The guy's construction methods leave rather a lot to be desired, particularly the wooden railings at the site, which went all over the place during the high winds the other day, and my sympathies to the property owners whose homes have been damaged.

But it's not as if there haven't been multiple huge buildings on both Carroll and Garfield, both at the 4th Ave end of the block (huge ugly post-Scarano monoliths) and a little way up the blocks (moderately ugly 5-story buildings). Fretting over the loss of a quiet brownstone block is probably too little, too late.

If the opponents win, do they imagine that the hapless Mr. Verma is simply going to soldier on with a lower rate of return or more likely leave a little abandoned mini-me half-completed shell to go with the Doctor Evil that is 255 Fourth Avenue (and on which work appears to have stopped). That said, if opposition of this type has ever got a building torn down, please correct me.

Posted by: Gringcorp at July 29, 2009 2:10 PM in response to 580 Carroll Decision Postponed

It's rather evident that the poor souls at Newsday haven't bothered to look at the models that underpin Forest City's plan for financing the arena, models that were produced in much more clement financial markets. These assume that Barclays is paying as much as it agreed to when the naming rights deal was first announced, before the repeated delays and the dumping of Frank Gehry (I'm sceptical). They also assume that debt service costs will be about 6% per year (they won't) and sponsorship and luxury box seats are robust (they haven't been). But get this. That terrible outdated model still calls for transfers of cash from the publicly-subsidized arena project company to help staunch the Nets' operating losses. A gold mine, kids, the Brooklyn Nets will not be. Without more subsidies, obvs.

Posted by: Gringcorp at June 16, 2009 4:30 PM in response to Nets Poised to Cash In on Brooklyn, the Brand?

The name up on the lot as contractor? Bayside Builders. Be afraid, children, be very afraid.

Posted by: Gringcorp at July 8, 2008 12:49 PM in response to The SEPTA Train is Leaving its 4th Avenue Station

If you lack the time or inclination to hunt down used boxes, the staples on 4th and 4rd sells them for an exorbitant price, or there's boxkits.com that delivers to your home

Posted by: Gringcorp at April 14, 2008 4:29 PM in response to Does anyone know where to buy moving boxes in BK

Good point, Linkinplace. What's interesting is how barebones the area's hotel offerings are. Even Le Bleu, which bills itself as at the higher end, lacks a token couple of exercise machines.

Posted by: Gringcorp at March 31, 2008 4:39 PM in response to Plan for 3rd Ave Hotel Brings Gowanus Total to 7

Well this is meta. Getting the Brownstoner commenters to opine on the merits of haterz.

Posted by: Gringcorp at November 9, 2007 10:24 AM in response to Extra, Extra: Negative Press Sinking Housing Market?

Damn right a Brooklyn real estate blog should be written in Limey. Especially as up to a third of NYC condo buyers are now of foreign provenance.

but you're right about the glut on fourth. A huge building at about Butler recently went up, you've got the condos behind McDonalds on 1st street getting closer to completion. Might explain why the towers on either side of Carroll are moving slowly (well, that and a stop-work order on one of them)

Posted by: Gringcorp at November 6, 2007 1:01 PM in response to Is 4th Avenue Losing Its Lustre?

Tapeo's stuff is good, but I have to say that the place is chronically understaffed and under-kitchened. The beer and wine selection is good, but the kitchen isn't up to heavy demand. We were in there the other night, and they were friendly, and the food was good, but it arrived at very peculiar intervals. I think Tapeo would like to be a wine bar that does a sideline in snacks, much like Total Wine Bar down the road, but the food menu's big, and the place is attracting a solid foodie crowd.

Posted by: Gringcorp at October 31, 2007 12:24 PM in response to Wednesday Food & Drink Round-Up

Yeah, I'm MUCH more terrified about what Markowitz does next. Oddly enough, I'm kind of praying that Bruce Ratner finds some nice fake job for him, complete with an important-looking office and a fancy-looking phone. It would prevent the democratic field looking to replace Bloomberg from looking any more like a clown car's cargo. De Blasio sounds like he has a reasonable mix of a sane head on his shoulders, a flair for publicity, and the right instincts. Kind of like a mini-Chuck Schumer. What's up with him putting his name all over the trash cans, though?

Posted by: Gringcorp at October 29, 2007 11:24 AM in response to De Blasio Announces Run For Borough Prez

There's not enough flippin space on that platform without stoopid adverts everywhere.

Posted by: Gringcorp at October 25, 2007 5:07 PM in response to Union Street Ads it Up

Mr. Joist, you might find it reasonable to extrapolate from the United State's huge current account deficit and extremely low savings rate that borrowers have been splurging their proceeds on useless crap, but as you suggest, the anecdotal evidence isn't up to snuff. You might find that the ultra-low income borrowers, the ones profiled here, haven't been splurgers, but the flippers of the Inland Empire, Vegas and Miami have. To suggest though, that the poor have been frittering away their inheritance on baubles strikes me as rather Dickensian. It can only be a short while before someone mentions debtor's prison or the work-house.

Posted by: Gringcorp at October 23, 2007 12:08 PM in response to Grim Perspective on Mortgage Crisis in Poor Nabes

So why do we accept so phlegmatically financial markets (commercial paper, leveraged buyouts) riddled with refinancing risk and then hurl abuse at home-buyers caught up in the same problem?

Posted by: Gringcorp at October 23, 2007 11:28 AM in response to Grim Perspective on Mortgage Crisis in Poor Nabes

How do you do a renovation like that, one that borrows from the Museum's fountains, and then not look ahead to making it safe? Why do they realise after it's open that they'll have to disfigure it with yellow chains? It's pretty and all that, and I'm sure the theater below is boss, but the plaza suffers from the safe needlessly flashy short-termism that bedevils every other public works project that gets inflicted on the Borough. It's like Marty Markowitz is actually drawing up the plans.

Posted by: Gringcorp at October 19, 2007 1:12 PM in response to BPL Plaza Post-Renovation

Belleville, Cocotte and Moutarde are all veeeery tired, much less friendly than their peers on Smith Street. I'm quite fond of A.O.C, especially the nervous and intense French guy that runs the place, though it's a little more formal. Canaille might make a go of it, and I think its biggest problem, as it was for the its predecessor Red Door, will be its tiny footprint. I'm not sure there's an upper limit to the number of a particular type of restaurant the Slope can sustain - just look at how many Italian places there are.

Posted by: Gringcorp at October 18, 2007 3:02 PM in response to StreetLevel: Another French Bistro for 5th Avenue

These 2BR floor-through condo conversions are usually tiny anyway. BP doesn't include a floorplan, so it's hard to tell, but I'm guessing it's tiny.

Posted by: Gringcorp at October 18, 2007 1:07 PM in response to Condo of the Day: 119 St. Marks Place

10:21, Scarano is off the Carroll between 4th and 5th site, and has been replaced by an outfit called KSQ of White Plains. That site has acquired even more girders, but is a lot more active than its been for a while

Posted by: Gringcorp at October 11, 2007 2:58 PM in response to Scarano: Licensed to Ill?

Crikey, didn't want to start a war over the status of Something Else's lease, and my apologies over using the word "booted". I did not want to suggest that there was any duress involved, because I have no idea of the circumstances of their exit. What is perfectly clear is that they were priced out of the area by, as I noted in the second sentence of my comment, the influx of "moneyed scumbags like me".

Or, to put it another way "my piecemeal purchases of second-hand Drive Like Jehu records in no way compensated for what the appearance of people like myself did to commercial rents in the area."

Posted by: Gringcorp at October 4, 2007 2:47 PM in response to The Argyle: Using 5th Avenue to Sell 4th

Damn I'm annoyed that Something Else records got booted for this. That place was pretty much the last indie shop in the neighborhood. But I guess such things are bound to happen when moneyed scumbags like me move in nearby.

Posted by: Gringcorp at October 4, 2007 1:06 PM in response to The Argyle: Using 5th Avenue to Sell 4th

Yeah, everything gone at the Garfield site. No idea yet what will go up there, though.

Posted by: Gringcorp at September 27, 2007 3:00 PM in response to Development Watch: No-Go on Norten/Singer Team-Up

Hmmm, I know we're meant to be nice to A.R.E.A bagels man because he changed his name to appease the stadium haterz, but that place is really slow, frequently out of a few types of bagels and their cream cheezes are in reeeeelly lurid colors. This one looks better. I guess they'll be some competition for Bageltique on fifth, which is solid but unspectacular.

Posted by: Gringcorp at September 5, 2007 3:18 PM in response to StreetLevel: More Dough For Fourth Avenue

I think it's for the kitchens of Pepperoncino, the Italian restaurant on the corner of 5th and St Marks

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 28, 2007 2:14 PM in response to On Sale Soon: 134-136 St. Marks Place

The FINANCIAL MELTDOWN guy is the new ATLANTIC YARDS EFFECT guy

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 28, 2007 12:58 PM in response to On Sale Soon: 134-136 St. Marks Place

I remember the folks in the 2BR duplex next door having a nightmare selling their place, although that was more because the unit was very thin than the Scararmageddon next door.

Probably the best nearby comparisons are the Vermeil, which has been awfully quiet of late, or 145 Park Place (ditto). The condo coversions of brownstone or limestone buildings in the area have gone like hot cakes (I should know, I missed a couple), but the apartment buildings don't seem to do it.

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 28, 2007 12:11 PM in response to On Sale Soon: 134-136 St. Marks Place

Oi Jim Cramer at 1.31, you forgot to mention "Bloodbath on Wall Street! Bonuses slashed! Shaya Boymelgreen commits seppuku!"

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 22, 2007 2:09 PM in response to House of the Day: 165 6th Avenue

11.44, the short answer is Fourth Ave condo owners, provided they materialize in the current market. As for Trader Joes, the two (TJ and WF) coexist quite merrily in Union Square, and the two Brooklyn outposts are much farther apart. WF's management is probably a little distracted by the Wild Oats merger - how hard they push for the Gowanus project to go forward probably depends on how well the LES branch (a new condo-driven play) is doing - word is it's a little, um, quiet.

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 22, 2007 11:56 AM in response to Rumblings at Gowanus Whole Foods Site

Yeah, 10.38, I' not sure I accept your paraphrasing. I was always looking at whether Mr. Lockwood's description of C19 offered any guide to what would happen now, and merely observed that one fundamental - the supply of new housing, or at least land - is not replicated here. I don't think New York is immune, though it offers very different conditions to, say, the Inland Empire. Some of the points you lay out very lucidly will cancel out some of the points laid out less lucidly by the renter massive, but to what extent we know not. The fact is, we still have mostly anecdotal evidence for what types of money have been fueling the NYC/Brooklyn real estate boom.

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 21, 2007 1:21 PM in response to The Lockwood Files: Not New York’s First Housing Bubble

So 2.35, we're comparing a market that can reach a demand supply equilibrium (1800s real estate), which suffered a crash every ten years, to one where supply is constrained, and which therefore may not be able to reach equilibrium. The key here is "may". The collapse in credit markets may lead to thousands of structured finance bankers being thrown into the gutters. Or they may move into commodities. Decreased availability of jumbo loans may affect the market for condos, or it may not (parents co-signing, alternative mortgage products). To stress, I'm not a housing bull, I'd just love to know whether the supply of new condos etc in recent years is roughly equivalent to the supply during the brownstone boom of the nineteenth century, and whether earlier crashes on Wall Street will accurately prefigure what might happen this time round. Two things that are different that I immediately notice - New York has a MUCH smaller manufacturing base (maybe a larger base of employment in newer industries like media), and back then there was not as much as an influx of wealth from older citizens, which has been a major force in propping up valuations, and might not be as vulnerable to a downturn. Still, I'm speculating wildly here.

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 20, 2007 3:59 PM in response to The Lockwood Files: Not New York’s First Housing Bubble

11.21, Mr Lockwood was looking at what the 19th century building boom in Brooklyn might teach us now. The comparison is thus to an era considerably earlier than 40 years ago. One can get a taste of the pace of the 19th century building boom from a cursory walk through the northwestern part of the Borough. I don't know whether the early and middle part of the last century continued in this vein, and whether improvements in mass transit and the development in the city's industry allowed locations further out to exhibit the same characteristics. I eagerly anticipate a further post from Mr. Lockwood on the subject.

But you're right, I will have to see how my purchase pans out. My horizons, fortunately, are a little different - I'm paying a decent chunk of cash, intend to hold until I sire an adequate brood and usher them through 321, and am buying now because I can't be arsed to deal with a landlord any more.

Your unwillingness to allow for the considerable distortions of the city's housing market is a little disappointing, though.

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 20, 2007 11:59 AM in response to The Lockwood Files: Not New York’s First Housing Bubble

Fascinating. But, and please don't take me for a housing perma-bull (I'm set to close on a place soon and I'm bricking it), doesn't the real estate market in NY now depend on the expense and difficulty of adding to the city's housing stock, a situation that did not exist during the city's sprawl into Brooklyn and uptown Manhattan?

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 20, 2007 10:38 AM in response to The Lockwood Files: Not New York’s First Housing Bubble

I'd be more worried about the RAGING FOXY BROWNS

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 16, 2007 10:40 AM in response to A Special Kind of Blackout Courtesy of Con Ed

I don't know about you my friend, but to me a dollar isn't what it used to be. Nowadays I don't get as much bang for my buck as I used to. And I'm not just talking about gas prices. I talk about everything - food, insurance, you name it.

I had a moving company a couple of years ago and wanted to hire one just now. But the offer I got now was almost twice as much. We're talking an 87% price increase. Boy, that really upset me.

I contacted other moving companies, but they all gave me similar prices. Some even wanted a lot more.

So I started digging a bit deeper. Of course my first reply was "Well sir, it's the gas prices." Okay, I can understand that gas prices have a big impact on moving companies. But still, almost double the price? Come on!

Finally one lady explained it to me on the phone. I wanted to move during high season. Just like hotels and airlines, moving companies also charge more during high season.

So when is high season for moving companies? Well again, it's just like with hotels and airlines: weekends and holidays. This is when everybody wants to move. So of course they can charge more.

I found that with some companies I can get substantial discounts when I move in the week.

Another thing that I didn't take into consideration are two other factors that determine the price for moving companies: distance and weight.

Basically the formula goes like this: the more miles, the more dollars. It's cheaper to move from Brooklyn to Florida than it is to move from Brooklyn to LA.

www.boxyourstuff.com

Posted by: Barkri12 at April 13, 2009 1:26 AM in response to Does anyone know where to buy moving boxes in BK