Brownstones & strollers?
My husband and I have two children under two, and are considering moving from a loft (in an elevator building) to a brownstone. Are there any tricks to managing strollers in brownstones? Any advice or wisdom would be greatly appreciated!
My husband and I have two children under two, and are considering moving from a loft (in an elevator building) to a brownstone. Are there any tricks to managing strollers in brownstones? Any advice or wisdom would be greatly appreciated!
CMU, how is it any different from the conversation suburbanites have when they’re figuring out where to park 4 cars not just 2 once their kids start to drive. Anything that affects day to day living totally concerns real estate and deciding what property to buy. For example many people don’t buy an apartment that’s a 5th floor walk-up because they’d have to drag the stroller up a few years until the child is walking. The whole bitter hating on strollers and mothers thing is so not original, clever or funny anymore. Wish more people had got that memo.
No, nsr, you don’t understand humor.
This whole thread would be risible if it weren’t so earnest. Worry about stroller parking? Children can’t walk? Have to have a SUV stroller instead of something small and light which you can keep inside your apt?
Where is Rob commenting when we need him?
We have a one-family house so we don’t have a shared entry and there’s plenty room for us to park in the foyer our larger stroller with big wheels, which is the one we bounce up and down the front stairs to get in and out, and one folded lightweight stroller which is the travel/subway stroller. If you need a house with rental income perhaps look for a house where the rental apt is the garden level with their own entrance so as the owners you get a duplex or triplex above with your own separate entrance at the top of the stoop. Which gives you a place for strollers and coats and umbrellas, etc.
If you think strollers are bad, wait till your kids get bikes.
Double wide Urbanbaby mountain double folds up flat and can fit between the two doors up the stoop. If you are typical you will be using the stroller everyday so it’s not worth stowing it away in a place to hard to get two.
I wonder what the Hasidic ladies would say. Some of those houses have the front stoop removed and replaced with a balcony.
Am I the only person who thinks cmu probably walks uphill both ways every where he goes?
“the stroller-dependent phase really only lasts a few years”
As long as you have a car, that is.
Agree that under the stoop storage probably won’t work well for a double stroller. Depends on the building of course, but I find the space a little tight just getting a single maclaren maneuvered down the 3 steps and around past the security gate.
That’s an unfolded maclaren, btw. I’m not so inept that I would have trouble getting a folded one in the house (well, actually, I could see where I might get the handles caught on the security gate…).
I lived in PS for 7 years and in year seven we had a baby. Our Coop was a stickler for following NYC fire code which states that the front hall cannot be used to store anything. It must be kept clear in case of a fire. Even though every single other brownstone coop allowed strollers to be stored under the stairs or in the hall, ours didn’t. We were however, allowed to store it on the second floor. (we lived on the 4th).
So please make sure before you move anywhere that this acceptable by the coop even thought it breaks fire code.
Dave,
Only the second half of my response was uncalled for (and, possibly, funny).
OP,
We had no trouble storing our stroller in the hallway and navigating the under-stoop entrance. The under-stoop storage area would have been usable, but, at the time, it leaked and was dank and dirty. We later had our stoop repaired and the storage area cleaned out and re-surfaced–we now keep our bicycles there (along with snow shovels, outdoor brooms, etc.) and it would be OK for a stroller, if we weren’t 20+ years past that stage of our lives. I doubt that we’d have used it though–there was enough room in the downstairs hallway for the large stroller (whatever Japanese brand was preferred in the early ’80s). We folded our small MacClaran, which must have been better than current models–our son still has all his fingers.