There are thousands of other similar houses. This is no loss, and now that land will house 20 families instead of 3.

Historical preservation laws exist to enhance a community, not preserve every last old building in the city. Look how much of Manhattan has been redeveloped over the past century, and it still retains much of its character. This is not a big loss, and all this bickering does is convince the masses preservationists have no interest improving their communities for everyone and instead are interested in merely excluding everyone who can't afford a huge victorian mansion.

Posted by: Polemicist at October 2, 2007 11:15 AM in response to Bait-and-Switch in Bay Ridge by Basile Builders

Carol Gardens: You're viewpoints clearly indicate you are indeed selfish and uncaring. It is not for you to judge what is aesthetically pleasing in this city. We have a representative system of government and we live in a nation that maintains at least the facade of property rights. The people decide what is aesthetically appropriate via voting and with their wallet.

Your desires for an authoritarian regime to implement your personal desires belies the fact no such regime has ever succeeded. You want to live someplace where the state dictates how and when housing is constructed? Move to Cuba.

The beautiful architecture of this city was created by the very forces you decry. You are the worst kind of hypocrite. Not only do you have no solid argument to support your views, your emotional feelings cloud the reality people are really suffering because of people like you. You have no right to condemn those less fortunate than yourself to a life of poverty.

In the end, you will die having contributed nothing to the aesthetic beauty of this city - you are a parasite of the past and a consumer of fashion, not an aesthete or an artist. Would you ever be able to create anything of beauty such as has come before us? No. You have no vision, and no understanding how civilized society works.

Posted by: Polemicist at October 2, 2007 3:27 PM in response to Bait-and-Switch in Bay Ridge by Basile Builders

No development sites sell for $78 a square foot in Brooklyn. Something is unusual about this transaction.

Posted by: Polemicist at October 2, 2007 4:15 PM in response to Chetrit Stitches Up Hospital Buy for $15 Million

As long as banks cannot qualify or quantify the value of aesthetic beauty, bland design will continue to permeate our society. As Ezra Pound taught us, this is the reason usury and the rich artistic tradition of the world's civilizations are vastly at odds.

Do you want beauty to return to the world? Ban the banks, advocate a currency fixed to the value of a commodity index, and eliminate all forms of usury.

Posted by: Polemicist at October 3, 2007 1:22 PM in response to Architecture: The Kindness to be a Little Boring?

What a joke. How is it possible reducing the availability of housing is going to lead to more affordable housing?

We need to take these conservative fools to the supreme court - Zoning laws do NOT exist to keep the less fortunate members of society from having a home. Contextual zoning is nothing more than a scam to ensure that whatever density the market supported 50 years ago remains as it is for all time. That is unfair, and violates the equal protection clause of the constitution. All laws are supposed to protect the people EQUALLY - not the lucky few who happened to buy a home when there was reduced demand.

Posted by: Polemicist at October 8, 2007 11:33 AM in response to Greenpoint, Burg Zoning Study Complete

4:44 - The only people leaving their "family home" are those who choose to sell. Gentrification does not displace people by default in New York City. You can thank rent control and rent stabilization for that.

Posted by: Polemicist at October 8, 2007 6:15 PM in response to Streetlevel: Still No Takers for Gage & Tollner Space

2:29 AM: That definition is for the country as a whole, not New York City. In places like Chicago, tenants who cannot afford to pay market rent increases upon lease expiration are forced to move elsewhere. The vast majority of rental apartments in New York City are subject to some kind of rent regulation that guarantees the right of renewal with a fixed, low renewal increase.

You have renters and owners - if most renters are protected from increases in rents as well as arbitrary eviction, how are people displaced? Surely, owners are not displaced.

So, why don't you tell us - who exactly is displaced? Who has been forced to flee their neighborhood by this evil of gentrification?

We're all waiting for an answer.

Posted by: Polemicist at October 9, 2007 9:04 AM in response to Streetlevel: Still No Takers for Gage & Tollner Space

3:25

No bank is going to lend at a cap rate less than 6.5% for a building like this. But lets say for the sake of argument they go as low as 6%.

$8K per month = $96,000 a year.

Let's say the owner gets the tenants to pick up most of the operating expenses. There is still real estate takes which at minimum will be 18% of EGI

Let's just say the noi is 80% of the gross income.

That comes out to $1,280,000. That $1.3MM price seems like quite a stretch to me, and in the current lending environment, I really doubt it's doable. In fact, I'd say a bank would be pretty foolish to lend on those numbers - but then again, banks ARE foolish.

Posted by: Polemicist at October 9, 2007 4:06 PM in response to HOTD: Price Cut at 408 Stuyvesant Avenue (Again)

There is no sense in arguing here - rich New Yorkers don't believe this is a city. Believing 8th Avenue is busy is no more crazy than believing a typical Park Sloper believing a standard, 8-family walk-up apartment building is "out of context". How is it possible that neighborhood is populated by people who had their entire neighborhood rezoned such that practically every multi-family apartment building exceeds the maximum developable bulk?

They're crazy. There is no other explanation.

Posted by: Polemicist at October 9, 2007 7:28 PM in response to Co-op of the Day: 101 8th Avenue

Office leasing dropped because there is limited supply. The vacancy rate is still the lowest it has ever been. That is all that matters.

Posted by: Polemicist at October 9, 2007 7:32 PM in response to Co-op of the Day: 101 8th Avenue