House of the Day: 540 16th Street
The owners of 540 16th Street have had a tough time trying to sell their house. By the time it was listed with Brooklyn Properties last August (when we wrote about it for the first time) for $1,350,000, it had already been on the market as a FSBO asking $1,550,000 and with a small local…
The owners of 540 16th Street have had a tough time trying to sell their house. By the time it was listed with Brooklyn Properties last August (when we wrote about it for the first time) for $1,350,000, it had already been on the market as a FSBO asking $1,550,000 and with a small local broker for $1,499,000. Last month, the sellers finally bailed on Brooklyn Properties (where a price cut to $1,299,000 had not been enough to get the job done) and gave the nod to Warren Lewis where they’re getting a fresh start with an asking price of $1,185,000. This has to be getting pretty close to the market-clearing price for this charming Arts and Crafts pad, don’t you think?
540 16th Street [Warren Lewis] GMAP P*Shark
I live in WT and while it’s not as grand on a whole as say north Park Slope, the diversity in architecture from block to block is stunning and lends a certain uniqueness to the neighborhood. From elegant Brownstones up by PPW to 100-year-old Queen Anne’s in south WT. The diversity of housing stock sometimes can vary dramatically not just block to block but house to house! As someone who rents in the area I can say there is definitely many things that are very appealing about WT.
The reason there are fewer comments is that sellers and agents in here are delusional. Why would a couple making 300K move to WT is beyond me. Such couples are becoming a rarity. NYers lost 50% of their income the last year alone.
I saw the house on 15th between 6/7th Aves a month or so ago. It is TINY. It really isn’t that renovated. The kitchen is OK, but the counters are used up butcher block, faded and stained. The cabinets are pretty dated-looking.
The front room is so small it can’t really function as much more than a formal living space that no one uses much. The back area with the dining room, kitchen and den area is the nicest part.
The hardest part about that place is the upstairs layout. There is one decent-sized bedroom, and then you walk through another bedroom to get to the one bathroom in the house, then there’s another tiny bedroom on the other side of the bathroom. It’s essentially a one bedroom + a couple of itty bitty rooms you could use as offices. No room for kids (of which I have two, so it was a no-go for us).
The basement needs some help as well. All in all, I really wanted to like it. It’s got fabulous curb appeal, in a good location, zoned for a school we like. But… it would never work for us with 2 kids.
By the way, this is all kind of moot. Originally I was thinking of a house between 3rd and 4th Ave. and saying it was not as nice a location, to me, as 16th St. near the park. I wasn’t originally even talking about air pollution, just everything about living near all that industrial activity – less trees, not as good for kids playing, no playgrounds over there, etc.) That’s all.
Sam, you have no idea where I live, but I do think trees help combat air pollution and I live on a street that has a ton of trees, gets maybe 3 cars an hour, and no FD trucks. It makes a difference. I don’t get that crazy black soot on everything that I got living in Manhattan and on 7th Avenue, or by the BQE, in years past. There have been studies of air quality at playground along highways and they have measured higher levels of particulates. There are other issues along the gowanus/3rd Avenue corridor as well, besides air pollution. But whatever. There are documented areas of the city that have more toxins than others – and I’m not saying any part of Brooklyn, or for that matter, the US, is clean. Some of the worst pollution is in rural (farming) areas. But I still don’t get why developers put up luxury hi-rises on 4th Ave, an industrial truck route, or the BQE. Maybe it’s just me.
Actually, the house on 16th is further away from prospect park west than I realized. Still, the house on PPSW is very far from the major stores and restaurants in WT — and certainly a hike to the Slope. (And if they are five blocks apart, it is a VERY long five blocks — in reality it is more than five.) It is right on the park, however, which has advantages and disadvantages. I live in the neighborhood. The two locations feel very different to me.
wtbound, i think it is wishful thinking on your part to think your block is less polluted than another half a mile away that is closer to the BQE or the Prospect Expressway or the Manhattan bridge. Brooklyn is blessed with fairly flat topography and close proximity to the bay and the ocean. we do not experience the continuous buildup of smog typical of other urban areas that are landlocked and surrounded by mountains or high hills. nonetheless pollutants are present on every residential street: the trucks, the buses, the idling cars, Fresh Direct! In fact “inland” neighborhoods such as Park Slope probably accumulate more particulates and pollution than places like Brooklyn Heights of Carroll Gardens, which always have a breeze off the water. Your ideas of micro-climate pollution are a little half-baked. I am afraid if one is genetically predisposed to certain types of lung cancer, it really does not matter a great deal whether you live on Flatbush Avenue or Berkeley Place.
Dude! Both houses are like 5 blocks away from each other! How can you call it a “very different location”? You crack me up!
Stringer — That’s a nice house but a very different location. Both a re Windsor Terrace but a fairly far apart. The house you referenced is essentially another subway stop away.