Bigger But Not Better in The Slope
Looking at this kind of before-and-after is a good way to get depressed. The transformation of 561 11th Street was noticed and mused upon by the blog Save The Slope: We have no idea if the new building is great architecture or not. Personally we prefer the old building. One wonders, though, what has really…
Looking at this kind of before-and-after is a good way to get depressed. The transformation of 561 11th Street was noticed and mused upon by the blog Save The Slope:
We have no idea if the new building is great architecture or not. Personally we prefer the old building. One wonders, though, what has really been gained in this process? The new building is not dramatically larger than the old one. The old building could have been a 1- or 2-family; the new building appears to be a 3-family. Perhaps we have managed to squeeze another couple of people into Park Slope, which is great. Probably someone has made a lot of money in this transaction, or hopes to. But the one certainty is that we have lost a bit more of Park Slope’s historic fabric and unique “sense of place”.
Bummer.
11th Street: Another One Bites the Dust [Save The Slope] GMAP
Mopar — describing Monterey and Pacific Grove as “ordinary and uninteresting looking” is way way off the mark… When was the last time you were near Washington Park? Pacific Grove especially is full of historically relevant architecture.
The historic flavor and charm you cite about Carmel-by-the-Sea comes at a price — maintenance on those houses is astronomically expensive despite their small size. Ramshackle is hardly affordable!
Plus, it’s hard to imagine a more strict set of environmental regulations than Carmel’s tree regulations. This level of sacrifice-for-way-of-life could never happen here…
Zarathustra, thank you for that backstory.
MM, this building, although technically in “south slope” since it is south of 9th Street, is in fact “up the hill” meaning it is only one avenue away from Prospect Park.
Benson, south Slope is not mainly outdated wood frame housing. The blocks of South slope (south of 9th Street to 15th Street) which run from 5th Avenue up to Prospect Park are overwhelmingly brownstones, and brick rowhouses. Frame houses are common in the highest teen streets, and they are common west of 4th Avenue which is actually called Gowanus. There are perhaps a tiny handful of frame houses within a 5 block radius of this house on 11th Street just off 8th Avenue. The little yellow house is one. I know of one on 12th. Here and there you may find one frame house. This is in no way a crappy frame house neighborhood.
It is amazing how many people on this blog claim to love Brooklyn when in actuality its purely self-interest. For why else would you REALLY want these restrictions? If you Brooklynites, or PS’ers love and really care for a building so much, then why didn’t you form a non-profit and donate money to buy the house in question? Then not only could you “protect” this historical property, you could also regulate who could live in it. Fair-minded, progressive, mid-class people like yourselves, right? Since that is the kind of people we want in our community… b/c they aren’t like those money-hungry upper class… You know the only ones who could actually afford the over-priced crappy B-Stones like this one.
And thus spoketh Zarathustra….
But for the “fabric of the neighborhood” — shouldn’t they have maintained the facade even if no one could live inside?!
If you want to know the inside scoop, the owner filed a nuisance suit against the garage, alleging that the freight elevator was undermining his building. As part of the settlement, the garage bought out the owner. Not sure what it paid, but I recall it was quite a lot for the existing building. And having seen interior shots, it was a complete disaster before. The garage either sold, or constructed what you are now seeing in its place. It’s important to keep in mind that back stories like these are not uncommon, and far too often there is a tendency to leap to judgment. I suspect the old building could not have been sold, except to a developer.
“The objection is simple – people like MM and petunia like older buildings and they use the ‘context’ argument as a pretext to oppose new ones such as this….”
Personally, I like old AND new. But all too often the new is ugly, as we see here. I LOVE beautiful new buildings. And they don’t have to be expensive, although they can be. They should though use high-quality windows and have reasonably high ceilings.
I’m not idealizing the past either. But when you handcraft a house because prefab was not around, that’s a fact. And it did make for better quality- even benson once admitted as such. The methods were different, the materials have changed, the technology is not the same. If you don’t get that, I can’t explain it any more clearly- but by all means disparage my opinion as “nostalgia.” That makes it so much easier for you to deal with that way.
Cara — I live in a wood frame Victorian in Flatbush. You don’t know “poorly cared for” until you’ve seen my house! When the owner dies, I don’t think there’s any option other than a tear down.
If I had lots of money, I think it would be funny to knock it down and then build a tiny little house (like 400 sq ft) that waaaaay underutilizes the FAR and disrespects the context in a fun new way! And I’d have a little train like on Silver Spoons.
Bxgrl, The term nostalgia describes a longing for the past, often in IDEALIZED form….
You describing the standardization of today as “cheap” and designed to make $, but describing it 100+ years ago as based in efficency and a desire to built something “well” is pure nostalgia.
sorry but developers 100+ years ago were just as interested in making $ as today and the methods they used were derided as derivative, cheap, cookie-cutter – just like you are doing today. and Little Boxes (not written by PS BTW) could just as easily be used to describe the Brownstones in 1900….it was the same population, the same demographic – the only difference is that 100+ years ago; they made them all the same color!
Look nostalgia is nice and I get the appeal of the Brownstone, but please have some historical and personal perspective – pre auto – Brownstone Brooklyn was the suburbs, with its own version of McMansions, social climbing and keeping up with the Joneses…..NO DIF!
Btw for even more context, there is already a move to make various “Levittowns” historical districts – and you know what, given their significance – they would be right to protect some subset!