Brooklyn Heights Blog

The Brooklyn Eagle profiles 28 Middagh Street and its current owner Richard Carlson today.  The home which has undergone extensive renovation is up for sale, priced at $4.2 million.  Interested parties (and lookey loos) can check out the property during Open Houses held this and every Sunday between 2pm and 4:30pm.

Broker: Gabriel Ford for Brown Harris Stevens 718-858-3876

Two Trees has listed the super-fantastic Clocktower apartment at One Main Street in Dumbo for sale at $25 million dollars. Recession? Feh!

Check out the apartment in all its glory at clocktowerny.com . The New York Times wrote about this 3,000 sq foot triplex earlier this year.

The Brooklyn Eagle reports that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, whose massive landgrab and destruction of many brownstones in Brooklyn Heights was a catalyst of the landmark district movement here over 40 years ago,  has purchased more land in upstate Walkill, N.Y.

A spokesperson for the religious group, who in the eyes of many “saved” Brooklyn Heights when it flipped the neighborhood’s welfare hotels to dormitories in the 1970s, tells the paper that it’s “too early” to say whether the Watchtower will be pulling out of the neighborhood soon.

Brooklyn Eagle: “We have eight smaller buildings [in Brooklyn Heights] we have yet to sell,” Devine said. “Because of the market we are not actively promoting their sale. We’ve even started using the Bossert [Hotel] again on a limited basis.”

As previously reported in the Eagle, the Bossert was going to be acquired by Robert Levine, president and CEO of RAL Companies & Affiliates, and developer of the former Watchtower shipping complex at 360 Furman, but he backed out of the deal.

The other buildings still on the market include 165, 161 and 183 Columbia Heights, 105 Willow St. and 34 Orange St., all residential buildings that are now vacant except for some tenants that pre-existed Watchtower ownership.

The empty retail space at One Brooklyn Bridge Park (360 Furman Street), the former Watchtower building that has been converted to luxury condos, will soon be filled if the efforts of RAL Companies and Affiliates, who are charged with marketing the space, are successful.

The Real Deal: More than two years have passed since developer RAL Companies & Affiliates began marketing the 75,000-square foot retail space in its waterfront condominium conversion One Brooklyn Bridge Park…and it has yet to secure a tenant.

…

[However,] [w]ithin the past 45 days, two local “seasoned” restaurant operators and one high-end market that “caters to grocery needs and prepared foods” contacted RAL about the space, [Ian] Levine [COO and CFO of RAL] said. He declined to disclose the retailers’ names and would not specify about possible lease pricing.

According to the article, two factors have been identified as working against a commercial lease. The first is the present almost total lack of foot traffic on Furman. RAL hopes this will end when Brooklyn Bridge Park opens this winter. However, only Piers 1 and 6, at opposite ends of the Park, are slated to open then. The only foot traffic this is likely to generate on Furman consists of those who may wish to walk from one open end of the Park to the other, a distance of over half a mile, along the street. The second is the slow sale of residential units in One BBP, residents of which may also be customers of whatever retail locates in the ground floor. RAL is counting on price reductions on these units, perhaps along with car give-aways, turning the tide.

Curbed reports today that 280 Hicks Street,  owned by the estate of  the late Alfie Palmer, will be auctioned off on October 6 by the Kings County Public Administrator [PDF with info here].

Palmer was best know in Brooklyn Heights as the owner of 135 Joralemon Street which after being damaged by fire was dangerously close to “demolition by neglect”.  Contractor Howard Haimes bought and restored the property.  He sold it last November.

BHB contributor/author/Brooklyn Heights resident/Celine Dion’s #1 fan/Vanilla Ice expert Chuck Taylor dispatched this missive to us tonight:

I noticed on the way home today that the Heights Books space is being prepped for a new opening and asked the workers what was coming. They told me that Ricky’s next door is opening a temp Halloween costume shop!

Contractor/developer Ben Weiner tells the Brooklyn Eagle that his reno of 52 Sidney Place will be a work of “art” for the owners and he’s doing it without an architect:

Brooklyn Eagle:  “With all due respect to architects, you don’t always need one,” he said. “Everyone told me, ‘you can’t do it without an architect.’ But you can. The truth is, all you need is an engineer’s stamp.”

Brownstoner writes today about price reductions at One Brooklyn Bridge Park (aka 360 Furman):

Brownstoner: On the heels of the news that the developer of One Brooklyn Bridge Park has started renting out a small portion of the 300 or so units that remain vacant comes word of price reductions at 15 apartments in the fancy waterfront complex. The affected units range from a 589-square-foot one-bedroom that started out asking $500,000 last December before dropping to $415,000 in June and then $325,000 last week (35 percent off peak!) to a 2,295-square-foot four-bedroom that started out at $2,750,000 before going to $2,295,000 and now $1,995,000. Are these levels starting to get interesting yet?

Neil Freeman is an urban planner, artist, and Brooklyn resident. His work appears on his website, fake is the new real. Thanks to Urban Omnibus, we’ve been alerted to a project of Freeman’s that should be of interest to all Brooklynites, including Heights residents. This is his “Brooklyn Typology. ” In Freeman’s words:

Brookyn Typology is an investigation of borough’s population and urban form. It consists of 2100 photographs taken in a sample of blockgroups in Brooklyn, plus detailed Census, historical, and typological data about the residential and housing in area. Together, the interlinked photographs and
data form a portrait of the urban fabric of Brooklyn.

Two of the “blockgroups” included in “Brooklyn Typology” are in the Heights: tract 3.01, blockgroup 1, consisting of the area bounded by Pineapple Street on the north, Hicks Street on the east, Pierrepont Street on the south, and Willow Street on the west; and tract 5, blockgroup 2 bounded by Pierrepont on the north, Clinton Street on the east, Joralemon Street on the south, and Henry Street on the west. Read more »

Long time Brooklyn Heights resident Robert Nocco left the rent controlled apartment at 222 Henry Street that he lived in for most of his life in June after losing a court case against his landlord. The New York Times wrote about the battle from both sides of the story.

New York Times: Even then, however, the case did not draw to a close. Mr. Nocco was poised to make another court challenge when he and [the building's owner, Dexter] Mr. Guerrieri negotiated a settlement, said by participants to be “in the very low six figures.” In late June, Mr. Nocco moved out.

Mr. Leavitt said he was confident that the ruling would have been overturned by the courts, because Mr. Guerrieri’s case was hampered by the difficulty of finding records dating back 20 and 30 years. But he said that in the end, Mr. Nocco had wanted to settle, to get on with his life.

“How can we defend ourselves 30 years after the fact?” Mr. Leavitt asked. “It is a very tragic, terrible thing the landlord has done to a family that has lived in Brooklyn Heights for 50 years.”