Gut-Renovated Townhouse in Bushwick Asks $1.3M
Welcome to the Brooklyn Townhouse Roundup, where we—you guessed it—take a look at the most notable Brooklyn townhouses on the market. Got tips?Send 'em here.
↑ First up is this newly gut-renovated townhouse in Bushwick. The house has wide-plank wood floors, sliding glass doors, high ceilings, and new spa baths with soaking tubs nad skylights. The kitchen has a sleek central island and modern cabinetry, with Viking and Liebher appliances. It also has a garden rental that generates around $2,300/month in income, and it's asking $1.349 million.
What $1,400/Month Can Rent You in New York City
Welcome to Curbed Comparisons, a column that explores what one can rent for a set dollar amount in various NYC neighborhoods. Is one man's studio another man's townhouse? Let's find out! Today's price: $1,400/month.
↑ In Washington Heights, on 159th Street, a studio apartment with an exposed brick wall is going for $1,375/month. It includes a separate kitchen with a checkered floor.
From Grand Parkway to Canyon of Mediocrity,
the Story of Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue
[A postcard depicting Fourth Avenue circa 1905.]
Over the years, Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue—which stretches for six miles from the Barclays Center to Bay Ridge—has gained the reputation of Brooklyn's worst thoroughfare. Bulky new development, limited commercial activity, and a wide, mostly treeless roadway earned it the nickname of the "Canyon of Mediocrity." What you would never guess walking down Fourth Avenue, however, is that it was once considered the Park Avenue of Brooklyn. Between 1896 and 1900, this thoroughfare was built out as a grand boulevard with paved streets, sidewalks, electric lights, and a lush landscaped median strip. The glory days of Fourth Avenue didn't last long; the construction of the subway lines in 1910 marked the beginning of the end.
Is This The End of the Brooklyn Bungalow?
[In Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay, the last Brooklyn bungalow colonies are facing a difficult future. All photos by Nathan Kensinger.]
Welcome back to Camera Obscura, Curbed's series of photo essays by Nathan Kensinger. This week, in the latest in a sequence of essays about New York City's vernacular architecture, Kensinger visits the vanishing bungalows of Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach.
As the final days of summer fade away and the city prepares to close down its beaches and pools, the sun is setting on yet another piece of New York's historic waterfront. Like the endangered wooden boardwalks along the shoreline of Coney Island and the Rockaways, many of the city's last summertime bungalow colonies are now facing a bleak future. Built in the same era as the boardwalks, these seasonal getaways once numbered in the thousands, but today most of New York's bungalows have disappeared from the coast. The few clusters that remain are now buckling under the combined pressures of redevelopment, storm damage, and the realities of global warming.
Harlem Is Becoming As Expensive As the Rest of Manhattan
StreetEasy's Market Report for July is out now, and while some of the data within isn't too surprising—resale prices for Manhattan and Brooklyn hit record highs, as did rents—there are some interesting (and possibly depressing) tidbits. Namely: Resale prices in Upper Manhattan (covering north-of-110th-Street neighborhoods like Harlem, Inwood, and Hamilton Heights) are on the rise, with an 11.9 percent increase from this time last year. Even though the median resale price there is lower than the rest of the borough, at $565,690, it's a significant jump from the same period last year. In a press release, Alan Lightfeldt, StreetEasy's data scientist, said "With homebuyers being priced out of not only Manhattan but many Brooklyn neighborhoods as well, these northern neighborhoods are attractive now more than ever.…Upper Manhattan is a new battleground for bidding wars." Yikes.
See the Subway Map Snake Through New York's Streetscape
The New York City subway map is about as abstract as it can get. Compared with the actual topography of the city, the shape of the boroughs is about on par with what an attention-short seven-year-old might draw when asked to replicate a real map of New York City. And maybe it's that disconnect that makes it so hard to envision the subway system beyond the poster that's plastered in every train car. But here comes map aficionado and Tumblr user Anorrian to change all that (h/t 6sqft.) Anorrian has overlaid the city's vast underground transportation network—including the incoming Second Avenue Subway, PATH, and 7-train extension—over photos taken from a commercial plane. The results are delightfully informative, unlike garbled MTA overhead announcements.
5 Homes You Can Buy Instead Of This $450K NYC Parking Spot
Welp, here it is: a listing for a six-digit parking spot, threatened bymany and feared by all. The $450,000 parking spot, unlike apartmentsof similar expense, does not come with a bathroom. It does not have a kitchen or a window; heck, it isn't even a legal place to sleep. No, it isjust a place to put a car at pricey Tribeca condo One York. In honor of this flourishing practice of pricing parking spots above many apartments, we're taking a trip around the Curbediverse to see where you can actually live—kitchen and all—for $450,000.
Open House NY 2015 Includes Google HQ, World's Fair Relic
Mark your calendars: the best weekend of fall 2015 will take place onOctober 17 and 18 when the annual Open House New Yorkextravaganza brings city dwellers inside dozens of significant buildings, private homes, and usually off-limits spaces. Many fan favorites will once again open their doors—including the Ford Foundation, Brooklyn Army Terminal, and Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant—and a slew of new sites are joining the fun. New additions include the recently renovated City Hall, Google's headquarters in Chelsea, the beloved World's Fair New York State Pavilion, several "architectural gems" on CUNY's Bronx Community College campus, and the National Lighthouse Museum on Staten Island.
Tracking NYC's Lost and Endangered Movie Theaters
Is it a bad time to be a cinephile in New York City? Earlier this week, theNew York Times reported that a new two-screen, 225-seat movie theater, called Metrograph, would be opening on Ludlow Street sometime early next year, with a lineup curated by veterans of the Museum of the Moving Image and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. ABrooklyn outpost of the Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse is scheduled to open in the City Point complex when that comes to fruition; similar theater-restaurant hybrids, like Nitehawk Cinemas, are thriving.
But that doesn't change the fact that movie theaters, particularly smaller indie cinemas, are disappearing from the city at an alarming pace—and the ones that remain are often in danger of redevelopment, or worse, totally shuttering. (In some cases, this leaves entire boroughs—like the Bronx—nearly devoid of cinemas altogether.) See which theaters have been affected by this downturn, and which ones may be next. Know of any that we missed? let us know in the comments or on the tipline.—Additional research and writing by Jessica Dailey
7 Lovely Dwellings In Jackson Heights Asking Less Than $1M
The average Manhattan home costs $1.8 million (and there are many that are way more expensive than that), but this isn't a city of millionaires just yet. Pockets of affordability do exist, and Curbed's new feature aims to highlight the loveliest homes on the market in these less expensive enclaves.
Jackson Heights—the Queens neighborhood bounded by Woodside, East Elmhurst, Corona, and Elmhurst—is the place to go for nice, even updated lodgings that don't cost an arm and a leg. According toStreetEasy, the average price per square foot for residential property in Jackson Heights is $413. Compare that to Clinton Hill ($724), Bedford Stuyvesant ($498), and even Woodside ($649). A large stretch of the neighborhood was landmarked as part of the Jackson Heights Historic District in 1993 (PDF!), which has imparted a delightful, historic architectural character on a large swath of the neighborhood. Now, here's what you can score for less than $1 million in the neighborhood's bounds.
World Trade Center Slurry Wall Might Be Leaking
[View of the slurry wall from within the September 11 Museum, where a portion has been left uncovered.]
A little leak may be a big problem for the World Trade Center site.DNAinfo has learned that the site's slurry wall, which is responsible for keeping the Hudson River separate from the cavernous underground infrastructure of the site, may be the source of a leak that workers have been investigating. Sources told DNAinfo that workers began to hear the sound of rushing (not dripping) water behind the walls of the lower concourse in areas not accessible by the public sometime within the last two weeks. Crews investigating the issue have begun dismantling parts of walls in search of the leak's origin. Although no one really knows if it's the 3,200-foot-long slurry wall that's leaking, some people fear that it wasn't properly insulateddespite the millions of dollars the Port Authority poured into repairing the wall since September 11.
Charting the Growth of NYC's Tallest Residential Towers
[The Waldorf Astoria was the tallest residential building in NYC for more than 50 years. Photo by Marco Rubino / Shutterstock.com.]
With its latest exhibit, "Ten Tops," the Skyscraper Museum is looking at the tallest buildings in the world—according to the parameters they've put into place, that means structures that exceed the 100-story mark, including One World Trade Center and the Empire State Building. Earlier this year, the museum launched a digital exhibition to accompany the IRL one, which includes a virtual timeline of the tallest structures throughout history. And now, they've created lists of "alternative" top tens—things like the top ten residential towers in New York City, or the tallest observation decks around the world—to show how supertall buildings are used globally.
Why NYC's Most Magnificent Cathedral Is Not Landmarked
[Photo by Kripaks/Wikimedia Commons.]
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights, ranks as one of the most impressive cathedrals not just in New York City, but in the world. The elaborate facade towers over Amsterdam Avenue and the building extends a full avenue block down to Morningside Drive. The interior is distinguished by Gothic and Romanesque details, with a massive central dome made of Guastavino tile and 45-foot-tall stained glass windows. It also holds the Guinness Book of World Records' title of 'Largest Cathedral in the World.' The St. John the Divine websitesums up its importance: "The Cathedral is more than 120 years old, and remains unfinished. Despite incomplete construction, it is the largest cathedral in the world, making it a global landmark."
Problem is, this building is not a designated New York City landmark. That means that New York's most significant cathedral—deemed by the Landmarks Preservation Commission as "one of the great religious structures of the world"—isn't protected by the city at all. It's not for lack of trying, as the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the cathedral in 2002, but the decision was overturned by the City Council in a greater attempt to landmark the entire, nearly 12-acre site. An inability to do that, however, left the cathedral unprotected and the grounds open for development, hence the two rental towersunder construction right next door.
Controversial Bill Could Wipe Out Landmarks Backlog
[Manhattan Municipal Building, where the LPC meets. Photograph by Evan Bindelglass.]
A bill making its way through the City Council would impose deadlines on the 50-year-old Landmarks Preservation Commission in regards to designating landmarks and historic districts. While its sponsor says the bill is supposed to make things more efficient and help the commission deal with its backlog, advocates are concerned that it would hamstring the LPC, and eliminate dozens of items that are being considered as landmarks.
Historic Townhouse in Bed-Stuy Has Lots of Nice Details
Welcome to the Brooklyn Townhouse Roundup, where we—you guessed it—take a look at the most notable Brooklyn townhouses on the market. Got tips?Send 'em here.
↑ First up is this four-story townhouse in Bed-Stuy. It's located in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District and has some very nice floor-to-ceiling woodwork, original stained glass, parquet floors, barrel windows, and pocket doors. It's currently set up for four families and it's asking $2.42 million.
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