House of the Day: 78 Halsey Street
As long as it doesn’t turn out to be an SRO with no interior architectural detail, the listing for 78 Halsey Street looks looks interesting if it could be picked up at a slight discount to the $799,000 asking price. The four-story brick and stone house has lost a stoop and looks worse for the…
As long as it doesn’t turn out to be an SRO with no interior architectural detail, the listing for 78 Halsey Street looks looks interesting if it could be picked up at a slight discount to the $799,000 asking price. The four-story brick and stone house has lost a stoop and looks worse for the wear but it’s a beautiful structure very conveniently located a block from the Nostrand A train. The New York Times listing says it’s an eight-family house; Property Shark says six. Either way, there are at least three tenants still in place, not great news for someone who wants to buy and condo the building. Anyone know what the deal is with the interior and the tenants?
87 Halsey Street [NYC Group] GMAP P*Shark
Thanks, Montrose Morris, for identifying the building in the background as the Alhambra. I thought it looked familiar.
Fifty years ago, my parents had a friend who lived there. He was an artist who had a studio in his apartment, which I remember as a rambling place with a winding hallway and tall windows. The place looked like something out of Vienna in 1900 with heavy curtains, rugs, and kilm-covered sofas.
The artist was elderly and very kind to us kids. Whenever we visited with our parents, he never seemed concerned about us rummaging around his easels and paints. (In fact, we were encouraged to paint and sketch to our hearts content while the adults socialized.)
There were lots of artists, writers, and poets living in Crown Heights and its vicinity back then, including Paule Marshall, the Jamaican writer who is still alive, I believe, and made this part of Brooklyn the subject of a book, called, if I remember correctly, “Brownstones, Brown Girl.”
In the 1950s, many Crown Heights livingrooms served as salons, where poetry, plays, and books were read by their authors. One woman had a gallery in her big apartment on St. Marks Avenue, where local artists displayed their work. Lots of culture. Lots of good talk. And because most artists had families in those days, lots of kids mixing with the adults, learning about the world.
I was saddened to see the condition of the Alhambra when I drove by years ago, but now it seems in better shape than ever. When I was a kid, buildings like it, although grand, were going down hill, which probably made them affordable to people like the artist. The last time I saw it, it may even have been abandoned.
What happened? And is it a landmark? Of all the buildings in NYC, it must be — or should be. Indeed, the way it nestles against those beautiful brownstones in the photo’s foreground, the whole block should be landmarked.
Nostalgic on Park Avenue
4:52, that remark is so beneath commenting on. Your only reason to post that is to see the flames of righteous indignation rise up. Not biting, today.
4:52, I don’t want to buy this building either, but I live a block away and I assure you that you are grossly misrepresenting the population around here. Not that you care.
“That’s all good, but consider the people in the neighborhood. They litter all over the streets, don’t clean up after their dogs, walk around with their pants sagging, speak terrible english, use drugs, have terrible diets and are not educated.”
You seem to know a lot about the place. You must spend a lot of time there. Or are you relying on heresay?
“HAVE A LITTLE VISION PEOPLE! This is a multi-family, 4 story house with a gorgeous facade, on a great block right on top of the express A train.”
That’s all good, but consider the people in the neighborhood. They litter all over the streets, don’t clean up after their dogs, walk around with their pants sagging, speak terrible english, use drugs, have terrible diets and are not educated.
Why would a person who saved their well-earned money take the risk to live around these people? That kind of environment is depressing.
“Oh aren’t we high on our little class horse today 3:35. Not all poor people are cretins and FYI – many ‘middle class’ people are moving into stabablized apartments now.”
Oh. You mean like folks like Ex-preppy/drug addict/killer/cocaine salesman Robert Chambers and other fine folks like Mick Jagger’s ex, right?
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h4DjoJu_LoxIg7VCtKuQWI79gY1wD8TGLHF80
From my experience the very worst, frustrated communist, fucktard tenants are
in the Upper West Side and in Brooklyn Heights. They have the resources to keep you in court for generations.
HAVE A LITTLE VISION PEOPLE! This is a multi-family, 4 story house with a gorgeous facade, on a great block right on top of the express A train. Under 1 mil. You don’t think someone will know what to do with it?
It is well known that the only way to make money with rent regulated buildings in the hood is to be a slumlord.
That means putting no money in the building, and providing the absolute minimum services just to avoid being fined.
The rents are so low they don’t pay for any unkeep. Tenants frequently default, and eviction is impossible.
There are frequent sanitation violates which also go back to the landlord.