Co-op of the Day: Turner Towers Whopper

Brownstoner:

Now here's an example of my old neighborhood, Crown Heights, at its best.

(Yes, before the moniker "Prospect Heights" -- a real-estate marketing ploy -- Eastern Parkway all the way to Grand Army Plaza was Crown Heights, at least during the 1950s, when I lived in the neighborhood as a boy.)

Turner Towers then, as it does know, loomed large in the area, and in people's consciousness. One example of its prominence: It had its own number in the telephone book. (Once when looking up a pal I came across it. Few other Brooklyn apartment houses listed, or even had, their own numbers, which to a little kid indicated the place's worthiness.)

Sadly the parkway back then, if elegant, was in decline and my mother, concerned about her kids' safety on the dark thoroughfare with building entrances set far back from the street, refused to move the family there. Besides, "No one lives on the parkway any more," one of our parents' friends said while driving us by in his big, black Lincoln on our way to the museum.

To this day my brother, now in his fifties, rues our parents' decision. "Think of it," he says, "The park, museum, and Botanical Gardens all there. Were they crazy?"

And this from a man with his own sprawling "Classic Six" on the East Side!

I once heard from family acquaintances in the building that there was a special pent house built up top during the 1939 World's Fair as a "model" apartment for the future. Never saw it. Was never able to confirm it.

But I'd like to think it's true. To this day the thought of it gives me a smile when I pass the building on the way to the museum.

What must an apartment for the future have looked like in 1939? And what better place to experiment than at the top of Turner Towers, with its 360-degree views of all of New York?

Nostalgic on Park Avenue

Posted by: NOP at January 26, 2009 1:31 PM

Brownstoners:

Eastern Parkway -- and Park Avenue, Fifth Avenue (along the park), Riverside Drive, West End Avenue, etc. were deliberately built without retail (except the occasional corner) originally by private agreement and then by zoning as "first class" residential thoroughfares.

For Eastern Parkway, especially, the separation of domestic and commercial life was important for people whose memory of living in Lower East Side and East New York tenements was fresh. In these "lower class" districts, Eastern European immigrants and their off-spring lived above shops. To become middle-class (and assimilated) meant living on a prestigious street without them (and in buildings called Martha Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson linking aspiring first- and second-generation Americans with their country's history). That makes it less convenient for people today, but no less interesting for Brooklynophiles like me.

And PHFamily, I'll split the difference with you.

Yes, there's Prospect Heights High School, a former women's vocational school that had a summer day camp for neighborhood kids that I attended once for a couple of weeks. And there's "Prospect Heights" in the history books. But in my decade of living in the area I never heard the name used by anybody living on the parkway, Grand Army Plaza, Vanderbilt Avenue or the sidestreets. It's popular use is a relatively recent phenomenon, paralleling the spread of brownstoners from Park Slope to establish a rival "brand" against the more expensive neighborhood on the other side of Flatbush Avenue. In my day, there were a few, big, fat Brooklyn neighborhoods (Flatbush, Crown Heights, Williamsburg, etc.) and none of this fine shading block-to-block -- so advantageous when selling brownstones and condos.

(Another historical tidbit: Any part of "Park Slope" below Fifth Avenue was dismissed as "South Brooklyn" during my grandparents' generation.)

As for this apartment's price: It's about half what one would pay for a one bedroom in a condominium neighboring my Manhattan co-op. And given the state of the market, I imagine quite negotiable. (Although I'd hold off for six months or more before even considering buying anything!)

NOP

Posted by: NOP at January 26, 2009 3:30 PM

Sparafucile:

Your note indicates that the demarcation line between Park Slope and South Brooklyn lasted 100 years or more!

I imagine the designation "Park Slope" will eventually extend to Bay Ridge and "Prospect Heights" to Albany Avenue, if left to the realtors and speculators.

NOP

Posted by: NOP at January 26, 2009 4:29 PM

Bob Marvin:
Neighborhood boundaries are in the eyes of the beholder! And they always shift, one side of a street to another.

Wine Lover:
1996 wasn't that long ago. $150K for a "bigger" place at Turner Towers means its prices have multiplied at roughly the rate they have in Manhattan -- even if this million-dollar pad drops in value. (Still, I wouldn't buy in this market, unless I planned to live in the property for a good long time.)

NOP

Posted by: NOP at January 26, 2009 9:00 PM

Christine Blackburn:

I guessed as much. Checking the apartment's columns and beams shows the walls don't quite align with the structural system.

That third bedroom actually makes the apartment more elegant, if the buyer is willing to give up some space in the reconfigured living room and bedroom.

But two bedrooms facing the museum and Gardens?

What could be nicer!

NOP

Posted by: NOP at January 28, 2009 1:24 PM