Damn, that is a shame. Wish I had some inspiring words for you at this time. None other than, when you do complete it (which I trust you will), let it never be said that you lack for persistence and vision!

Woh, that's a nasty shock. I can't believe you went to all this trouble with LPC and they still rejected you when certain people can just burn buildings down, costing the city millions. How are you going to mollify the bank?

What a crying shame. You are to be admired for your patience and perserverance in light of all the obstacles placed in your way. May all your efforts prove fruitful in the long run. I will miss your commentaries.

wow this is crazy - time to call Guttman.

Very sorry to hear your bad news. The members of the LPC seem to really have their heads up their asses.

I suspect a big reason why you bought/acquired this property was because of the unsused FAR. Restoring the house with an added benefit of adding more space would have been wonderful. You tried.. it didnt work.. Now its time to move in a whole other direction. Time to pull a Ratner..

This is what you do. Open up the roof to do some work ;). Leave the building open to the elements for a couple months, letting the building rot. Get an engineer to say that the building is structurally damaged and tear the whole thing down.

Now it gets interesting. Instead of recreating the old building, you should build two brownstones side by side. You do have a 50ft lot. Two brownstone buildings might actually be more in character with the rest of your block and the neighborhood on the whole, than a freestanding building.

For all those that dont like it... They should have come out and support you at the hearing.

so sorry to hear your news... i was wondering what was happening w/your blog... i know lpc is a pain when it comes to additions, especially highly visible ones. it sucks b/c you are really reclaiming a beautiful building. hopefully you can move forward with the main structure and eventually work something out with lpc for the addition. personally, i look forward to reading of your progress no matter what happens - good luck and please keep us posted!

is there anything we could do to help?

Another house saved by Landmarks!

Saved from what, the demolition by neglect that the previous owner was letting happen? The only two things that save a building like this from falling over is a lot of money and some vision - two things that Landmarks will never provide.

The LPC will eventually approve some sort of renovation plan, and eventually I will get to remove the rotten pile of wood that is the current extension, and replace it with something more substantial. I have not yet begun to fight.

Good luck to you.

You had the chance to flip this house. Greed gets the best of people.

Have you read any of my postings about this house? I plan to fix up this house and to live here until I die (which I hope is in fifty or sixty years). In all honesty, I could never have flipped it because I paid more than it was worth as a fixer upper because I saw its potential as a home. Greed gets the best of those to whom money is their sole purpose. How about you do a little research before you make comments that make you look like an ass.

You have destroyed everything that was original on this house! You should be fined up the wazoo by the LPC! In fact you should not be allowed to keep this house. You have no idea what restoration means!

Find yourself a property from the 1950's and have a ball!

This house has been unoccupied for almost thirty years. During that time, what water hasn't been able to destroy, thieves have stolen. You can't restore what is no longer there to restore. Anything that is salvagable is being kept, and I'm not shedding any tears over what has to be removed to renovate this building.

You obviously have no idea what was original to this house if you think that anything that has been removed from it could or should have been restored. Saving wood that is so rotten you wouldn't burn it in a fireplace may be your definition of restoration, but I'm more interested in restoring the exterior to how it used to look than spending my time saving a few old planks that should have been cared for during the past three decades but weren't.

I think these people are just trying to goad you.. there can't actually be anybody here that agrees with the LPC in this case.

I'm an easy mark when it comes to being goaded into an argument about my home. It's an unfortunate side effect of spending a lot of time and money and having nothing to show for it a year later.

Being someone who is completely removed from the NYC culture I find this interesting. It’s interesting that there is an organization who is so hung up on semantics of what their view of ‘historical’ is that they will allow a piece of property to remain dilapidated rather than budge a bit and allow an extra 17’ extension placed on the rear of the structure.

Furthermore it’s sad to see people attack Shahn as a greedy individual or to support an organization that apparently has their heads far up their own asses.

What this "poor" individual homeowner does not want you to know is that he is also owner of a large apartment building around the corner, 293 Grand Avenue.

By the way, the elderly lady who owned this house occupied it until her death in the mid 90's, hardly a 30-year abandonment. The reason it was empty so long was due to litigation.

Hundreds of preservationists inspected this property when it went first came up for auction and it was deemed imminently restorable. Unfortunately, the speculator who won the original auction bid beyond what anyone thought reasonable, with the idea of tearing it down.

You may know what is a matter of public record, but obviously have not talked to anyone who has lived on the block for any amount of time. The 25-30 year estimate of when the Patterson family last lived in the building came from two 50 year residents of the block.

Who said anything about poor? You can't be any kind of financial "poor" to buy a building in Brooklyn these days. I happen to not be rich enough to renovate a building with the money from my pocket, and am using a renovation loan like most people who fix up a house this bad.

The last time I checked, this renoblog was about my house, and not about me personally. Regardless, I don't make my job a secret. I've stated in numerous posts on this site that I am a small scale developer and own a few properties, most with a group of investors. 293 Grand Avenue is owned by 293 Grand Avenue Partners, LLC, not me individually. What do you hope to gain from making such statements? No one here is dogging on you for rescuing animals, don't dog on me for having a job in real estate.

This building is quite restorable, and I am restoring it within landmark guidelines and using my personal judgement.

It's so easy to act bold and make unfounded statements when you post anonymously.

how dare you shahn buy a hunk of rotting wood and try to make a home out of it .you have some balls

how dare you own more than 1 property . what do you think this is? USA?

OH WAIT A MINUTE . i also bought a hunk of rotting wood 8 yrs ago and restored it .

OH AND . i also own a few properties in brooklyn.

and yes this is the good old USA.