Open House Picks
Boerum Hill 394 Pacific Street Nancy McKiernan Sunday 12:30-2:30 $1,825,000 GMAP P*Shark Ditmas Park 520 East 23rd Street Warren Lewis Sunday 1-3 $1,150,000 GMAP P*Shark Ditmas Park 547 Argyle Road Urban Living Int’l Sunday 11-12 $999,000 GMAP P*Shark Prospect Lefferts 185 Ocean Avenue also on Planet PLG Brown Harris Stevens Sunday 2-4 $889,000 GMAP P*Shark…
Boerum Hill
394 Pacific Street
Nancy McKiernan
Sunday 12:30-2:30
$1,825,000
GMAP P*Shark
Ditmas Park
520 East 23rd Street
Warren Lewis
Sunday 1-3
$1,150,000
GMAP P*Shark
Ditmas Park
547 Argyle Road
Urban Living Int’l
Sunday 11-12
$999,000
GMAP P*Shark
Prospect Lefferts
185 Ocean Avenue also on Planet PLG
Brown Harris Stevens
Sunday 2-4
$889,000
GMAP P*Shark
Bedford Stuyvesant
834 Putnam Avenue
Corcoran
Sunday 2:30-4
$735,000
GMAP P*Shark
All this nonsense about a fire provokes me to finally to enter this discussion as one who owns one of the Ocean Avenue limestones. My family and I have been on this block for nearly 20 years, knew the owners of 185 Ocean before the present ones and are very good friends with the present owners. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a fire in any of the 13 private homes on this strip in the entire time I’ve lived here. I can’t imagine what makes Anon 2:13 “pretty sure the Ocean Avenue place was damaged by fire. . . ” Sigh.
At any rate, for those who want to know from someone who actually lives here and whose home is NOT on the market, here’s my take: This is a great block! With Prospect Park as our front yard, beautiful residences, “small town” type relations between residents, and situated between 2 major train stops, it has always been an absolutely wonderful place to call home. The homes here, especially the limestones, tend to be larger than most in PLG/LM. Because they are not subject to the LM’s restrictive covenant, can be tapped for rental income. As Bob M. has noted, turnovers on this strip are quite rare.
On the negative, well, there’s no doubt that I wish the MTA did not run along the rear perimeter of my property. Still, it’s amazing how much we have learned to incorporate the fact of the subway into our lives. I can honestly say that I rarely notice the sound of the train coming and going. It’s just a fact of living here. Also, Ocean Ave most certainly IS a major street. Therefore, if you have a big problem with traffic, this is NOT the street for you. At the very least, parking will be an issue. (But won’t be for whomever buys 185 as it has it’s own 2-car garage). As for the rest of us with cars, we either park them at a major indoor garage around the corner on Flatbush or across the street in the Park’s lot.
In nearly 2 decades of living here, neither I nor anyone in my family has ever been the victim of a street crime here. We have been the object of several burglary attempts over this span of years. But, that’s why we have ADT. Bottom line is that no attempt to break in has ever been successful and, in recent years, there have not even been any attempts to break-in.
Meanwhile, things are changing very rapidly for the better all over PLG, but especially on Ocean Avenue. The apartment buildings on the two blocks bordering the park between Parkside and Lincoln used to be filled with large, luxury apartments. Then, beginning in the 70’s, the block went through a serious decline. In the new millenium, these buildings are coming back. Yes, there is a hip, new, diverse crowd of singles, couples and families that are moving into these big buildings. Several of these large buildings are turning coop and condo. We have a very strong association of both private homeowners and a larger, block association that includes both private homeowners and apartment building dwellers. Add to this, the coming of the new Lakeside Center. I could go on, but I think you get the picture that, having once been down, this is a nabe and block that is very much on the upswing.
In the end, you certainly need not take my word for it. Just check out PLG for yourself and confirm my account by walking our streets and actually talking with the people who live here and who do business in this community. At that point, you will have a heck of alot more basis to form an opinion than that offered by some lunatic troll.
Some people like open kitchens. I live in a townhouse condo, and that was actually one of my requirements when I was apartment hunting — that the kitchen be open to the living/dining area. It’s better for casual entertaining so you’re not shut off from your guests in a separate room. Also, it means you can have a galley-size kitchen without feeling claustrophobic, which would be the case if there were a wall or even a pass-through. (Thankfully, my kitchen is significantly nicer than this one!)
According to Property Shark, this house was last sold in 2001. The fire may have occurred prior to this. Don’t be so paranoid.
I love the wall colors in the Ditmas house on E. 23rd. Not the orange sherbert color so much, but LOVE the green, and the brown, especially with the white trim and moldings. Those kinds of moldings set off unique paint colors so nicely. And breaks up the color on the wall so you can choose an intense color and it’s not overwhelming.
Anon 2:13,
Must have been before my time–I’ve only been in PLG for a generation or so 🙂
Ummm, what does Brooklyn Propertes now about marketing or consulting for that matter. Just look at the stuff they have on the market now. It’s not appealling and it’s not selling! You have to know the market and be knowledgable of trends to be considered a developers consultant. To call themselves marketers??? There banners are logos are laughable, and they steel marketing material (they basically ripped off the liberty brochure from A&H for their project on St.Marks) Why would they take a project that’s overpriced (the florentine) that Corcoran couldn’t sell? Because they need some crap to fill up there corny web-site.
“The problem is that the young, hip crowd in question is made up mostly of young, hip drug dealers.”
Go spread your fear somewhere else. This could not be farther from the truth. Why don’t you actually visit a place before you slam it. Sheesh!
The lovely garden a previous poster wrote of is long gone — the buiding is already half finished. The garden had been beautiful — old trees and lovely plantings. It was replaced at the rear by a weird Japanese-y waterfall/stone terrace kind of set up. The building itself is now under construction, though it’s hard to tell what it’s going to look like (seems like it might have balconies on the front, perhaps?). It is at least consistent in terms of height with the buildings next door, with windows of consistent size, etc. This block is very stylistically mixed architecturally, unlike South Oxford and South Portland, a block or two over — there are brick row houses and brownstones and a handful of frame buildings and a couple of large apartment houses, too. Some of it is gentrified but there are still a few houses that seem to be split into small apartments, covered with weird siding, etc. There’s also a condo development going on in what used to be a church and its adjacent house on the block. It’s a landmarked block but that hasn’t prevented at least one modern monstrosity, a two-storey, bright red brick so-called “carriage house” that went up about three years ago, a big part of the facade of which is taken up by a garage entrance. Don’t know how that one got approved.
This whole lot used to be a gorgeous garden – I used to walk past it every day when I first moved to the neighborhood because it was so pretty. I’m glad some of it will salvaged for the back of the new building. I was heartbroken when they started construction.