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An eagle-eyed reader snapped this photo of some action at the mattress factory at 1901 8th Avenue. Why is this notable? It’s the same building that the Brookyn CoHousing group spent much of the last year planning to buy and renovate for their experiment in communal living. Unfortunately, though, the CoHousing deal is not a done one. From what we hear, the owner of the property ran out of patience as the bank kept raising the financing hurdles for the CoHousing group and sold the property to another buyer recently (nothing is filed in public records yet). As we understand it, there is still the possibility that the new owner could work something out with CoHousing, but in the meantime the group is still looking for alternative sites. On the jump, a photo of the interior of the mattress factory from a few months ago.
More Trouble for CoHousing Group [Brownstoner]
Banks Throw Co-Housing Project a Curveball [Brownstoner]

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  1. Anyone read the article in NY mag about co-housing? Some of it seems ridiculous. Someone describing NYC as a lonely place? Really? Do they leave the house? Do they make any kind of effort at all?

    They only have 16 people committed plus 7 provisional members. That’s only 1 more committed person in 5 months.
    Is it arrogant or naive to think that they can develop the property that they envision? Does anyone really think this will happen? I have to wonder why they can’t envision themselves becoming part of a community that already exists.
    “We expect to share resources & interests (for example share child care, offer some weekly common meals (optional), share tools, skills and interests etc) while each owning our own fully equipped private apartments.”

    What they are describing is living in an apartment building or simply getting to know your neighbors. Growing up in an apartment building, we did all those things. Living in a house in Queens, I did all those things as well. My neighbors and I helping each other in snow storms, floods and family deaths. This is what it means to be a neighbor.

    I don’t wish them ill and I don’t know why but the whole thing really gets me annoyed. Don’t they see that NYC, particularly these days, is the perfect place NOT to do this. There are hundreds of neighborhoods to live in. You need only to plant yourself and grow some roots. This just another version of a McMansion. A group deciding “what’s there is not enough.” We want it to be our way. More development, more building, more stress on the city infrastructure! Yay!

  2. Ha,
    good riddance.
    I still don’t understand the need to set up a “community” within a neighborhood. If you are so keen on creating a sense of community knock on your neighbor’s door and get to know them. Co-housing seems like a an idea best suited for a rural town, not a big city where people are already right next to each other. It’s like saying we want neighbors but not you people, who are already our neighbors.
    Also I doubt the new buyers are looking to get in to developing this property as a residence, they already have a manufacturing space on the opposite side of the block.

  3. denton, I wish I could believe you, but having spent time on a friend’s terrace which was on the other side of the Prospect Expressway between 8th and PPW, I can attest that it was really loud and gross.

  4. This seemed like a bad location for cohousing anyway. How many people interested in communal living and the environment would want to live RIGHT NEXT TO THE HIGHWAY? Noise, fumes, gross environment…

  5. the whole co-housting thing is eh. that is neither here nor there. ugh did i just say that? the CoHo peeps would have a shot of they acrtually focused on people in there demo. but they dont. some people could buy something maybe for 20K but how many eco-facist, greenie-meanies are you going going to find for half a million bux :-/

    *rob*