Glimmers of Hope for 475 Kent Residents
Residents of 475 Kent Avenue are pitching in to fix the Williamsburg building’s many safety violations—chief among them a broken sprinkler system—so that the city lets them back into their building, according to a story in yesterday’s Times. The city estimated that the sprinkler system would take around three months to fix, and the residents…
Residents of 475 Kent Avenue are pitching in to fix the Williamsburg building’s many safety violations—chief among them a broken sprinkler system—so that the city lets them back into their building, according to a story in yesterday’s Times. The city estimated that the sprinkler system would take around three months to fix, and the residents are trying to expedite the repairs. Nevertheless, the 200-plus people booted from the artists’ enclave last month may eventually be allowed to move back in despite the fact that the building still doesn’t have a C of O for residential use, and the article says that 475 Kent owners Nachman Brach and Morris Hartman have been devastated by its evacuation. (This seems contrary to the rumors that Brach & Co. want to convert the building into pricey condos.) A number of 475 Kent residents say they want to wait out the repairs and move back in to their former home because there aren’t many properties that can compare to it. All the new construction is tiny, very cookie-cutter, very clean and hygienic. You could almost smell the pharmacy, said Hagai Yardenay, a videographer who lived on the eighth floor. This building is a lot more grungy, but it’s real. It’s magical. It’s different. You can’t replicate it.
After Evacuation, Artists Begin an Effort to Save Their Haven [NY Times]
475 Kent Tenants to Bloomberg: Let Us Back In! [Brownstoner]
DOB, FDNY Deliver Bad News to 475 Kent Tenants [Brownstoner]
DOB, FDNY Deliver Bad News to 475 Kent Tenants [Brownstoner]
475 Kent Avenue: How It All Began [Brownstoner] GMAP
Big Showing From Pols at 475 Kent Vigil [Brownstoner]
Closing Bell: Moving Out at 475 Kent Avenue [Brownstoner]
‘Commune of Creative Types’ in the Burg is Emptied Out [Brownstoner]
Photo by BruceLabounty802.
That’s an awfully big brownstone. Wait, it’s not a brownstone or even in brownstone brooklyn? Why are we talking about this again?
I hope the artists do get to move back in. It’s because of artists that so much of NYC came out of the housing slump — so many people seem to forget that there was a time when nobody wanted to live in NYC. Whether is is downtown Manhattan, DUMBO, Long Island City or Williamsburg — these neighborhoods required somebody who would take the risk — legal or illegal — to live there when everyone else thought they were crazy.
10:06 is right, but most (all?) of those master leases run out in less than 6 months. So it would be really easy for the leaseholders to just walk away. Instead, they are spending time and money to fix the situation, so that they and their tenants can get back to living AND working in the building.
This is SUCH a boring topic – enough with 475 Kent – truly, who cares???
Well golly gee whiz, I’ll show you that I’m grown up gosh darn it.
it seems everyone is being cool with the landlord (building owner) because a lot of the tenants were landlords themselves – they leased full floors from the landlord (building owner), chopped them up and sub-leased the spaces as illegal residential spaces. So many people are equally responsible for what was going on, and were making money off this building.
Just FYI, as this doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere.
Repairing sprinklers is not such a big deal depending on how extensive the repairs. replacing all the sprinklers on a building this size is a pretty bid geal and would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course once that is done, the tenants will need to face the two-hundred other issues facing a large multi-story multiple dwelling built eighty years ago and suffering from a lack of maintenance. Every sigle building system from the plumbing risers to the boiler to the house pumps to the elevator to the electrical to the gas service will need overhauling. The facade inspections will probably uncover three dozen expensive problems. Bringing a large building back is a daunting task. We have been at it in my building for twenty years and are just now reaching a state of equilibrium. And we are a legal residential co-op. Bohemian life is one thing, trying to make things legal and up to code is something else entirely. It separates the kids from the grown-ups let me tell you.
They broke the law, so they must leave.
Let’s not forget the firefighter who died last year due to a fire in a building that was ILLEGALLY setup as apartments.
I hate artists that fuck other artists as well as yuppie trust funders that tamper with fire dept sprinklers, but who really cares, I care!
Its not good or bad , just BLAH