understand this place.

Ofer Cohen:
I understand that dumbo became more and more lucrative as an investment or capital destination. But you know, do you still love Dumbo as much as you love that? And the grittier, you know, it was a little more intimate.

 Jared Della Valle:
They were literally wild dogs there when I moved into the neighborhood and my family moved there in 2001, 2002 and in a little bit post-September 11th, they moved from Chelsea and their most beautiful times and the neighborhood were like this time: of the year of February. They would not be a single car parked on the street. It'd be snow on the ground. And it was just like otherworldly. And I miss those moments of solitude,  in the neighborhood, but it was also completely starved. And with my family and committing to a place and the resources, you know, David and Jed have done an amazing job kind of curating the neighborhood and we love being neighbors with them and participating and engaging and a thoughtful future that we don't collaborate. I think we share a value set about what it is and Regina and her work at the park, which is really kind of created a new neighborhood. So I feel ownership of the place candidly after this many years. And I think my wife and kids similarly are proud to have been part of the history, of that place. And, I  love it and I can never foresee moving.         from there it's home.

 AJ Pires:
I was in Fort Greene for seven or eight years before I moved to Dumbo and you know, my wife and I started our family in Fort Greene and we did the strollers through the brownstone neighborhoods and go into the playgrounds. And, and that was difficult to leave as DUMBO’ a different neighborhood. It's more mixed-use. There's more office space, and, it's busier and there's more going on. There's tourism and certainly, with the park opened, it can be weekends there where it's really crowded. , but it's also more exciting. And it's funny, as my kids get older, it's a little bit more aligned, right? Cause there's, there's more stuff going on, right. And so like, everything, it changes. I'm sure five years from now it'll be even different than there'll be other things we couldn't even imagine. And the neighborhood and, you know, it's a physical form. The fact that it's constrained by the river and the infrastructure of the bridges will forever be there. And that is really one of the kind of remarkable and memorable moments of living in the neighborhood. And so,  I think that's sustainable.

Ofer Cohen:
Their first big development was a loft conversion on water street, but ha and Jared expand beyond Dumbo. They remain focused on what they describe is northwest, Brooklyn.

Jared Della Valle:
We have this quality of life thing, right? Written in 2008, 2009 or like just being a developer in New York attack, started to expand and to also be in the real estate broker and also having a construction company. And so the immediacy of the projects to our office became incredibly valuable to the culture and success of execution, which is we'll go to the job site twice a day, three times a day between everybody in our office, maybe five times a day. And we're looking to make sure that we can execute quickly and really understand everything. And, that market intimacy is hard to get a feel for and other places. And so, you know, sometimes we even joke about it, it's like this is a great site and we'll be in Long Island City or something like that. And it's like, this is an amazing site. But man, that's gonna take like two and a half hours out of our day to come here. I don't, I don't want to do that. And there's a degree of selfishness with that.

 AJ Pires:
There's also though, we've always been very aligned and I think everybody in the office is about what we're doing and what the legacy is, which is, you know, I always use the anecdote, like I kind of, you know, 15, 20 years from now, I want to walk around and with, my mom or my daughter and pointed the 12 buildings we've done and be proud about each one. It's not about how much a dollar is we're making or ego in that way, right? It's about the legacy of the thing and the built environment and the impact that thing had at the people who live with it and use it and encounter it and all of that. And so that does require the discipline of saying, no, whatever that quote is, right. The success is defined by what you say no to is, is absolutely true for the model. And it is sometimes it's, you know, I'm not going to say I don't second guess things where it's like, God, we could have done that and then we would have done this

Ofer Cohen:
Would you say that you have more moments of regretting not seizing an opportunity versus, you know?

 Jared Della Valle:
oh, those are so rare. I mean, we're hardly reflective. I mean, everything is perspective. There's only maybe been one or two deals in our history where we're like, shit, that was stupid were you lost for $50,000 and you know, a week on closing timing where it was like, right. You know, why didn't we do that? But when you look back at the time, there was a reason it was a reason, you know? And, yeah, we're so careful about it, but it's not how I spend our time. I'm so proud of our work.

Ofer Cohen:
I, get what you big picture are proud of, but to the point about walking around Brooklyn and being proud of specific projects so far, what would be the thing?

 Jared Della Valle:
I love them all. No, I  have to say I think, One John Street is recognizable and part of the Brooklyn Skyline and the amount of,  personal recognition and connection to our company has been kind of overwhelming you know, I hear it every day.  I ride over the bridge and blah, blah, blah, and I saw your building. It's the best building in Brooklyn. And you know, we get a lot of that from our architecture peer set, which is validating because it was really uncomfortable moment when I was stopping producing and it worked for others where I had to actually say I quit architecture. Right. And we’re like, oh, so you don't care and you know what's happening and how is that going to go? Why'd you quit architecture and why are you being a mean developer? And, and so, you know, our participation in the architectural community has been kind of important. One of the most rewarding moments of our career. We had at recent landmarks hearing where we were: presenting 168 Plymouth and the interim commissioner said, I don't think there's another owner or architect in the city who's had more of a positive impact on a neighborhood.  Then you guys. And it was, it was awesome. It was an incredible moment.

AJ Pires:
I started crying, just started crying.

Jared Della Valle:
It was really a moment of recognition of feeling like the imprint and the subtlety and the small choices we're making and the execution and certainty if that outcome is, recognizable as a place. And so for us, we walked out of that meeting like completely elated

Ofer Cohen:
Recently. They've taken on a bigger challenge, a larger mixed-use project in one of Downtown Brooklyn busiest corridors on Flatbush avenue.

 AJ Pires:
Like all things right. It was the part intention and part luck and circumstance. We didn't acquire our first piece of property there with the intention to develop what we're currently developing, and so through. And that was four years ago now, and you know, the opportunity with the RFP that the city led to make public schools and to do just a much more complicated phase mixed-use development was just kind of too good to pass up. Right? It was like what you get. We get to do public infrastructure like schools and you know, there was a big affordable housing upon its cultural component that we added. And it, it was the same, skillset that we applied, which is the project became a lot more complicated, you know, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle on an irregular site in a mixed context. And it required a lot of, iteration and a lot of design thinking to come up with a plan that, you know, met a lot of criteria and kind of achieved whatever it is looking to achieve.

Jared Della Valle:
The complexity of that site and the political landscape and the sensitivity to the other neighborhoods was, an incredible like complete mind fuck for a long time, you know, and, I think we enjoyed, it was going to say the discussion, it was incredibly rewarding to have the 150 meetings we had. And to think through the problems and to accept the community is our client and to think through what a successful outcome could be. It was, yeah, it's a period of our history as a company that I'm exceptionally proud of.

AJ Pires:
I know our work there is not done and we won't be judged until that project is complete. And we follow through on a lot of the, you know, intent that we've described. Right. And that's, that's always the case with development. You're spending most of the time, whether it's with your internal team or your partners or communities or whatever, talking about something that doesn't exist yet. Right. And when it's done, the work is over to a certain extent and so, it's, you know, it'll be that judgment that will be the most, I think rewarding eight years from now or whenever that's going to be

 Ofer Cohen:
AJ and Jared create innovative designs. I went back to that initial question, what are they architects or developers when filling out forms? How do they describe themselves?

Jared Della Valle:
If I'm, if I'm speaking publicly, which happens often, I say I make buildings and people understand that that's the kind of most accurate version of it. If I'm, you know, filling out a form that's like an application for something, it's usually architect first and it's a line of credit. He's back,

AJ Pires:
You know, we don't fit into either of the kind of guilds, right? Right. And we go to the architectural things and although it's less, less happening now because people know us more, but people think we're real estate developer, you guys just want to make money and you ate design and putting, you know, and that, and then we go to the real estate events, right? And it's like you're just a fucking architect and you know, you just want to spend my money and you don't understand anything and you can't do math and

 AJ Pires:
I mean, you know, we're spending more time, I think trying to, push on both fronts, which is the architectural practice and needs more advocacy around ways to gain more agency. And how things are made in the city. And you know, it's a tough service profession. It's incredibly difficult and you know, both of us are on boards of organization. What we're trying to push on that front. And similarly, the real estate development community needs a lot of pushing relative to the candidly the ethics of what the responsibilities are of a developer. And you know, I think, that's one of the things that, is important to recognize that, you know, as people recognize bill, no, that's a nice building. How'd you do that? We should be trying to do our part to articulate that there are alternative paths. Right. And to set an example,

Ofer Cohen:
It's kind of like a, a combined DNA in a way. It's not like two different things that you're trying to meld together.

 AJ Pires:
There are, you know, it's funny, one of the things that does definitely happen in the past 10 years as we've noticed that there are more real estate development companies that have architectural practices in house, right? But that is still church and state and they're just, they have a division that's in house and do the kind of the earliest point like it's, it is one conversation that is happening simultaneously around what does the value of that and can we build it and will people, is that legible to a broader market and what's the impact where I like it that all of that stuff on the table at the same time is how we work and that's I think possible for other people to get there through just accepting the criteria,

Ofer Cohen:
The connection to Brooklyn I'm in, can you see yourself doing this any out of town? In the world, in America?

Jared Della Valle:
Not at all. Nope. Why? We see a million opportunities and people that are always asking, you know, would you develop here and would you develop there? And our business, again, it's about taking a risk and it's like the intimacy and connection to place and the nuance about knowing that I'm this corner, this is happening in six months that's completely devoid and not having a connection to the process of the making is also an,

Aj Pires:
It's also, it's where, where I am and where you are, which is our kids are going to school here and this is where we live. And so I want to invest capital, right? My, not my dollars but like my industry capital and effecting the place in which I live, right? Like it's to do it in suburban Cleveland, you know, I have no attachment is, you know, what's the meaning?

Jared Della Valle:
But it's also the excitement and the value proposition of, you know, the culture of this place, right? Like there is a collective spirit here and you know, I share the value set. We can have disagreements about urban issues, but, the value set about urban issues.

Ofer Cohen:
What urban issues?

Jared Della Valle:
If we can believe in a different future. Right? And it's a part of that spirit of place that I've really come to enjoy and appreciate and culture. I like participating in and, and, yeah, I don't have that connection to any other place.

Ofer Cohen:
The one thing you would change about the city?

 Jared Della Valle:
I think, some of the social equity issues that come up as, as they relate to housing, is an extraordinary challenge if people need to deal with more head-on. And I think that's hard for our industry to do. You know, we're both developers and perceived as rich white guys. Right? And so the challenge of really connecting and being genuine about making meaningful change and you know, how to participate in creating social equity, opportunities is the thing I'd like to do most. And I don't know that everybody shares that value set all of the time.so that's more of a cultural shift. And I think, you know, I think, it's obviously more present today, but I still don't know how many people take it on as a meaningful issue to address. That's a hope for the future. Call it.

AJ Pires:
I think the thing that I'm excited about, which I think is already happening, cause I certainly see it amongst the people that I encounter is, people are starting to abandon Manhattan in its entirety and live entirely in Brooklyn and they go to Manhattan to completely just do a pit stop at a cultural moment or, right, It's not part of their life at all. And you know, they're raising their family here, their kids are going to school here. They eat out here, they work here. They, it's just, and more and more I encounter right people where they're like, yeah, I know. I never go to Manhattan, I don't know the last time I went there. Right. And the more that happens, I think the more, not like there's not enough pride now in Brooklyn, but the more it just kind of starts to create its own real power of momentum, and that's what you're seeing and you know, big companies choosing to like move their entire offices to Brooklyn. Right? And we've had people who show up that are new to New York City as a whole, five Boroughs who are shopping for homes and they're like, I'm just looking in Brooklyn. I'm actually not looking at Manhattan and all, I'm just looking here. Right. And that's kind of amazing. Right. And I think, you know, 5years, 10 years, 20 years, right. It's going to be, it's not just that the center of gravity is shifting. It will be its own center of gravity, you know?

Ofer Cohen:
So we typically, and if you listened to some of these shows, we typically handle this like awkward question.

 AJ Pires:
Well, I think it's been weird that we're in our underwear this whole time. At least strange.

Ofer Cohen:
I know. I typically ask, can you tell us something that nobody else knows about you? But I can ask it separately. I can ask you together.

Jared Della Valle:

I've been asking AJ this question for the last 13 years. Never told me anything new. We were, we were trying to think of what to say to the answer of that question way over here. And it's like, no, I'm tired of you. I know everything there is to know,  I think people are always expecting us to sort of a show some side of being just pure capitalist or something at the end of the day. Right. But you know, this shit is real to enjoy. Yeah. I think we both really care about what it is that we're doing and kind of, I don't know how to answer it any other way is, the question is there are no secrets. There is nothing that nobody doesn't know and we're prepared to share just about anything.

AJ Pires:
I play guitar, which I have a played since it was a little kid. , and I only play for myself. I like, nobody ever hears me play guitar. Seriously. It's like my one piece of zen therapy, like whatever, you know, just like picking out songs consistently for like 25 years .

Ofer Cohen:
Wow. You're so lucky. I was trying to get back into playing guitars I play when I was a teenager, but I haven't been able, this was last year. I haven't been able to really get back into it.

AJ Pires:
I would play with it, but I don't, I don't play with anybody. When, when do you have talked to play? Somebody was in early in the morning and sometimes you know, and at the end of the day, you're so lucky. Yeah. That's amazing.

Ofer Cohen:
You're so lucky. Yeah. That's amazing. See, AJ actually had an answer for us.

 Jared Della Valle:
I knew that already,

 Ofer Cohen:
Oh, you knew that? Yeah, no, I get it.

 Jared Della Valle:
He actually, he says that, but the real story here is that there was a night and he's true and we did. We were out and teaching in Syracuse and we were drunk enough that AJ was out and played live. I was in front of a group of people that we didn't know, so I was not sober. It's true.

Ofer Cohen:
There we go. We found one secret joint secret actually. You were listening to, Hey, BK, the podcast about the people behind Brooklyn's transformation. You can find us at heybk.nyc or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Ofer Cohen. Thanks for listening.

Jared Della Valle:
He actually, he says that, but the real story here is that there was a night and he's true and we did. We were out and teaching in Syracuse and we were drunk enough that AJ was out and played live. I was in front of a group of people that we didn't know, so I was not sober. It's true.

Ofer Cohen :
There we go. We found one secret joint secret actually. You were listening to, Hey, BK, the podcast about the people behind Brooklyn's transformation. You can find us at heybk.nyc or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Ofer Cohen. Thanks for listening.