Brooklyn Inside & Out

As Brownstoner points out there is an inconsistency between the house description and the floor plan. According to the floor plan the grand front foyer and stairs are for the two (?) rental units while the primary unit owners are relegated to the back servants stairs. Is that what people with 4 million to spend want?

Thank you for sharing Ron. I am a neighbor as well. Please be sure to have the house properly documented to ensure its history is intact for future generations.

Great article Ron—I’m glad that you’re a neighbor.

We lived in this house for over twenty years. It was indeed a huge house with a lovely backyard. We bought the house in the 1980s when it had been partially renovated after having been abandoned for X number of years. This was when our next door neighbors characterized Fort Greene as the Crack Capital of the World, which it sadly was but it was also the single most beautiful neighborhood in the entire city. Lots of stories, but I’ll only share the those that might have been, but weren’t, in the NYPost. We found out from a neighbor (he thought we already knew) that the previous owners let a homeless man live in the basement (separate entrance). Sadly, he died while the owners were away. His dog ate his head. ‘Nuff said! Another time as I was leaving for work one morning, I opened the front door and a guy was spread-eagled on the front steps, held down by a plainclothes cop pointing a gun at his head. Early morning purse snatcher. The cop was a neighbor. Sweet, funny guy. Then there was the cook at a nearby restaurant who lit fire to a bunch of newspapers at our front door. We came home to the fire department hanging out on the front porch having extinguished the blaze. The cook was jealous of his girlfriend whose other man was renting from us. Actually, he was renting next door. And he had moved months before. But it’s the thought that counts. Then a stately brownstone across the street became a crack house. People were seen every day hauling copper pipes off to be recycled for money. I’ll skip the part about how they disposed of their, um, waste via 5-gallon pails dumped in the storm sewer on the southwest corner of Lafayette and Adelphi. Oops. Anyway, a client of the crack house left this memorable scrawl outside the house: “L’il Bit was here and it was more than enough.” They were actually a peaceful crowd. Around 2000 that building, in ruins, sold for a million dollars, which stunned the block. There are lots more stories that won’t fit here. Just to counter all that wacky stuff, we have never lived anywhere so welcoming and with such generous-hearted neighbors. This was a family street. When the big bucks woke up to what a splendid neighborhood this was, all the Black families wisely cashed in and moved mainly to the South. It was a heartbreaking. So we also sold out. Our kids are all grown now and we’re old and saggy. We recall those twenty years in Fort Greene with unparalleled affection.