Playing Catch-Up at the Newswalk Building
We’ve gazed at the 300,000-square-foot Newswalk building (mentioned twice in yesterday’s
We’ve gazed at the 300,000-square-foot Newswalk building (mentioned twice in yesterday’s commentary) countless times from the Atlantic Avenue side but never really stopped to stare at the wacky Dean Street side of the project that put Shaya Boymelgreen on the map as a developer in Brooklyn back in 2000. The conversion required a zoning change for three city blocks. As we were still living in that other borough across the river at the time, though, we’d appreciate a little history lesson on the conversion. Who designed it? How controversial was it? And has there been much turnover at the 150-unit building recently? What kind of price per square foot are the apartments commanding?
Newswalk Building Spared by Ratner [Village Voice] GMAP P*Shark
Newswalk Marketing Site [Condos in Brooklyn]
Current Newswalk Listing [Corcoran]
“Some things just f-in suck”: ouch, Angelina. Stick to your core issues — world peace and an end to hunger, wasn’t it. That, or come clean from behind your rather sophomoric and sexist pseudonymn.
when I was looking to purchase 3 years ago, I saw over 100 apartments. I wanted to live at Newswalk. The apartments were huge and beautifully done with incredible views. I also liked how close it was to so many subway lines. This was all before Ratner announced his grand plan. Hubby and I couldn’t afford what was left at Newswalk and tearfully ended up purchasing a one bedroom in Dumbo.
I was the anon poster of 5.35.
I suppose the fact that the Yards themselves are such a desolate hole is why most people want them to be developed (though clearly there is not consensus on what should be put there). AY is an island in the middle of gentrified (or gentrifying) neighborhoods and only serves to separate those desirable areas.
I agree that not all things are relative. However, with respect to this area, if you go one block off of the yards, there is street after street of beautiful rowhouses, along with restaurants etc. I think the residents of NewsWalk consider themselves part of Prospect Heights as a neighborhood. I do agree that the actual pit in the ground that is the Atlantic Railyards looks like a desolate blighted hole in the ground, but understandably, those who live adjacent to that pit don’t think of the Yards as their neighborhood, they think of Prospect Heights as their nabe. PH is not blighted, unless brownstones well in excess of $1MM, cafes and restaurants is blighted in your book.
ps. Dearest STill Anon, I hope you didn’t mind my stealing your thoughts. It’s a bad habit.
Dearest 5 pm.
I need only quote a sliver of the brilliance emmited by Still Anon at 4:23 pm, whoever they may be, in response to your over-sensitivity. No, all things are NOT relative. Some things just f-in suck.
“Just because you have defined your standards downward by living there, getting used to it and thinking it is as nice as any other NYC or Brooklyn neighborhood does not mean that those who don’t live there who call it as they see it somehow all work in conspiracy for your paranoid construct of a tormentor/nemesis.”
To each his own, but I thought the building is quite attractive on the outside.
I’ve been inside also to view a ‘forsale’ with friend who was searching and also impressed with interior.
There was no central a/c in that apt. but I think many floors do have it.
If something isn’t your cup-of-tea doesn’t mean its terrible, poorly built, tasteless, etc…. try to keep a open mind….obviously plenty of people with enough means to have plenty of housing choices bought there.
“Now some people are selling because they are afraid the Ratner project might happen.”
might…lol. done deal.
Hi there. I posted Anonymous 2:15.
Anonymous 2:38 – Okay, those definitely are fair comments to consider. My contention was just that…did they really have to keep it as a whole looking so eastern/soviet bloc depressing looking, and perhaps their hands were indeed tied with respect to what they were allowed to do. There are claims that the insides are really nice, in spite of the dated depressing exterior, which does go a long way from a creature-comforts standpoint, to be fair.
Puca – (or whomever you are, perhaps as anonyous as anyone else behind that nickname, for how can identity be truly identified here anyway..) I find it amusing in the typically paranoid manner that any attempt to describe the neighborhood as many see it…ugly, rough, raw, trashy and abandoned in many places…is met with claims that suddenly anyone and everyone with such an opinion *must* work for Ratner or is his crony.
Please get over it. The neighborhood has been rough and dangerous for years with abandoned sites, crime, syringes etc, and it has only been in recent years when individual buildings have been renovated one by one…but the area still has a long way to go. It is still rough, with alot more crime than, say..just a few blocks south of it.
Just because you have defined your standards downward by living there, getting used to it and thinking it is as nice as any other NYC or Brooklyn neighborhood does not mean that those who don’t live there who call it as they see it somehow all work in conspiracy for your paranoid construct of a tormentor/nemesis.
To misquote Freud and Duchamps, sometimes a crackpipe is just a crackpipe.
To be fair, only some of the buildings and spots in the area can truly be claimed as blighted, not the entire area, but jeez…it is just absurd to remain in denial that alot of the area around the rail yards was exactly that at the time this came up. Unfair to some buldings cought in the middle? Sure. But no one can say there was not crime, drugs, trash and buildings left to rot in that exact vicinity, and deny instance of any blight whatsoever.