Development Threatens Historical Character of Bushwick's Irving Square Area
The WyckoffHeights.org blog spotted an alarming development in the southeast corner of Bushwick, a mostly Caribbean enclave of perfectly intact circa-1900 bow-fronted two-family buildings. After falling into foreclosure, a house at 396 Cornelia Street, between Wyckoff and Irving, changed hands in June for $450,000 and then again in September for $725,000. The new owner, an LLC,…
The WyckoffHeights.org blog spotted an alarming development in the southeast corner of Bushwick, a mostly Caribbean enclave of perfectly intact circa-1900 bow-fronted two-family buildings. After falling into foreclosure, a house at 396 Cornelia Street, between Wyckoff and Irving, changed hands in June for $450,000 and then again in September for $725,000.
The new owner, an LLC, has filed an application with the building department to add two floors and a mezzanine, double the square footage, and turn the two-family into a six-family building.
We never thought this area would need landmarking, but this looks to us like the start of a trend that could destroy the historic streetscape and transform the neighborhood from affordable owner occupant owned housing for families to investor owned buildings with sky high rents for young 20 somethings priced out of the trendy part of Bushwick far, far away in the northern reaches of the neighborhood.
The mostly gray and yellow brick and stone buildings cluster around Irving Square park, south of Myrtle Avenue and north of the graveyards, and west of the huge Superfund site just over the Queens border in Ridgewood. Inside the circa-1900 and teens buildings are flats with modest floor plans and the usual period decoration, such as double parlors with pier mirrors. Similar homes can be found in east Crown Heights, Ridgewood and Sunset Park. In fact, whole streets of houses like these are landmarked in Ridgewood, and similar patterns of development are altering them in Sunset Park.
Still, for an area to be landmarked, the homeowners in the area have to push for it. We don’t think that’s likely here.
Many of the owners in the area are nearing retirement age. We hope they will at least get a decent price if and when they sell.
Vertical Enlargement for 396 Cornelia [WyckoffHeights.org]
Image by WyckoffHeights.org
There are unfortunately many perfectly good houses being marketed as “development sites” and being snapped up by what I call “Wall Street developers” that do not give a damn about what they are building or what it does to the community around it, they just know that they can sell the numbers to a Banker that will give them the financing, so they have already made their money no matter what ugly mess they create.
Another example of a wrongly marketed house is 831 Lincoln Pl between Nostrand & New York Ave, a lovely Crown Heights block is being marketed by Massey Knackle as a development site. It is in fact a beautiful 20″ wide 3 sty house on 127′ deep lot, that needs some updating but worth the 1.6 asking price anyway, if only it showed up on residential search engines.
Yes, at the same time, brokers do need to be aware that a house can be sold as the house that it currently is and then flipped to a developer anyway, so any house does need to be priced high enough to discourage the turn over to a developer at the expense of the original seller. But many times as in 831 Lincoln Pl the best use is to someone restoring the house as-is. Many of these “Wall St developers” end up just building huge white elephants in the middle of otherwise great blocks.
There are literally thousands of sites these guys could build something ground up or add on to that wouldnt kill a block’s look. Go build on top of a shitty block bc there are plenty in bushwick to do so. Its owed to the people who have preserved it. I agree with MM.
I have a certain respect for a neighborhoods character, but we can’t landmark everything. Why should this area be landmarked?
I agree, the case seems to be made based on sentimentality toward decor. Landmarking is a useful tool, but on what merit does this area need landmarking? If zoning needs changed that’s one thing, but landmarking is a blunt instrument if preserving current density and character is the goal.
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Oh, but that midblock addition looks mad dumb.
Thank you.