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In the pantheon on price cuts, this recent one at 251 Pacific Street ain’t going to rank very high: The one-bedroom (though this floor plan is crying out to be converted into a studio) co-op kicked things off in August with an asking price of $328,888. After failing to find any takers, the self-described “starter apartment” had its price tag whittled down to $325,000. The finishes are middling, we’d say, but the $514 maintenance seems a touch high for a modest non-doorman building.
251 Pacific Street, #2 [Douglas Elliman] GMAP P*Shark



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  1. Well, they just built a building one block up that has apartments selling for well over a million, and there’s another new building under construction right across from the conveniently-nearby New York Sports Club. Factor in the location – very close to all the subways at Borough Hall, right between Smith and Court, 2 blocks from Trader Joe’s – and we’ll see how long this is a crummy block. I lived in Chelsea for 13 years and it looked very similar to this back in 1995.

    Full disclosure: I have lived in the building for 4 years. In that amount of time we have seen stellar improvements. The temporarily-stalled construction site next to the building was a not-fenced-in creepy parking lot when we moved in, and 225 pacific (the site with the 1+ million apartments doing a brisk business) was an empty lot and a down-at-the-heels gas station.

  2. Yeah, that block is pretty crappy. I know someone who lives on that block, and that pink-haired woman down the street was evicted a while ago. Not that it really matters… just pointing it out.

  3. I lived in this building for 13 years and I found the people in the building to be very nice and really decent hard-working folks. The super was great. The coop board was relaxed and low key. The maintenance wasn’t that high for the area and I believe when we were leaving that the relatively small underlying mortgage was either being refinanced or paid off to be much more favorable terms. The reserve fund was always decently stocked. However, I can’t say I disagree with a few of the comments about the block.

    If the ‘eclectic pink haired’ woman is the same one who used to hang out her window on the first floor nearer to Smith- she’s leaning out that window dealing. It was pretty obvious. There was another guy in one of the middle buildings that got hauled out in handcuffs for the same thing. The noise level in summer nights was unreal-we bought a white noise machine. The hydrant thing was annoying to me because no matter how many times the FDNY gave the kids a sprinkler cap, it disappeared. When the jail was open, we’d get catcalled by the inmates using the exercise yard on top while we used the roof deck. So, there were downsides.

    But I can tell you it had improved greatly over the 13 years we lived there. At least one of the buildings across the street changed hands and the new owners were determined to get the “bad apples” out. People on the block went from being fairly insular to greeting newcomers and organizing a yearly block party for all. Some of the old ladies in the RS buildings knew I liked to garden and would give me cuttings of their plants. They also knew when we got home at night so I always knew they were looking out for the folks they knew. Change takes time and takes a little effort on the part of the people moving to a neighborhood, not just the existing folks.

    We have a house now and are happier with the space and our own yard but I do miss some of that neighborhood and definitely some of the folks from my building/block.

  4. Yes, I feel really bad for the seller. But if I were the buyer and did not fully realize these things (some are summer things), damn that would suck.

    Still, the right price will always do it. No one wants to take a loss tho.

  5. there is an elderly man who scatters 2 loaves worth of stale bread along the entire sidewalk every morning which attracts huge flocks of pigeons, rats, you name it.

    there is an “ecclectic” hot-pink haired woman who hangs out her 1st floor apartment window all day, all weather… nagging and shouting at passerby (closer to Smith).

    there is a man living on the RS building who is into motorcycles and his crotch rocket friends often use that block as their hang out spot in warmer weather (closer to Boerum).

    there is someone selling drugs out of the RS building and instead of his clients ringing the buzzer, they sit in their car and honk and honk and honk (often while blasting rap music), until the seller deems it “safe enough” to come downstairs.

    LICH ambulances use one of the vacant lots as their idling spot while on break. Those puppies are LOUD.

    The fire hydrants are regularly popped on summer days and the street / sidewalk are virtually unpassable w/o a soak.

    There is obvious racial tension between some of the Middle Eastern and Puerto Rican teenagers on the block. A lot of shouting back and forth.

    I could go on and on.

  6. For eight years I lived on Pacific (Hoyt/Bond), and belonged to the NYSC 1/2 block on the other side of this dump.

    How bad is this block? Let’s put it this way – rather than walk 1 block from Smith to the gym, I would walk 3 blocks out of my way to avoid the riff-raff (south on Smith 1 block, 1 block on Dean, then backtrack up Boerum Place).

    After five or six years of doing that I started walking down this block. Whenever I did, I usually regretted it, and would take the scenic route past Bar Tabac on the way home.

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