Forum Archive: Posts by: midnightrider567

Hello,

We live near the worst house on the block… 432 Clermont Ave in Ft. Greene.

The house is so special that it The New York Landmarks Conservancy Endangered Buildings Initiative.

http://www.nylandmarks.org/programs_services/endangered_buildings_initiative/432_clermont_ave/

From what we hear on the block, it’s been sitting in its current state for 15-20 years. The woman who owns it inherited it and refuses to do anything with it. We actually tried to buy it when we were looking at our place. She claims she’s going to renovate it and even has a plan on file with the city, but that was a few years ago and nothing’s happened. The building has violations going back to 2002. It seems that several years ago, the city boarded up the basement and parlor floors. The 3rd and 4th floors do not have a pane of glass in the windows, front or back. There’s holes in the skylight. You can see from the back that the plaster has fallen long ago and the lathe that the plaster was mudded to is falling in as well.

We’ve called the DOB via 311 to complain and they’ve done nothing. We also always leave our information as a contact and ask that they contact us to gain access for a view of the rear. You can see on the back of the house that there is mortar missing from the brick joints and that some of the bricks are swelling. Our complaints are always about the rear of the house, believe it or not, the rear is in worse shape than the front. One of two things happen with our complaints. One, an inspector comes out, notes in the file that the building is sealed and they were unable to gain access. Or two, that they came and inspected the building from the front and there is no problem.

Yes the building is Landmarked. Landmark has done nothing about the building either. Somehow I don’t think a sheet of plywood for a front door is period correct. There are no open violations for the address with Landmark. We checked. We also asked Landmark why they’ve taken no action and got silence as a reply.

Is there anything we can do to get somebody to do something? I’d hate to see nothing happen and the same thing happen to 432 Clermont as happened to a similar house down the block, 348 Clermont, which was well chronicled on this site.

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2010/03/goodnight_348_c.php

It seems 348 Clermont was in similar shape, nobody did anything about it, the owner refused to sell and the city didn’t step in until the roof fell in and the mess needed to be cleaned up.

So I come to you Brownstoner forum, is there anything that can be done to avoid a similar tragedy?