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After a painfully slow construction process, 93 Nevins, aka the Health House, is finally on the home stretch. The scaffolding started coming down at the end of last week and the developer tells us that the listings could hit the market by mid-March, though the big opening splash is set for Earth Day in April.
Development Watch: Progress at the Health House [Brownstoner]
Development Watch: 93 Nevins Making Progress [Brownstoner]
93 Nevins: Like Molasses [Brownstoner] GMAP P*Shark DOB
Development Watch: 93 Nevins Street [Brownstoner]
OHNY Report: Double Your Eco-Friendly Pleasure [Brownstoner]


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  1. Chuck – It’s good to hear that the neighborhood has improved significantly, but I agree with Knickerbocker in that the noise will always be there, and last I checked, the projects weren’t moving anywhere. It’s also true that the subways are close, but I would never walk up or down Pacific Street after 11pm by myself. When I lived there, I always walked down Atlantic to Smith and then over to Bergen. It was a round-about walk, but way safer for a single woman. That’s also something you can put up with when rent is affordable, but when you’re talking million dollar condos, you expect greater safety and more quieter streets. Hopefully for the sake of these tenants, the building will be soundproofed, and they’ll install motion-activated lights.

    Also, for those of you still in the area (i.e., chuck and knickerbocker). does “Cookie” still live there? He was a somewhat burly Puerto Rican man, who had two huge pit bulls he walked regularly. More than once, he walked me to the subway and always knew all of the neighborhood histories and gossip. He lived on Pacific in a building his family owned; I always feared they would be forced to sell it.

  2. Manitoba – I moved about 1 block away to Atlantic and Bond in 1996, so we were ‘neighbors’ back then. I also moved back to Dean + Bond from 2004-6 (I have always been within 1/2 mile of this block since 1994), so I have seen this area recently. I has come a long way, but some things never change.

    My one additional comment is that, like Manitoba suggested, all the Boerum Hill side streets (i.e. Nevins, Dean + Bond) are dirty and noisy due to heavy foot and car traffic 24/7/365. So I hope they also installed some sound proofing and thick insulation between the disgusting brick exterior and the new interior dry wall. I’d suggest checking this place out at 11pm on a Friday if you really want to know what you are buying.

  3. Riiiight. And now… a comment from someone who has lived in the neighborhood IN THIS CENTURY.

    I toured the place twice during Open House New York events in the past few years. Lots of new fangled bells and whistles – radiant floors, salvaged brick, etc.

    The new limestone blocks on the upper floors look better in person than in the photo. Wouldn’t have been my choice. But I do like the rooftop solar panels. Holding my breath for the ground floor plywood reveal.

    The exterior wasn’t landmarked, btw. Developers live a block away, and wanted to make it contextual. Otherwise, the place is completely gutted. If it’s anything like the plans on the fencing, though, they’ve split the building into two 4-story townhomes with garages. That struck me as odd — to make each person have three flights of stairs to deal with with small floor footprints on each level, rather than an upper and lower duplex.

    Corner location will be busy (fire engines use Nevins a lot), but the playground on the block is one of the most popular in Boerum Hill. All the subways of Atlantic are two blocks away, and it’s an equal pleasant walk to 5th Ave or Smith St.

    All in all, it’ll be great to have the scaffold down and a fresh facade at eye level.

  4. Knickerbocker –

    We must have been neighbors very briefly! I think I moved in around there right when you must have been leaving. I remember that 455 Pacific Street used to be a crack house as well. It was very sad because the previous owner had died of AIDS (so I heard), and nobody in his family claimed the property, so it just fell to crap. 455 was also squeezed in between this “building” and an empty lot, and the empty lot had at one point been a pool for the owner at 455 Pacific, but when I lived there, it was full of garbage and rodents. I had been told that the owner of that lot was the owner of 93 Nevins, but I never knew if that was true. Regardless, they built 2 building on the empty lot – they’re not the most beautiful buildings, and they’re both 3 stories tall, but it definitely looked better than what was there.

    I always thought the two buildings north of 93 Nevins were beautiful even if they needed a lot of work. It’s unfortunate that 93 Nevins looks like it’ll be an eyesore for the neighborhood, but it’s better than what was there.

  5. Woah… I lived next door to this “building” about 10-12 years ago for several years, and it was an empty shell at the time. From the top of our building, we could see the top of this building, and it looked like someone had thrown a laundry machine through the roof. The building was also full of feral cats and rats.

    They were always signs up that construction was imminent, but at the time, the building was owned by this crazy guy who lived on Pacific, and he told me he was holding out for $2mil for the site. At the time, that was of course insane, and even at the height of the market, I considered it insane since you couldn’t salvage any of the building. Maybe $2mil for such a large lot, but there’s no backyard at all.

    Further, the location, while it has improved significantly, is still a crap-hole. When I lived there, we could hear gunshots from down the street. Our walls were so thin that we could hear the traffic signals “click” when they switched from Walk to Don’t Walk, and people would drive by at all hours of the night with their stereos blasting. More than a handful of times, I left for work in the morning to find that either a bum had passed out on our stoop or someone had taken a crap on the stoop (either that or a really really large dog). The playground further towards 3rd was always full of homeless people, broken glass, urine and feces. About 6-8 years ago (right before I moved), they opened a 24-hour laundromat off of Atlantic that went all the way through to Pacific, which I had thought was great, except they started having fights, stabbings and shootings in the back parking lot, and people would be making tons of noise all night long from the parking lot (both will be audible for this new building). There was also a guy in the neighborhood who used to masturbate regularly in his car as women walked by. This was a nice added bonus. One of the nicest parts of the neighborhood was hearing the calls to prayer from the Arabic school. Of course, this too got old after a while.

    Overall, I’m sure this neighborhood is nicer, and I really did like the fact that the neighborhood was so diverse with large hispanic, black, middle eastern, and caucasian populations that existed in relative harmony, but there was a large enough element that made living there unpleasant. I honestly can’t believe it has gotten that much better nor will any time soon; it’s too far from Smith and too close to 3rd and 4th Avenues.

    I don’t know how much they’ll be charging for these place, but I’m pretty sure you’d have to pay me twice that amount to move back onto that corner.

  6. I’ve posted this on previous threads – I lived across the street from this building from 1994-6. It was a crack house then and the roof was gone, so it was exposed to the elements for about 20 years.

    I’m all for re-development (I was told that the exterior is landmarked – so that is why it has a Frankenstein design), but calling this place “healthy” might be a stretch given the history of neglect.

    The developer seems well intentioned, but the website has few actual details of the clean up process (mostly marketing jargon). That is not enough disclosure to prove this place is safe in the long run.

    Get a full environmental survey. Buyer beware.

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