New York Magazine‘s Curbed asks “Why is 194 Columbia Heights Abandoned?” in an article that aims to solve Brooklyn Heights’ longest standing mystery. And who did they talk to about this vexing question and how did they find him? None other than our most prolific commenter Andrew Porter via the BHB Open Thread Wednesdays.
See excerpt below and read the entire article at this link. The upshot is that the owner, Austin Moore, is still alive and makes incremental repairs and payments for property tax arrears to stave off a foreclosure or demolition. Why doesn’t he just sell the damn house? Nobody knows.
This kind of thing would stand out in many parts of the city, but here? The house next door sold for $12 million in 2018. The incongruity of an abandoned eyesore in one of Brooklyn’s most desirable Zip Codes has become a point of obsession in the neighborhood — for more than 40 years. “It’s been like that since I came here,” says Andrew Porter, a writer who has lived in the same rent-controlled apartment nearby since 1969 and has been speculating over the condition of 194 Columbia Heights for nearly two decades as a frequent poster on the Brooklyn Heights Blog, which is itself fixated on the house (the site’s Open Thread Wednesdays are basically a clearinghouse for recent gossip). The neighborhood association has long been frustrated with the situation. The mailman has theories. No. 194 is the ultimate street-level mystery: In the most real-estate-obsessed city in the world, in one of its prime locations, with some of the fussiest residents, it seems incomprehensible that anyone would let a house like this rot. And for this long.
Photo from Google Maps.
