Co-op of the Day: 135 Eastern Parkway, #10C

I'd like to see measurements on the floorplan, because I am not buying the SF numbers.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 12:52 PM

No way is this worth it.
I'm not buying the square footage either . . .and it looks like a smallish living room.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 12:55 PM

it will get what the market bears. What a lot of readers and the editor forget is that the realtor works for the seller (and themselves), so its in their interest to price high. You can always negotiate down, its very rare that you can negotiate up

It is a beautiful apartment.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:01 PM

killer views of the city for now, soon to be of atlantic yards.

if apt was on the front of bld, then killer views of prospect park and the botanical gardens, which aren't going anywhere....

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:02 PM

When they renovated, they could have put in a new tub and a decent medicine cabinet. That bathroom is sub-par.

And that kitchen is Cheap. Sure it's new, but it's cheap.

I guess you're paying for the view, not the finishes.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:05 PM

Is it just me, or does the apartment come off as nothing special in the photos. The kitchen and bathroom are very nice, but the living room and dining room look pretty plain. I was definitely expecting a more spectacular-looking place when I clicked on the link.

That being said, I have no idea whether this price is high. I'm shocked that people pay this much for 2 floors of a brownstone coop these days. Maybe there is someone out there who likes this. I wouldn't pay this much for this apartment, however.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:06 PM

they took all the pre-war out of that pre-war. now it looks to me like corporate housing.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:06 PM

1:06 (#2), I'm 1:06 #1 and obviously had exactly the same thought at the same time. You just said it way more concisely.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:08 PM

Is there a wbf? It says so in the listing but I don't see one in the floorplan or living room pic.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:12 PM

1,7 for a Co-op. yep! No rant for this.

The What

Someday this war is gonna end...

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:18 PM

Yes, it seems plain. (But I'd move in and fix that up). And not 2800 sq. ft. What's with the floorplan not giving room sizes? - that's not helpful.

And, contrary to 1:01, it DOES hurt brokers to price too high. Buyers don't take the property seriously after awhile. That also hurts sellers who can't sell as a result. And the broker will spend far more hours selling a place that is priced too high (if they are able to sell it at all - usually, the seller go to a different brokerage when the contract runs out, so they've lost the ability to get their commission after all their work.) Presumably, brokers look not only at how much they make, but how many hours they spend making the $. Pricing too high is stupid, and this is too high by a few hundred thousand. So buyers won't even try to make an offer and negotiate.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:24 PM

I think it's pretty.

But for that price, I'd rather take a smaller place at Richard Meir's On Prospect Park a couple blocks away.

Heard they've been selling ok. Anybody know?

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:24 PM

There is SUCH an incredibly low level of inventory for pre-war in this area of Brooklyn, that prices are able to sustain numbers like this. I just found out yesterday my neighbor sold her studio fsbo on my block last week for 375K. Said she bought it last year for 299K.

Did anyone else happen to see that the two Park Slope Co-ops (both on Prospect Park West) both sold.

One asking price was 3.5 million, the other was 6.5 million.

Both have sold recently. And are practically "around the corner" from this place.

Not a bad discount for being on the other side of the park.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:27 PM

If those other two sold for anything near asking price, I'd be surprised.

But then, I figured those two super-high listings must be in buildings where you have to be really rich to get past the board (as in not just having enough money, but really rich) and that that must be the draw - living with a bunch of really rich people. It was never my impression that Turner Towers was such a building.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:41 PM

I live in the building (though not in this line). The square footage is overstated in the listing--it's more like 2200, which is still sizable. Though it's hard to tell from the floorplan all the rooms feel spacious, including the living room. As for apts going for over 1 million in the building, there was an apt in this same line but on a lower floor that went for 1.16 in 2005.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:44 PM

until they kill the insane flip tax, this building is always going to sell for less than market.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:46 PM

How does a broker get away with overstating the square footage by so much. Oh yeah, because he/she's a broker.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:48 PM

If a 2164sf apt in this building that recently sold has a maintenance of $1,569, wouldn't this place have a higher maintenance than $1,650 if it is actually 2800 sf?

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:49 PM

The amount of lying about square footage that happens is absurd. I went to an open house this weekend for a place that was billed as 1200sf, but it was 900, maybe 950 tops.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:51 PM

I think the broker had the wallaby in the Prospect Park Zoo hold one end of the measuring tape.

Biff Champion

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:54 PM

Did anyone else see the article in the NYTimes about the rising costs of maintenance on co-ops and Condos over the past few years?

Condos led the way with a 38% hike in maintenance over the last few years!

Co-ops 30%.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:55 PM

Maybe there is a price premium to stare out into the Prospect Park Zoo and see the new Red Panda?

I'd pay a couple hundred grand extra for that!

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 1:56 PM

I would pay even more than that to see the broker in a cage.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 2:03 PM

This is a special building and a premium in price may be appropriate. It has been discussed at length in other posts. One issue is that many apts have minimal views, not the case for this one. The building has a flip tax that may have depressed prices heretofore. Also I would be concerned about wiring and such. Still it is a marquee address in BK.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 2:03 PM

I've come around on the flip tax. This isn't the kind of apt building you buy into thinking of a flip in a couple years so if you're actually living in the building the flip tax benefits you greatly. Think about the maintenance vs. square footage--still less than $1 a sq ft. (see NYT article yesterday about high maintenance fees). This kind of old building, with its huge staff and general upkeep costs a lot to maintain, and the flip tax really helps cover costs of repairs, repointing, etc. The flip tax bites if you're selling but works to your advantage as a buyer.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 2:03 PM

Did anyone notice that The What actually referred to his postings as rants. See 1:18. This is the breakthrough of the century!!!

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 2:04 PM

I noticed that too 2:04. The only thing more satisfying would have been for him/her to acknowledge them as annoying rants.

Biff Champion

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 2:09 PM

Isn't this the co-op that has an insane flip tax? It's something like 25-50% of the profit on the sale has to go back to the board. We looked into buying a place there and that totally turned us off. Even if you plan on living there for awhile, no one wants to loose that much of the profit.
At our closing (on another building), all the lawyers were laughing about anyone willing to just give away that money.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 2:25 PM

Yawn.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 4:17 PM

What 4:17 said.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 4:21 PM

Yet another "This will Never Sell for X" tirade that will fade into irrelevance when this thing goes in 6 weeks...

So Predictable.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 4:48 PM

Thank you, 4:48.

So true.

We could have an entire website dedicated to proving what imbiciles most of the posters here are.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 5:01 PM

Imbeciles who can spell, 5:01.

Cue Nelson Muntz laugh: "Ha ha!"

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 5:13 PM

oops....my bad.

i guess i'm the imbecile now.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 5:55 PM

Polemicist - 49 Eastern Pkwy was completed in 1925, and 61 Eastern Pkwy in 1930. Your rather over-simplified analysis indicates that they too should be taller.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 6:39 PM

Brownstoner:

The quibbles with the 135 Eastern Parkway posting (dimensions, out fittings, flip tax, etc.) can’t obscure the fact that this building, and others like it nearby, were considered the last word in 1950’s Crown Heights, when I lived in the neighborhood as a boy. (Yes, before the real estate boom rechristened this part of Brooklyn “Prospect Heights,” Crown Heights extended on Eastern Parkway all the way to Grand Army Plaza.)

Friends of my parents actually lived in this line at Turner Towers, which is what 135 is called. Not high up, but down below, facing the back wall of apartments on Lincoln Place (that’s what it’s called, isn’t it?). The view and light were nothing special, but the place felt BIG. For a kid living in a much smaller apartment, the number of rooms, the cedar closets, the maid’s room, and extra bathrooms gave the apartment a mansion-like air. And the elevators, carpeted hallways, and doormen gave it all a swank touch.

Eastern Parkway, together with St. Marks Avenue, was Crown Heights’ best apartment-house address. You could live in elegant old row houses elsewhere, but if you wanted what one of the posters above calls a “marquee” address, it had to be on either the avenue or the parkway.

Alfred Kazin, the great New York literary critic, in a memoir about the city, wrote that Eastern Parkway was where the “alrightniks” lived, in other words middle-class, assimilated Jewish Brooklynites, very different from the people he grew up with in Brownsville and East New York. Come to think of it, although I didn’t realize it at the time, all my pals along the parkway were Jewish, their fathers taking the IRT to the garment district, where they owned or managed factories.

Dead give-away of the parkway’s assimilating function were the names of its buildings: Nathan Hale, Martha Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Copley Plaza, among them, each offering WASPy associations and a patina of American culture and history to first- and second generation “alrightniks.” (One kid’s big brother always wore his Princeton sweatshirt in and out of the Woodrow Wilson. Wilson, I’d learn later, was a president at Princeton. What must it have meant for his family to be doubly-associated with America’s “aristocracy”?)

My favorites were the Copley Plaza and the Traymore, both corner buildings with restrained neo-Classical detailing. I didn’t know anybody in this pair, but from the street, they were handsome, restrained, and nicely proportioned, just what an apartment house should be. (I live in a building like them now, and for those reasons, I’ll never leave.)

One day, my father took me for a walk on the parkway to get to the Brooklyn Museum. “Why don’t we live here?” I asked him. “It takes at least 15,000 dollars a year,” he said. For a kid whose weekly allowance was in the pennies, this seemed a fabulous sum. But not entirely out of the family’s reach, apparently. As another baby came, my mother made the rounds of Eastern Parkway in search of a bigger apartment. None would do, however. Even in the 50’s, there was a kind of lonely, forbidding air to it. With buildings set far back from the street, and courtyard entrances like the one at Turner Towers, she was worried about the kids’ safety (at a time when New York had between 500 and 600 murders a year, a statistic that makes us so proud today!).

On a drive on the parkway a couple of weeks ago, it looked terrific. I’ve come to learn that a lot of the buildings below Franklin Street are legally walk-up tenements. But they sit on parkway beautifully, and as they’re restored, have real dignity. My only complaints are that the city now allows parking pads in front of a few commercial and institutional buildings (the old Kameo Theater at Nostrand Avenue, converted to a church, among them), and – blight of all blights! – there’s an enormous car wash next to the set of limestone-fronted row houses where one of my family’s doctors practiced and lived.

Frederick Law Olmsted must be spinning in his grave.

Nostalgic on Park Avenue

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 6:52 PM

"It is unfortunate that in the modern era, we just don't build new housing."

Yep, it's a damn shame there just hasn't been a lick of new housing built in the past few years.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 9:11 PM

Polemicist - This was not built as middle class housing. The larger apts have maid's rooms and all apts have a servant's entrance.
"It is unfortunate that in the modern era, we just don't build new housing. All that happens is the wealthy buy more and more of what was constructed generations ago, and those at the top have no recourse but to move further and further away." Why do you think there is no inventory in brownstones, but cheaply constructed condos are slashing prices - because of the greed of the developers who do not look to give good value or design and whose taste in the toilet. Just look at the some of the monstrosities that have graced this website and please don't complain about people having enough sense not to throw their money away on trash.

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 9:40 PM

Thank you for that post, Nostalgic....

I live in 201 Eastern Parkway, but having grown up in Philly, have often wondered what EP was like back in the day. Your post brought it to life for me.....

Posted by: guest at February 25, 2008 10:07 PM

Thanks, 10:07.

201 Eastern Parkway is the Adelphi, am I right?

This was one of my favorites, a Tudor-style pile with lots of wings and a garden front entered through a brick archway, correct?

You'll enjoy this story.

As my brother and I took the drive I mentioned above, I recalled our mother looking at apartments on the parkway, including one at the Adelphi, but for the reasons I mentioned, deciding against them.

He actually sighed!

"Think of it," he said, "right across the street from the Brooklyn Museum, the Botanical Garden, and Prospect Park! That would have been great! Was she crazy?"

"She was worried about all the traffic," I said, "and thought the parkway was too lonely at night."

"So what?!"

The man was upset! Here he is in his fifties, having traveled all over the world, with an apartment on Manhattan's East Side and a house in the country, and still, he would have loved to live on Eastern Parkway!

You're lucky, 10:07!

NOP

Posted by: guest at February 26, 2008 12:28 AM

Who pays money for pshark?

Posted by: guest at February 26, 2008 11:11 AM

There's a big difference between 1.16 million (what another apartment in the line reportedly went for in 2005 - as posted above) and 1.7 million this is asking. A reno is worth a lot, but not that much.

Posted by: guest at February 27, 2008 6:13 PM

this price is a joke, for this building and location. look around at what else you can get for that money. clearly someone greedy, or a broker trying to pump the market. for this price you could get something great in prime park slope or BH.

Posted by: guest at February 27, 2008 7:19 PM

Surprise, folks. They got their $1.7 million after the first & only open house. I think it may have been a buyer from Manhattan (Stribling's base) for whom that price still seemed like a bargain.

Posted by: guest at March 7, 2008 5:05 PM