Co-op of the Day: 75 Livingston Street, #7B

Fighting the worldwide financial crisis of the past 18 months along with the registering requirements has resulted in me making almost no comments on this site. On the occasions I check BS’er, I see the same commentators rehashing the same points. But today, I see my building so I feel obliged to make some observations.

This is a B unit in the lower part of the wedding cake. It looks out towards Court so basically you’re right across from the Board of Ed office building. On 7, I don’t think you will be high enough to clear that building so your view is of an office building. Windows are large – about 7x5 so you get a lot of light despite not having a view. Apartment size is actually over 900 square feet if I remember the details correctly for the floor plans in this part of the building.

As to the maintenance, yeah its more than $1 a foot, but that’s the benchmark I was told to use when I bought my first apartment in 1990 so why shouldn’t this go up as every other expense has over the past 20 years? Covers the usual stuff of building mortgage, taxes, heat, maintenance, building staff, etc., the kind of stuff that many readers of BS’er don’t seem to pay.

The building went co-op in the 80s and the conversion was cheap and boring. But many of the apartments have been renovated, some in spectacular fashion over the 25 years and the fact that there are multiple layouts has created many wonderful apartments that makes the building so much more interesting than the basic cookie cutter new places.

As to the 25% down, it does limit who can purchase, but at the same time it protects the building from people stretching to buy a place, getting over their heads and having problems later. Not unusual for a co-op. Actually on the low end. Residents are young professionals, DINKs, families and retired people – basic boring community that everyone seems to hate about the Heights, but I enjoy it.

Posted by: intheshorts at July 9, 2009 2:09 PM

I will bore you dear readers with some irrelevant facts. Building was originally the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and completed in 1929. An inauspicious start. The building in one of the 2 reasons that local law 11 exists. Back in the 80’s when it was still an office building I believe, a chunk of the terra cotta came off and killed a pedestrian around the same time a similar event happened at a Columbia owned building in Morningside Heights (common Heights theme?). The conversion by the sponsor was done on the cheap and resulted in years of litigation between the residents and sponsor. The terra cotta that everyone admires is unbelievably expensive to maintain. That along with the crappy conversion job by the original sponsor has lead to higher maintenance costs along with sizable assessments (ouch). But the board has done a great job of getting the building into great financial and physical shape. As I pointed out before, the conversion was done on the cheap and the original fit and finish of the original apartments reflected that. Most of the apartments in the building have had some degree of renovations completed now. Its up to you as an owner to do what you can with your space. We gutted our place and what we found ran from terrazzo floors, brick arches, steel columns and terra cotta interior walls. We incorporated some of those elements into the renovation. I will end by echoing the point that if what some consider a uninspiring space in the Heights goes for 300 or so, step back from the falling knife that’s going to cut right through the rest of Brooklyn.

Posted by: intheshorts at July 9, 2009 3:59 PM