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Open House Picks
Fort Greene
294 Cumberland Street
Brown Harris Stevens
Sunday, 1:00-2:30
$2,600,000
GMAP P*Shark
Carroll Gardens
162 Union Street
Brooklyn Bridge Realty
Sunday, 12:00-2:00
$2,495,000
GMAP P*Shark
Park Slope
572 Pacific Street
Halstead
Sunday, 12:30-1:30
$2,150,000
GMAP P*Shark
South Slope
144 16th Street
Corcoran
Sunday, 2:00-3:30
$1,450,000
GMAP P*Shark
02/10/2012 1:06 PM
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Open House Picks: Six Months Later
Comment: Mixed bag.
Open House Picks 8/12/11 [Brownstoner]
02/10/2012 12:40 PM
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Brooklyn’s Last Humpback Street Sign
We missed this when it went up last week but it’s too good not to post. Forgotten NY, that tenacious chronicle of old time Gotham, ran this photo of the “the last of Brooklyn’s ‘humpback’ street signs.” You can see that the smaller street that Willoughby intersected with once upon a time was Hudson Avenue. A commenter points out that this section of Hudson was removed to make way for Long Island University campus, though a one-block stretch of the street still exists between Dekalb and Fulton.
02/10/2012 12:00 PM
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Grand Avenue Getting Another Bump
Good news for those who live on or around Grand Avenue: At the urging of Council Member Letitia James, a second speed has been approved for the block of Grand between Gates and Putnam avenues in Clinton Hill. The bump was approved late last month but will likely not be installed for six months or so because of an existing backlog at DOT. Hopefully there will be a little hump in this bump, as the current one does little to dissuade aggressive drivers from speeding down the street.
02/10/2012 10:00 AM
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Fort Greene Park Renovation Plan Revealed
On the heels of the exciting news that $2.55 million had been officially approved for the renovation of Fort Greene Park, we’ve got a copy of the site plan for the project along with some more details. The renovation is focused on the Willoughby entrance to the park. As the plan shows, the stairs will be rebuilt and a new ADA ramp will be installed, making stroller and disabled access easier. A variety of water control features – engineered (bioswales, cisterns and other) and organic (understory plantings)- will be installed in the circle adjacent to the Willoughby entrance within the park; this will mitigate the flow of water from the height of the park around the monument to the sidewalk outside and eliminate the pooling there. A curb bumpout will be built to improve pedestrian safety and the aesthetics of the entrance by giving pedestrians crossing from the park to Willoughby improved visibility and by eliminating parking directly in front of the entrance. The pavers along Washington Park will be leveled and reset. There will also be 9 new benches around the circle, which will add more seating capacity and help to harmonize the furniture in the park.
All good! Congrats to the Fort Greene Park Conservancy for their relentless (and effective!) advocacy. There’s a community listening session scheduled for February 29th from 6 to 8 pm at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, 85 South Oxford Street. To get a bigger look at the plan, click here.
Fort Greene Park Renovation a Go! [Brownstoner]
02/10/2012 9:30 AM
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More Delays at Atlantic Yards
The Atlantic Yards Report writes this morning of two delays relating to the Barclays Center built-out. The biggest news to those who have to try to navigate the giant construction project is that the Carlton Avenue bridge reopening has been delayed by a month, and in order to meet the new completion date of September 2012 work crews will be at it until 3 am. “The artery’s absence could plunge area traffic into chaos, especially given the inevitable shakeout period in which arena-goers and area drivers learn to regulate down their vehicle use before events,” notes AYR. As the blog notes, The $40 million bridge project is an Arena Opening Condition under an agreement Forest City signed with Empire State Development. Delay #2: For the second time in five weeks, says AYR, the “substantial completion date” for the arena itself has been pushed back a week to September 5. (The final completion date is slated for June 30, 2013.)
02/10/2012 9:00 AM
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Friday Links
Mortgage Plan Gives Billions to Homeowners, but With Exceptions [NY Times]
City Board Votes to Close 18 Schools and Truncate 5 [NY Times]
In Brooklyn, Senate Race Veers Onto Bitter Ground [NY Times]
Settlement Lifts Hopes For Housing Recovery [WSJ]
Real-Estate Crash Aids the Green Movement [WSJ]
Brooklyn Man Pleads Guilty Over ‘South Park’ Threat [NY Post]
Baby girl Found Abandoned in Brooklyn Building [NY Daily News]
Sludge May Be Used in Gowanus Parks [Brooklyn Paper]
Beep Floats 69th St. Ferry Idea During Address [Brooklyn Eagle]
Robust Demand Drives Up Brooklyn Real Estate Prices [NY1]
Oprah Visits Hasidic Brooklyn [Huffington Post]
Photo by naftels
02/10/2012 8:30 AM
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Closing Bell: Sh!t Park Slope Parents Say
Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end. — Sid Caesar
02/09/2012 4:00 PM
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Forum Poster Wants Great But Cheap Neighborhood
On the Forum: Where can I get a yard big enough for a garden, safe nabe and decent public transport? http://t.co/ehIkIstb
@Brownstoner
Brownstoner
02/09/2012 3:02 PM
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Inside the New One Girl Cookies in Dumbo
Given that our office is next door, there’s no excuse for having taken a week since the opening to post some photos of the new One Girl Cookies cafe at 33 Main Street in Dumbo. The new 1,400-square-foot space is the second retail location for the popular bakers–the first shop debuted in 2006 at 68 Dean Street in Cobble Hill. (The company has been baking wholesale since 2000.) The new spot, which includes a large Brooklyn mural by the illustrator Aaron Meshon, has a large central serving and display area ringed by lots of counter seating. It’s light, airy and overall very pleasant. Interior shots on the jump… GMAP
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02/09/2012 2:52 PM
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House of the Day: 476 1/2 State Street
When there’s a fraction in house’s address, chances are it’s gonna be a narrow house. That is indeed the case with 476 1/2 State Street, though in this case it’s nothing too drastic: The four-story brick townhouse is just under 17 feet wide, a perfectly manageable width. The house has some very nice original details throughout. The kitchen’s the only thing that leaves us a little limp. Although the house has only 2,300 square feet, $1,695,000 is not a lot of money for a house in this neck of the woods these days. We bet they’ll end up getting pretty close.
476 1/2 State Street [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark
02/09/2012 1:28 PM
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Co-op of the Day: 298 Garfield Place, #4
Last summer we featured the parlor apartment at 298 Garfield Place in Park Slope which had been listed for $999,000 and ultimately sold for $950,000. Now another floor-through pad in the brownstone co-op has come on the market. This unit, on the fourth floor, doesn’t have quite the same wow factor purely because of the fact that it’s not the parlor floor. (It’s also a little smaller.) That said, it still has lots of prewar charm; in addition, it gets more light than the lower floors. To cap it off, there’s a 350-square-foot terrace off the living room. Very nice. Asking price is $945,000, definitely at the upper end of the spectrum for a set-up like this, but also definitely one of the nicer ones around.
298 Garfield Place, #4 [Warren Lewis] GMAP P*Shark
02/09/2012 12:57 PM
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New Traffic Light Comes to Hall and Park
For Clinton Hill residents on their way home from Williamsburg or the BQE, Hall Street has always been a short cut in no small part because there was no light, only a stop sign, to get across Park Avenue. Well, those days are over. As of the end of January, there’s a new stoplight at the crossing. Evidently there were a number of accidents that happened with people pulling out across oncoming traffic on Park Avenue.
02/09/2012 12:00 PM
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Almost Fully Rented, 111 Kent Up For Sale
Since breaking ground in 2007, 111 Kent Avenue has had a tough road. The construction dragged on for years with the building finally changing hands in 2010 for $43 million (after the original developers defaulted on a loan) and getting a reboot as a rental last year. By October, the 62-unit development was 50-percent-rented. Yesterday, Crain’s reported that, with all but two of the apartments spoken for, owner Stellar Management was putting the property back on the market. “It was always part of our business plan to buy the asset, finish it and to market it,” said Matthew Lembo, vice president at Stellar Management. Studley will do the honors on the brokerage side.
Buyer Finishes, Flips Billyburg Building in a Year [Crain's]
111 Kent Avenue More Than 50% Rented [Brownstoner]
111 Kent Avenue Takes the Plunge as a Rental [Brownstoner]
111 Kent Avenue Preparing for Take-Off [Brownstoner]
111 Kent Development Changes Hands [Brownstoner]
Development Watch: 111 Kent Avenue (March ’09) [Brownstoner]
Development Watch: 111 Kent Avenue (June ’08) [Brownstoner] GMAP
Development Watch: 111 Kent Avenue (March ’08) [Brownstoner] P*Shark
Development Watch: 111 Kent Avenue (July ’07) [Brownstoner] DOB
02/09/2012 10:14 AM
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An Unguided Architectural Tour of Buffalo, NY
Last month, we had occasion to take a day trip to Buffalo. Despite having spent our entire lives in New York City we’d never been to the next most-populous city in the state. The purpose of the trip isn’t important (okay, we were picking up a Siberian cat for the Brownstoner household–Mrs. B is allergic to regular cats) but we found ourselves with a couple of hours to kill in between flights and decided to take a somewhat haphazard walking tour of the formerly great commercial center. With the decline of heavy industry in the area and shipping traffic, the city began a slow but steady decline that resulted in abandoned buildings, widespread unemployment and overall economic malaise. From what we saw, there are encouraging signs of rejuvenation and gentrification (no one’s complaining up there) happening north of the Downtown area. And they’ve certainly got the raw material to work with: The architecture–from the office buildings of Downtown, to family houses to Allentown to the mansions of Millionaire’s Row–was stunning. Herewith follows a random smattering of buildings that grabbed our attention for one reason or another. Apologies for the less-than-stellar photos. All we had with us was an iPhone and it was still pretty early in the morning on a winter day.
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02/09/2012 10:01 AM
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MNS: New Development Prices Up in 2011
The Local has nicely uploaded the MNS 4th Quarter 2011 New Development Market Report market report to Scribd. Here’s the summary:
In Brooklyn, 2011 has fared better than 2010, with a peak median sales price in the third quarter of $575K, and a strong finish in the fourth quarter with a high median sales price per foot of $622/SF. Year-over-Year Brooklyn New Development Condominium sales price per foot numbers are up 8% ($622/SF this quarter versus $574/SF in 4Q10), and median sales prices are up 15% ($542K this quarter versus $471K in 4Q10).
The report also notes that sales inventory dropped 36% and sales dollar volume was down 35% from the 3rd to 4th quarter. Brooklyn Heights had the highest average price per square foot of $944 in the fourth quarter (driven largely by big sales at One Brooklyn Bridge Park), with The Edge taking that prize among individual developments with a whopping average of $1,142. Prospect Heights saw a big fall in prices, but that was largely due to a temporary pause in marketing at On Prospect Park due to a broker change-over.
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02/09/2012 9:00 AM
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Thursday Links
Push to Avert Foreclosures Hits Court Logjam [NY Times]
Community Board OKs New Bike Lane ‘Study’ [NY Times]
Fort Greene and Clinton Hill to City: Slow Us Down! [NY Times]
Teacher’s Aide’s Case in Crown Heights Stuns Parents [WSJ]
81-Year-Old Hit by Bullet in East New York [NY Post]
Forest City: Sky’s the Limit on Pre-Fab Towers [NY Post]
Lawsuit to Block Success Charter School Move [South Brooklyn Post]
Pain Quotidien Coming Along on Montague Street [McBrooklyn]
Black History Month at the Macon Library [Bed Stuy Patch]
Brooklyn School Opened By Mayor Cited For Failure [NY1]
Bruce Bender Bailing on Forest City [DDDB]
Photo by Albert Blackman Jr.
02/09/2012 8:32 AM
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Closing Bell: Bike Sharing Brain Storming
With the New York City Bike Share program set to launch this summer, now’s the time to decide wear the 600 stations (with 10,000 bikes) will be located around Manhattan and Brooklyn Most of the planning sessions seem to be aimed at Manhattan riders, but Brooklynites will their chance to participate in the process later this month. Community Board 2 will host a workshop on February 23 from 6 to 8 pm at 180 Remsen Street.
Photo by NYC DOT
02/08/2012 4:00 PM
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Displaced by Shake Shack, Antonio’s Rises from the Ashes
Everyone seemed pretty excited back in late 2010 when it was announced that Shake Shack was coming to the Fulton Mall. Everyone, that is, except for Tony Casaccio, the proprietor of Tony’s Famous Pizzeria, which spent more than 20 years in the retail space at Fulton and Adams Streets. “This location was like dating Pam Anderson. How can you replace Pam Anderson?” Casaccio said to The Brooklyn Paper at the time. Well, he’s managed to rebound, landing on the other side of Borough Hall in the space at 32 Court Street formerly occupied by Korean-style yogurt chain Yofiore. His new spot, which, at 650 square feet, is considerably smaller and also offers salads, juices and cappucinos in addition to ‘za, opened today. A tipster snapped this photo moments ago. GMAP
02/08/2012 2:40 PM
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Will the Windsor Place Cafe Ever Open?
It’s been almost a year since the Windsor Terrace blog spotted signs of life in a long-vacant space in Windsor Terrace. When we passed by 199 Windsor Place on Sunday it didn’t look like the storefront was much further along, save for some plywood over one section. In fact, it looks a bit like the space has been split in two. Can area residents shed any light on the situation? Do tell. Speaking of the Windsor Terrace retail scene, did you notice that the former Lonelyville space (which closed in 2008) at 154 Prospect Park Southwest is for rent for $4,000 a month? GMAP
02/08/2012 2:00 PM
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southelliottseer
Feb 09, 2012 | 11:02 AM