Tobacco Warehouse Future Unknown

The roofless Tobacco Warehouse is a stately and historic 19th Century structure in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Plans made by the city's Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation to move St. Ann's Warehouse, a theater group, into the building were dashed Tuesday.

According the New York Post, a Brooklyn federal judge ruled the land on which the Tobacco Warehouse and another series of buildings, the Empire Stores sits, had been illegally removed from U.S. parkland protection by the National Parks Service "to boost the Bloomberg administration’s push for private developers to take over the sites as part of the Brooklyn Bridge Park project."

The decision throws the city's plans for the Tobacco Warehouse and the Empire Stores site into jeopardy, which could further threaten the entirety of Brooklyn Bridge Park, which must pay for its own maintenance.

The decision by the judge was in response to a lawsuit filed by the Brooklyn Heights Association and other groups that argued the federal government gave in to city pressure by illegally moving both buildings from federally protected parkland.

Judy Stanton, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, told the Post her organization was “thrilled by the decision."