Addition at 600 St. Marks Ave.
A reader flagged this addition to the brownstone in at 600 St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights North for us (though it would have been right at home in yesterday’s NY Post article). According to the DOB permit, this one-story addition will add an additional three apartments to the building. We just hope that addition…
A reader flagged this addition to the brownstone in at 600 St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights North for us (though it would have been right at home in yesterday’s NY Post article). According to the DOB permit, this one-story addition will add an additional three apartments to the building. We just hope that addition eventually matches the color of the rest of the building! GMAP DOB
Ugh. This building is a poster child for the dark side of Brooklyn real estate over the last 5 years. I live across the street and have watched the plot unfurl. Five years ago it was occupied by squatters and the disfunctional owner/heir. It was sold out from under the owner and involved in series of morgage fraud schemes, until it was finally set on fire for the insurance. Then it sat vacant for a few years while subsequent amateur groups tried to prenovate it. Everytime they did work it seemed, they would damage a neighboring building.
There is a huge extension on the back of the buidling, including lot line windows that do not look up to code to me. Now it is a 9 family building on a block of 3 and 4 family houses. A schlocky plot for a novel might be the best thing this building has to offer.
I sort of assumed that based on the apartment count the addition on top is not the only one (i.e. maybe there is an extension in the back as well).
thanks wber.
The DOB permit says it was a three-family and is being converted to a 9-family. The additional units (6) are not only in the addition, but throughout the building. Overall, there is 1 apartment in the basement and two each on floors 1 through 4 (so 2 apartments in the addition).
I don’t really know, Minard, I just walk down this block when I go over to Franklin, and have seen the “progress”. I guess when it’s a fire escape, you’d need roof access? I don’t know the regs on that. The house is your standard 20′ brownstone. Since they gutted it, I guess the usual layouts no longer apply. Very disappointing.
3 studios, Minard?
This is awful and exactly why so many people push for land marking.
MM, do you think it’s a legal addition? How can that ladder to the roof be legal? How can they sqeeze three units in that one floorplate?
I’d wager that that is the color and that that is the cornice. I’d also wager that it does look worse in person, as in person you can probably tell that there is some architecture at the base of the building.
I’ve been watching this thing go up for the last two years. It’s even worse looking at it in person. Not only is the extra story butt ugly, but the balcony/fire escapes in the front totally ruin the facade of the building. Next door are the other 2 houses in this group, and when you look at them, and then look at this, you want to cry. They also gut reno’d the house, so nothing is left but what’s left of the facade. The house was in need of work and renovation, but not this. This extra story sticks up like a sore thumb, higher than anything else on that side of the block. This one makes me mad, because it was done so slapdash and irresponsibly.