Judge Blocks City's Proposal for 2 Buildings in Brooklyn

New York City had approved a proposal to allow one of the buildings, the Tobacco Warehouse, to be used by St. Ann’s Warehouse, a theater company based in the Dumbo neighborhood that has been looking for a new home. The city was planning to take proposals for the Empire Stores building this spring, city officials said.

But Judge Eric N. Vitaliano said that the National Park Service broke the law when it redrew the lines of Empire Fulton Ferry State Park without public hearings, leaving the Tobacco Warehouse and the Empire Stores, both waterfront structures, outside of the park’s borders.

The National Park Service and New York City, both defendants in the case, argued that the buildings had been included in the park by mistake, and that they were not suitable for outdoor recreation, making them ineligible for inclusion. The National Park Service, they argued, was within its rights to correct the mistake.

Judge Vitaliano, of the Eastern District of New York, did not agree, issuing a preliminary injunction against the move.