Horror Show Friday
These two charmers hail from Bed Stuy and Canarsie, respectively, and can be yours for the low, low prices of $439,000 and $550,000. Any takers? BEAUTIFUL 2 FAMILY IN THE HEART OF BED STUY [Craigslist] Huge 2 Family Brand New [Craigslist]
These two charmers hail from Bed Stuy and Canarsie, respectively, and can be yours for the low, low prices of $439,000 and $550,000. Any takers?
BEAUTIFUL 2 FAMILY IN THE HEART OF BED STUY [Craigslist]
Huge 2 Family Brand New [Craigslist]
“Well, it looks like we have all come to the same conculsion, and hopefully Mr. B will wrap this Hoor Show Friday up, and move on as we suggest.”
I think we should replace the Horror Show Friday with a Hoor Show Friday. We could still keep many of the same comments:
“Please, not before lunch.”
“beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my opinion on these 2 properties….feh!”
“i will once again chime in with, there is nothing wrong with either of these places aesthetically or structurally. except for the price”
“The one n the right looks great compared to the one on the left.”
“To get rid of them, we need better tools.”
Ok, I’ll take your word that regulation like that exists in other locations. who makes the rules? who enforces it? is there one design czar lording over everything? do the rules adapt or are all the buildings stuck in one style of a particular era?
let’s just say… if there is one set of rules would two entirely contrasting styles, let’s say – a Frank Gehry building and a Robert Stern building – be allowed to co-exist?
i’m all for maintaining a high standard for our built environment but i’m unsure, speaking purely about aesthetics, how a high standard can be maintained without limiting creativity and choice.
But, TD, city building codes dictate certain external criteria, such as set backs, mandated parking spaces, amount of FAR, as per zoning, etc, etc. And there is plenty of code to dictate what goes on in the interior, most of which seems to conform, just barely, but that is another issue.
The builders of the brownstones we love may have been the same kinds of people I’m talking about, but their product was better, aesthetically and practically. I don’t expect a 2009 row house to be a copy of an 1899 row house. That is not going to happen, I get that. But what is wrong with setting up certain standards – a new Code, if you will, that says that buildings built as infill, like the house on the left, must complement the houses around them? It would not be difficult or more expensive to build a brick house that was the same height, or had similar fenestration.
The worst part of the houses on the right is the stairways and entrances. Couldn’t something better be devised? I’m not an architect, and I can envision at least 2 different ways of solving that problem, and still enable the building to have separate entrances. A Code might solve that, because the Code would make someone think before just doing what was expedient, quick or cheap.
Maybe that is as elusive as world peace, but I think it’s worth a shot to at least try. That’s my Kumbaya moment for today, and this weekend.
If Mr. B gets rid of the ‘Horror Show Friday’ Thread, he’d be getting rid of the one thread that is generating the most posts today!
Carry on.
Some folks may just enjoy saving a lot of money by not needing a movie-set quality veneer. People forget the million-dollar rowhouses of cobblehill, west village, etc. were utilitarian structures when they were built – perhaps over time these will evolve aesthetically as well. Either way, I don’t think they are any worse than the plain woodframe houses in these neighborhoods, and they might be more sound structurally…. (might)
“…you cannot feasibly propose that EVERY building be put through the same kind of process”
Why not? That’s what they do in England and every time I go back there to visit my mother I’m struck firstly by the almost total lack of billboards lining the motorways (here such regulation would be regarded as a violation of free speech, I guess) and secondly by the absence of schlocky buildings. Sure there are some that ain’t gonna appeal to all tastes, many that are just so-so, but there are very few that exhibit the total contempt for contextualism and basic aesthetics that the typical “horror show” house does.
when your choices are limited, you take what you can get. I doubt someone given a choice of a house with a nicely designed facade and this one would pick that Bed-Stuy house. guy wants a house, this is what they’re given as their option- – the aesthetics aren’t a top priority for them. It’s budget and location. It doesn’t mean they like them.
These houses don’t get built ugly because of customer demand, they get built like that because the developer makes a choice. And the developers could make better choices and still stay within budget. It’s not like they have no options.
Montrose and all;
Well, it looks like we have all come to the same conculsion, and hopefully Mr. B will wrap this Hoor Show Friday up, and move on as we suggest.
A few more thoughts:
-I remember that about 5 years ago the previous Queens borough president (I can’t remember her name right now) tried to bring together a consortium of builders, real estate agents, community planners, etc. to try to figure out why moderate-income hosuing could not be built to the standards as those of the 1920’s, when many attractive moderate-income rowhouses were built. I don’t know what happened to this effort, but it seemed to go nowhere.
-I think there is a great opportunity for an entrpeneur out there to tackle this problem. As CWB said, there has to be a happy medium. It seems to me that some architecture/design firm should take a shot at developing a “template” for these private builders to use that optimizes materials, design and techniques so as to produce economical, functional and attractive housing, at a profit to the builder.
‘I agree with Benson – enough is enough. This whole “horror show” thing seems to only appeal to a select few (the usual suspects)’
And the ones it appeals to come to the thread and post…right dirty hipster!