Brooklynites Under Seige (By Cacophonous Construction)

Life in Brooklyn can go from reasonably peaceful to hellish in the span of a construction permit. The astounding video to the right, which painfully conveys what it's like to live next to a construction site (in this case on 15th Street in the South Slope), was posted yesterday by Brownstoner. It was produced by the same person that posted the Crack Tour related to the same construction showing how the building is splitting apart as a result. Click on "Welcome to My Nightmare" and, then, imagine having this outside your window.

We came across the post below on My Brooklyn Year. It's from a different neighborhood (Greenpoint) and it's about sidewalk and street work, but sometimes words can paint a nice picture too of what life can turn into:

The work crews are still at it, ripping up the sidewalks along Franklin Street on the north end of Greenpoint. And they're taking their sweet time, too; it's been about a month since the orange metal gates first appeared outside my door. First the east side of Franklin, now the west. Since then, I've literally been shaken awake not once but twice as the construction team uses a backhoe to mash the concrete into chunks before loading it up and carting it off below my window.

Who needs an alarm clock when you're awakened by jackhammers, truck engines revving, metal beams clanging and the endless WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! of concrete being pulverized? The fun won't stop once they lay the new sidewalk, either. Road crews are right behind, tearing up Franklin Street right down to the soil in preparation for laying a new road. Meanwhile, because the non-existant sidewalk is where our building's trash cans lived, they've had to be relocated. To our lobby.

Life in Brooklyn, the construction site.