House of the Day: 915 Sterling Place

9:27 there are a lot of us like you who have an income from 2 hard-working adults well enough into their career to make 100-200k together. We’ve delayed childbirth, we’ve scrimped and saved for many years, maybe someone got a small inheritance. In some way, some of us put together a reasonable downpayment. Now we are faced with trying to find a home of our own (to probably share w/ tenant), and we’re told we’re not middle class, but wealthy and therefore evil landed gentry derided by those on this blog that bought in the 70s, 80s, or 90s. Rich people are able to buy a home long before they reach 40. Having $1M does not make you rich in NYC or many other places in the US these days. You are middle class. Those making 50k for the entire household in ny are working class, not middle class.

I suspect 8:18 is right, but it’s not like the hasidim are really part of any community they inhabit. I.e., they ain’t gonna invite you over for coffee and scones…

As for this house, the wonderful essay above notwithstanding, I don’t find anything remotely inspiring about it, at any price. I’d have to see the rent rolls, but i don’t see any investor parking their down payment here in hopes of making a killing….

The crown heights income stats are skewed by the under-reporting of income by the huge hasidic community that nobody is mentioning.

Brownstoner,

I really enjoy the coverage of Crown Heights, whatever the tussles among the bloggers.

Sure, the house shown is small and narrow, but it’s a nice representative of the kinds of town houses I knew in the neighborhood as a youngster. (When you’re a kid, who cares about the difference between 17-feet and 25-feet lots, something parents with children should think about when prospecting in the neighborhood.)

Crown Heights row houses were terrific in the 50’s, as they are today. My family lived an apartment (very nice, with wainscotted walls, French doors to the living room and dining room, parquet de Versailles floors, faux fire place, pantry with swinging door to the dining room, deep window seat and high casement windows in the living room, etc.) but nothing beat my friends’ houses. These were tall, deep, dark, and a little mysterious, whatever my friends’ parents’ attempts at being “modern.” No low-slung sofa or Scandinavian furniture seemed to brighten these places up, which was fine with me. The carved wood, steep stair cases, and high rooms had an Adams Familyesque quality that was a real kick.

And boy, were they great for parties, especially the kind that would spill onto the stoops into the areaways next to the sidewalks and into the backyards, where occasionally a tent was put up. One friend had an especially magical place. It was off Grant Square on Pacific or Dean Street, I think, with not just front and backyards, but a sideyard, so birthday parties could stretch a hundred feet outdoors. This particular house was in grey brick (or maybe it was just soot-encrusted) and was every child’s dream of the haunted house. (I wonder if it’s still there.) The irony was that the owners were among the most brightly stylish of my parents’ friends with 50’s technicolor furniture, wall-to-wall carpeting, and a maid in a bright pink uniform (Charles Adams on the outside; cinema-scope on the inside).

Also, Crown Heights row houses provided neighborhood services. Our dentists, orthodontists, pediatricians, and general practitioners all had their offices in either the ground or parlor floors. Most of them were older, long-time residents of the neighborhood. Very dignified and (to use an outmoded term) courtly. And they were both black and white, men and women, which was important for kids to see.

Looking back, I now realize that the architects of these places were terribly inventive. The oldest of them were single-family, but newer ones (meaning those built a little before or after the First World War), often were two-family, with duplex miniatures of the private house placed one on top of another. These homes were smaller and had lower ceilings, but were brighter, given their decades’ preference for painted as opposed to exposed wood. And they were my favorites, probably because I had to climb a narrow stairhall from the street then pop into a hearth-lit living room on the third floor. (A nice surprise for somebody who lived in a single-floor apartment.)

One incident makes me chuckle. A friend had a backyard party near Brower Park. His mother was very grand. Their house, she kept repeating to her son’s guests, was CUSTOM designed, a fact imparted to get us to respect the property and all it meant to the family. This house did seem the newest of the ones I visited, a red-brick neo-Georgian number (putting it somewhere between the 20’s and 40’s, if I’m correct) which may or may not have been built for the family. (I won’t discount the possibility that the lady’s prestige was borrowed.)

I’ll repeat what I’ve written in earlier posts: for all of Crown Heights’ qualities, the 50’s and 60’s were times of enormous changes for it and the city as a whole. But to this day, the emotional part of me doesn’t fathom why so many middle-class people fled the city during that period. Not when they had buildings and streets this good. If only the FHA guaranteed low-cost mortgages to racially-integrated neighborhoods and not just white suburbs, what a different city New York (and most others in America) would be.

Thanks again, Brownstoner, for reminding me of the time back in the day.

Nostalgic on Park Avenue

This is a nice block and great house on the outside. Too bad it’s a 7-family. Anyone contacted the broker to confirm if it will be sold with the tenants in place? It’s really close to the trains..