Closing Bell: There Goes the Front Yard
Clinton Hill just got a little uglier—and a little more difficult to find a parking space in. The owner’s plan to cut the curb and turn the front of the ground floor at 174 Clinton Avenue into a parking garage that we reported back in November is coming to fruition. A reader sends in this…
Clinton Hill just got a little uglier—and a little more difficult to find a parking space in. The owner’s plan to cut the curb and turn the front of the ground floor at 174 Clinton Avenue into a parking garage that we reported back in November is coming to fruition. A reader sends in this photo that shows the concrete and facade demolition has been completed. How can this be? The property falls just outside the historic district and just within the commercial overlay from Myrtle Avenue. The flipper’s gain is everyone else’s loss.
174 Clinton Avenue [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark DOB
Cut and Run at 174 Clinton Avenue [Brownstoner]
Love the coinage – “McBrownstone” !
Another example of the suburbanization of Brooklyn. I bet the flipper is putting granite in the kitchen too. Probably a master bathroom with his and her sinks. It’s a regular McBrownstone.
I dodn’t think you need landmarking…I just think you need zoning or law change to not allow this.
And don’t buy argument that it doesn’t make parking more difficult. That curb spot is now unusable 24/7 whether someone is using garage at the moment or not.
Next to me is a garage used just as storage – but they still have the curbcut – which ends up being owners private street parking.
That is so depressing. I moved to Clinton Hill from San Francisco where curb-cuts and garage construction goes unchecked. There most sidewalks are blocked by cars parked in what the owner then thinks of as their driveway and it’s harder and harder to find places to plant street trees. Most streets in New York are so much better for not having curbcuts and garages.
What a bummer.
If he did NOT get a permit, now would be a terrific time to find out. Would be fun to see a stop-work order here.
On the point that “One lengthwise car gets removed from the block, leaving half a car length more for everyone else,” well, I hadn’t thought of it that way. But I also think that people parking on either side of a curb cut typically leave a lot of space on either side of the driveway. So I don’t think your argument works.
In San Francisco most of the Victorian townhouses have been altered to incorporate a garage. You gotta park somewhere. Why is this so bad? In the old days no one had cars but today almost everyone who owns a house has a car. That’s the reality, people like to come and go and to take stuff here and there. If everyone had their own parking spot in front of their own house, I think that would be cool, altho I know it would upset the purists.
How come people are just turning the nice old wood frames into two family condos and renovating them? You would make less on the sales, but it would take a lot less work. This whole area could take on a beautiful new englandy feel if people just put the houses back together. NY should have something like the ‘heritage area’ zonings of other cities to keep old wood houses like these alive. Not super strict landmark rulings, but a wider set of guidelines that govern renos and teardowns.
There are definitely ways to do the parking spot that leave the place looking ok. As far as making it harder for others to park- it’s not really a sound argument. One lengthwise car gets removed from the block, leaving half a car length more for everyone else.
Is that yard even long enough to fit a car though? You need like 15 feet at minimun. Did the owner get a permit for the cut and driveway?
Douche.
This is, indeed, why that block should have been landmarked long ago, along with hundreds of others.
It’s a beautiful house. It will be a lot less beautiful with a Hummer parked in front.
And yeah, thanks for permanently reducing street parking, asshole.
Did I mention that you’re a douche? You are.