The Times has a story about an architectural designer who’s moved to Bed-Stuy from Alphabet City and claims that Brooklyn reconnects me to New York City as a cultural and social phenomenon. Michael Andaloro lived on Avenue B for more than two decades and sold two apartments there for $1.2 million last year; he originally paid $60,000 for the properties. Andaloro recently bought a Bed-Stuy building for $775,000 and spent almost that much on renovating the structure, which he says was a 7 on the squalor scale. The new Brooklynite says he doesn’t miss the East Village, which was like spring break in Orlando on Thursday nights and that his new neighborhood’s diversity and possibilities are like the Lower East Side of lore. And, of course, he’s banking on his Bed-Stuy investment eventually paying off the same way Alphabet City did: I always figure that a bleak or notorious neighborhood translates into cachet one day.
Rediscovering New York as It Used to Be [NY Times]
Photo by …neene…