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65 Hope Street, the 126,000-square-foot loft building just off the BQE in Williamsburg, may provide the perfect illustration for the rise and fall of the area’s real estate market over the last several years. After sitting in the same hands for decades, the building sold for $14,200,000 in December 2004; less than 20 months later, in August 2006, it traded again for $26,115,000. Now, just two months ago, as noted by Curbed yesterday, it sold again for $12,000,000. Someone just lost a lot of money. Assuming this can be converted into condos, $100 a foot may have been a pretty good buy! GMAP
Photo from Citynoise


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. I am one of the original tenants who moved into Hope Street in 1993 – after the last real estate crash. Kalamon Dolgin, specifically Neil Dolgin couldn’t give it away fast enough. He even put in gas jet heaters so I could live there. N one wanted to live there, and I had been living in Williamsburg since 1988, so this was a step up. I had crack addicted prostitutes passed out on my door, There was incredible drug dealing,murders outside my window and where the gallery is on the corner of Hope and Marcy was a luncheonette where the retired guys would gather, there were scads of feral cats, the first pigeons with West Nile started dying on the roof, and also I watched 9/11 and the Twin Towers go down from that roof. A former porn actress who wound up doing business deals with Dolgin (one slut to another I liked to think) lived there with her homicidal boyfriend. We were terrorized by the super, the former gang leader of the neighborhood who stole our packages, forged our checks and occasionally attacked tenants who did not kow tow to him, My floor was 6000 square feet and over the years we had a gallery, sculptors, artists, actors, writers, notable people. We really, really used the space. The temperature in the winter in the uninsulated building would go down to the 40’s. We bundled up in sweaters and dealt with it.

    Also, this was one of the staging grounds to rewrite the NY City amended loft law, which almost, but did not quite pass though the bill was written and it went all the way up to what was then was Governor Pataki, Joe Bruno and Sheldon Silver, but in the way of horsetrading, our bill was traded away at the last moment. It was a good fight, we lost but had a number of planning meetings there with the bill’s lawyers, and rezoning happened and we all got evicted. The water got turned off, electric, you name it. A huge number of the people in that building left NY, not all, but a lot of them. We did not receive a buy out. We did go on rent strike and that helped pay the legal fees.

    The guy who bought it for 26 million for Dolgin (it had been the first building in their empire, as Old Man Dolgin let everyone know he had shoveled coal) was a decent sort who lost his shirt. He was a small time developer who got in over his head. I often wonder how it went for him, because obviously he got bankrupted.

  2. babs – the j windows are triple paned if i remember from touring.

    the thing about the bqe in this spot in WB is that it’s not crazy busy or loud. I just wouldn’t want the extra dirt even it it’s not horrible. facing hope or facing west would be lovely i’m sure. hope street is fairly charming especially where it intersects with havemeyer. very convenient with supermarket, restaurants, great bars, cafe’s, coffee shops, great new wine shop, brooklyn’s best bike shop, etc.. all within in walking distance of just a couple of blocks. easy location to walk to L, G, or JMZ.

    dumbo is a sh*t show IMO – no comparison. the noise, the smell, the dirt, the exhaust. 4 trains, 2 bridges and the dense part of the BQE where everybody slows down and is trapped. i seriously hate the whole head assault you get in the area. completely and utterly unpleasant.