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May 29, 2009

What's Up With 10th Street's Grey Gardens House?

The front yard of the house at 220 10th Street, near the corner of 3rd Avenue, has long been festooned with all sorts of decorations. Lately, though, the stuff on the yard has fallen into serious disrepair. According to Property Shark, the house last traded hands in 1976. Anyhow, are there readers who live nearby who know the story behind the decorations or can speak to what it used to look like? GMAP P*Shark




Posted by Gabby at 11:00 AM | Comments (13)
Categories: Gowanus, Streets

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Comments

Maybe it's owned by the same woman who owns the bar on 7th Av & 2nd St - the one w/ scaffolding & weirdness.

Posted by: Arkady at May 29, 2009 11:20 AM

Isn't this What's house ?

Posted by: 10thStreetReno at May 29, 2009 1:05 PM

I lived right next to that house (218 10th) for 2 years. The man that lives (lived?) there is Joe Baldo. He would never leave his property and had his groceries delivered. He had a little yapping dog that would bark at me as I was entering my place - while he would just stare at me and ignore the dog. One of my roommates tried to talk to him once and Joe gave him a snickers bar. He also gave us a tin of cookies once. He would go out in the front and put various signs up and whatnot. I just walked by the other day and it appears very unkempt so my guess is that Joe is sick or has already passed.

Posted by: IronMaiden at May 29, 2009 1:08 PM

Oh and it pretty much always looked the same except every wasn't so old and weathered. Joe would regularly rotate signs, bottles, figurines, etc.

Posted by: IronMaiden at May 29, 2009 1:11 PM

That just left me feeling so sad, IronMaiden. I love that story. Feels like that sort of thing happens less and less. Reminds me of the orange house in Houston. Just covered with oranges. Eccentric and wonderful and crazy and sad.

Posted by: Nokilissa at May 29, 2009 1:50 PM

Orange Show, www.orangeshow.org. Also in Houston; the beer can house and The Flower Man's house. The last is most like this. I love this stuff, but prefer -- no offense Mr. Baldo -- that folk environments not just look like a pile of garbage.

Posted by: altervoce at May 29, 2009 4:13 PM

So I live at 222, my friend pointed me to this story. In fact, that's my scooter in the last picture. So the story is this: 5 or 6 months ago, I wake up and there's about 20 cops hanging around outside. I go outside out of curiosity and hear the story that his social worker had called the cops after not hearing from him for several days, turns out he had died of a heart attack right next to the front door, probably while he had been trying to go answer it. Really sad, made sadder by the fact that two or three weeks later we get a knock on our door by a detective asking whether we knew any of his next-of-kin, because nobody had claimed the body.

Some more trivia:

- He was a veteran of WWII and Korea, with some wicked tattoos

- He was agorophobic. he came out into his yard one day and asked me if I would get our other neighbor for help - part of his ceiling collapsed. He obviously had been standing there for a while but wouldn't leave his yard, this guy was just one door down

- He often came outside and poked his garden with a broken mop handle.

- He decorated a bush across the sidewalk (technically not his property) with inverted doggie treat bags and tinfoil

- my favorite sign, now I think stolen, said "I'm not old, I'm a recycled teenager"

I miss him.

Posted by: 222 at May 29, 2009 5:52 PM

I have tons and tons of hi res photos from when it was in good shape

Posted by: 222 at May 29, 2009 5:54 PM

Deuces, that was sweet.

Posted by: altervoce at May 30, 2009 11:00 AM

Poor guy. That breaks my heart.

Posted by: IronMaiden at May 30, 2009 12:35 PM

222: More trivia - This guy used to live in your building when I was on 10th:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1285162/

Posted by: IronMaiden at May 30, 2009 12:38 PM

Yes the gentleman there died recently - I heard that he was "slightly off"

Posted by: Crownlfc at May 30, 2009 10:46 PM

The decline of this art installation is a reflection of the hard times that we now live. It was the creation of a family of seven dwarfs that have met with much success in Europe. Their work has been seen in The Tate, Basel and The Pompedieu. Although some critics have seen the piece as a scathing indictment of a wasteful throw-away society others have seen it as a playful whimsical parody of the Brooklyn Brownstone Yard sale that was so popular in the late twentieth century. And then there is a school of thought that says that they are happy not to live next door.

Posted by: oldtimer at May 31, 2009 11:32 AM

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