Open House Picks: Houses

Went to Clifton Pl today and while the house as it sold in March was in awful shape and at least is now structurally better, I doubt it’ll get anywhere near ask. Painted over original hardware on the remaining doors on the parlor floor, new T&G flooring throughout (the original was probably unsalvageable), no remaining newel or spindles (completely new staircase – the original was probably shot), suburban panel doors elsewhere, original plaster brackets upstairs removed and replaced by imitation curves cut in sheetrock, garden floor unavailable for viewing. It’s not that difficult to find acceptable salvage spindles, newels and doors; replicating floor borders and laying T&G diagonally inside them isn’t that big a deal; and replica plaster brackets aren’t that expensive. If they were going to salvage SOME of the detail, it seems a shame not to put the energy into doing the rest of the house to match. Either that or go completely modern, but this is a hodgepodge. And why show a house when one floor is inaccessible?

I’ve looked at the BS house a few times now — it backs onto the parking lot for the Risley Dent Towers on Fulton St, most recently famous for being shot up in May out front.

The adjoining neighbours seem to be more or less using their backyards, don’t have barbed wire on their fences, etc. What do people think about investing in a lovely block of Stuyvesant Heights that happens to be attached to a Fulton st public housing development? (At that price or any.)

At night it seems quiet enough out back there, but it ain’t summer or anything. Thoughts? What about the walk from Kingston-Throop at night?

what about cobble hill.

its more expensive

10:24 Actually many people I know send their kids to PS 11 or PS 20. I doubt the Clifton Street house is zoned for either. Folks in Clinton Hill are going exactly what folks in other NYC nieghborhoods have done – try to make the local schools work, and if not satisfied snag a spot elswjere. I tried PS 20 last year for my son in pre-K, and was dissatisfied with the tone and direction of the school (too regimented and the principal was painfully clueless). Some kids we knew stayed, while others went to Brooklyn New School, PS 261 (like us), Roots Community Charter, or even to the East Village. PS 11 seems to be getting more attention now (altho to be honest the pendulum seems to swing back in forth between the two, rather desperately each year). Making a school better is a very long term project, and it is clear to me that the process is going on in Clinton Hill, but no, of course there is no school as good as the 321 or the schools I mentioned as options. My local school, PS 56, while orderly, wasn’t even an option.

I find it very odd for many Park Slopers (or perhaps teenagers from Akron!) to frame the pricing of a house in terms of what the price should be. Price is only what gets something sold. Again the market for “overpriced” (in some sort of gut, no way can a house really be worth that much, unless we are suddenly in Weimer Germany sort of way) houses in Park Slope is probably bigger than the market for “overpriced” houses in Clinton Hill, but Clinton Hill is much smaller and has many fewer houses on the market.

There are things that drive me crazy about both neighborhoods. Perhaps I am a bit of an adrenalin junkie, however, and I always get a little sleepy when I visit Park Slope. (Of course I am awake right now because of an argument between a whore, a john and her pimp as well as an alarm from a Masonic Temple which has been going off for a hour and halfs – anyone have a bed I crash in on Garfield Street for a couple hours).

Yawn. Actually I think I have lulled myself to sleep with the discussion.