Brick Underground features a story dissing our neighborhood and penned by “a real-life NYC landlord whose pseudonym is Craig Roche”. The headline: — Brooklyn Heights to Harlem: Escape from multi-million dollar mansions and unfriendly neighbors.
Friends, this one is as they say a real pip:
Brick Underground: But after a few years, the spell wore off. The 40-minute commute to Midtown was long, the restaurants on Montague street often mediocre, and leaving the neighborhood by car often meant losing a half hour to traffic and another twenty minutes to walk to the closest affordable garage.
In addition, lugging overpriced groceries several blocks and up multiple flights of stairs was uncomfortable, there was no place to put an A/C unit, and jogging through the neighborhood meant dodging thousand-dollar strollers, professional dog walkers, and the thick throngs of tourists on the Brooklyn Bridge, all while inhaling exhaust from the BQE.
Also, people were simply not friendly; I spoke around one word per year to my upstairs neighbor.
Oh it gets better, as we learn from “Roche” how wonderful life is up in Harlem:
Whole Foods should open soon too, making the area safe for UWS organic foodie refugee parents, and the quick walk to the 2/3 train on 135th and Sixth makes my trip to Midtown far faster than before–it takes about 20 minutes to get from Harlem to Times Square.
The neighborhood is far more diverse than Brooklyn Heights, both racially and economically; we’ve got financiers living on the same block as Section 8 recipients. People are far friendlier. I see plenty of “aspiring actresses” walking around at night.
And what sort of landlord is “Roche”? Here’s a passage from a piece he did on why he won’t use Craigslist or brokers to rent apartments in his building:
I’m not looking to have Section 8 tenants in my building, because I simply don’t have the time or energy to deal with a government bureaucracy that might or might not pay me, and to sit at home waiting for the apartment to be inspected. By carefully selecting who sees my ads (more on that below), I can filter out nearly all of the applicants who might be Section 8 tenants. Not so of a broker, especially since the common marketing strategy for brokers is to stick the apartment on Craigslist.
So, whaddya think?
