Using Facebook to Clean Up Bay Ridge 'Dump'
Talk about networking! A Bay Ridge resident emailed us to let us know about the Facebook page they started for 237 79th Street, a property that they say has been neglected for two decades. “There you’ll see photos of standing water, holes in the roof, a second floor that has collapsed into the ground, raccoons…
Talk about networking! A Bay Ridge resident emailed us to let us know about the Facebook page they started for 237 79th Street, a property that they say has been neglected for two decades. “There you’ll see photos of standing water, holes in the roof, a second floor that has collapsed into the ground, raccoons that inhabit this house, and bulging walls that show this house is ready fall at any moment.” Apparently Facebook has been more useful that the DOB: After residents spent years contacting various city agencies without getting anywhere, the Facebook page has sparked the attention of the Brooklyn Paper and News 12 Brooklyn. Hopefully that leads to some real action to take care of this place.
In many cases the houses have been inherited by brothers and sisters who can’t agree on what to do with it, or there is no way to get a clean title due to improper documentation so that the house can be sold. I know of one case in which a woman “bought” a house from someone else but a new deed was never filed. Years later, when the woman went to sell the house, records showed it wasn’t hers. After many months a private detective was hired to hunt down the original owner, and it was found he’d died a few years prior, but then they had to find his heirs, etc. Took years for her to be finally able to sell it, and in the meantime she’d moved out (retired down south) and the house had a fire set by squatters and suffered other damage. Really a shame.
Wacky, TraditionalMod! Funny how there are so many of these in NYC. I remember only one neglected house where I grew up (town of about 40,000). Well, anyway, almost every block in Bed Stuy has at least one burned out house, so they can’t all be lunatics. Not in Bed Stuy, at least.
Maybe facebook could help also out the owner of the house on the other side of the spite wall in Bay Ridge:
http://beehivehairdresser.com/category/categories/bay-ridge-bastards/
I can’t believe that wall is still there.
Maybe facebook could help also out the owner of the house on the other side of the spite wall in Bay Ridge:
http://beehivehairdresser.com/category/categories/bay-ridge-bastards/
I can’t believe that wall is still there.
agree with montrose – why not try? media publicity might get someone to do something.
Because that would be sane and reasonable, Mopar and these houses become like this because their owners are nuts. Truly. See in the article where they say the owner of this house let the house rot simply for spite after a divorce. Nutso. And the house on Bedford in PLG that was neglected and allowed to become a shell, that happened for spite too when the owner wasn’t allowed to turn the house into a medical building and decided to take his revenge on the neighborhood. Or that woman who owns the building on 7th Ave at 2nd street in Park Slope that had to put up scaffolding because it’s falling apart and she keeps claiming she’s starting a cultural institution there. Oh okay, right. These blighted shells simply show what crazies look like who are rich enough to own a house and not be sleeping in a cardboard box.
Question: Why do the burned-out houses in Bed Stuy just sit there? Why don’t their presumably long-term owners with presumably no insurance sell to flippers for $200,000 or $300,000 cash?
Newburgh Restoration! As in DoorSixteen?
Awesome.
See, Mr. Malcolm Gladwell, social media is good for something.