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March 23, 2006
Set Speed Condo Report: 364 Myrtle Avenue
Today's new condo reports focuses on a development that has been profiled on Brownstoner before. Located on a busy commercial stretch of Myrtle Avenue between Clermont and Adelphi, lies this unique 4 story building. Featuring angled windows to take advantage of light and outdoor spaces, this new construction attempts to set itself apart from the others.
The site consists of one commercial condo and three large floor-thru duplex condominium units. The ground floor commercial unit measures in at just under 2000 square feet for $994K, while the other three units are 1533-1688 square feet and cost $877K, $890K and $919K. The residential units have 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Maintenance is about $260 a month.
Units feature 17 foot high ceilings, large gourmet kitchens with stainless steel appliances, en-suite bathrooms, spacious closets and laundry hook-ups. This condo is located close to many amenities, like supermarkets, restaurants, bars and hardware stores. But as last week's two shootings attest, the area still contains some rough spots. An open house is scheduled March 26 from 12:30 to 3:30pm.
364 Myrtle Avenue [Corcoran] GMAP
New Building on Myrtle [Brownstoner]
Every Thursday, ltjbukem, whose own blog Set Speed scrutinizes the progress and quality of new developments in the area we know as Brownstone Brooklyn, pens a guest post about goings-on in the condo market with an emphasis on new projects.
Comments
Re the shooting. . . it's the perennial problem of having the Ingersoll and Whitman Houses off of Myrtle behind Fort Green park. Someone posted about how Scarano is planning some renovations at those projects. If you go to the Scarano site, there is an overview of what is planned. When you see the aerial view of the projects' site, it makes you wonder what the planners were thinking when they took some prime close to the water land opposite a park and created a segregated ghetto. I wonder what used to be there. It would have been a grand main entrance to FG park back in the day I'd imagine...
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 12:00 PM
why doesn't this broker have his photo on the corcoran.com website? makes me suspicious!
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 12:19 PM
Anon 12:00, you can thank our former Mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia. He was instrumental in shaping NYC as we know it today. LaGuardia and Robert Moses built the East River Drive, the Henry Hudson, Grand Central, Cross Island, Gowanus and Interborough Parkways, the Triborough Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Queens Midtown Tunnel, Marine Parkway, public-housing projects and much more.
The Ingersoll-Whitman Houses were built in 1941 and was orginally known as the Fort Greene Houses. The location was chosen, in part, because of its proximity to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where residents, it was thought, would likely be employed. The ending of the war and the downsizing of the Navy Yard pretty much killed that idea.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 12:34 PM
Wonderful...they are renovating the projects. What a great use of public money.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 12:37 PM
Anon 12:19, what do you think is the reason?
Cause he has four legs and a tail?
It makes you suspicious?
Wow!!!
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:02 PM
is this scarano website a joke? PLEASE tell me they are not renovating the projects and making them even taller! Knock them down is more like it! Relocate from prime waterfront property. Seriously!
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:11 PM
is this scarano website a joke? PLEASE tell me they are not renovating the projects and making them even taller! Knock them down is more like it! Relocate from prime waterfront property. Seriously!
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:11 PM
Good idea! Let's knock down the projects, replace them with luxury condos, and move all the poor people to reservations in Montanna. Or maybe there's room for them in New Orleans now.
Really, get a grip.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:22 PM
Anon 1:22, don't waste your time or key-stroke. Some people are just plain stupid and not worth the effort. Find another blog because this one seems to be littered with a lot of idiots.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:26 PM
Oh give me a break. Projects should not be on prime property. You know it, I know it. Not going to get in to the pros and cons of the actual projects debate, but one thing is for sure, they should not be on Brooklyns waterfront
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:26 PM
Agreed 1:26pm...what we need is some Chicago style politics and tear the damn things down like they did Cabrini Green...these people don't even need to be in the city as I believe that unemployment runs circa 50+% in the Whitman Houses...people like 1:22 and the first 1:26 are the ones who need to "get a grip" and face the reality that there's no need or room for this garbage in NYC...go checkout the park on a summer weekend - wow really need to have those people around...
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:34 PM
I agree with 1:26 to the extent that there shouldn't be any projects at all. They should be replaced by mixed income housing, with 80% of units set aside for low and middle income residents. That de-ghetto-izes the housing and creates a healthy mix of incomes for the area. However, there is no question that the residents of the projects have a hell of a lot more claim to living there than you or I do. They've been there a long time. Might I remind you that this is Brooklyn--land of many poor people. No amount of gentrification can or should change that.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:35 PM
anon 1:22, 1:26. The projects are failed social policy. No one today would suggest that the best way to provide affordable housing for the poor or facilitate upward mobility is to house all the poor in giant ghettos. If the projects are in disrepair they should be torn down.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:37 PM
1:37, I (posts 1:22 and 1:35) agree, as I said in the last post. Projects are failed. But, as was done in Chicago, the residents need to stay where they are--mixed with other income groups so as not to create a poor people prison.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:39 PM
And here I was thinking we were in the free north...your moving to Brooklyn is not curing urban blight. Your attitude is one of the major factors in creating urban blight. Your solution to unemployment is not jobs, but ethnic cleansing?
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:40 PM
The arrogance of some you gentrifiers, or wannabe gentrifiers, is simply amazing. Those projects were there long before many of you were even thought of! Now you've decided you want to live on "prime property" in the 'hood and you think it's time for the wholesale displacement of people who have been living there for decades.
And then you wonder why the locals are resentful when you arrive with your new found it's-hip-to-be-here-attitudes.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:43 PM
1:43 People had houses on that property before the projects. They were knocked down to make room for the bqe and then the projects were built. Also there are plenty of locals in the neighborhood who have lived here for years that don't like the projects either.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:48 PM
Yeah 1:43! I am glad the projects are here having been a resident of the neighborhood and yes brownstone owner, because it keeps more of these kind of people (the gentrifiers) away!
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:48 PM
"Arrogance" is the right word. Or maybe hubris. Do you people really believe that money alone is going wipe poor people out of "prime property"? Please. You have no clue what Brooklyn is. You can build your condos and open your hip stores, but there will always be poor people and shootings right around the corner.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:49 PM
great post 1:49 Let's celebrate what Brooklyn is all about poor people shooting each other.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:54 PM
yep...that's what it should really be about...I've been here longer...and by being here longer I've had more time to turn this area into a wasteland of crime, drugs. unemployment, destruction of public property that my taxes (oops I don't pay any taxes because I don't work but it's not my fault) pay for...you are all absolutely right - its the gentrifiers who are evil - yes evil I tell you - with their jobs and their dislike of crime...
You know what we should do...let's have every other cities projects move here ...would that make all of you happy...then we'd have twice as much local color that made this area so wonderful and "lively" in the '70s...oh but you're all too young to remember that aren't you...
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 1:58 PM
time to talk about what this post is really about..the prices are large, but the spaces are large also..psf is in the 500 range...decent, it seems for this neighborhood.
if some of the coops on clinton/myrtle/willoughby are getting 500, these units deserve them also.
plus aren't there supposed to be some condos built on myrtle/carlton soon anyhow? i think this is the first of several good things for myrtle.
Posted by: ltjbukem at March 23, 2006 2:00 PM
love your following, brownstoner; these people are real gems. lucky for them, they can all hide behind "anonymous." the only garbage that need be eradicated from brooklyn are the racist, classist, gentrifying self-entitled a-holes who peruse this site.
Posted by: huh? at March 23, 2006 2:04 PM
I LOVED brooklyn in the '70's thanks. It was an amazing creative fun place. I was in my early 20's, and it was a great place to be. You people are so unbelievably racist and narrow-minded that it boggles the mind.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 2:05 PM
"They've been there a long time. Might I remind you that this is Brooklyn--land of many poor people. No amount of gentrification can or should change that."
I disagree. Gentrification has resulted in many concrete improvements: lower crime rates, less garbage on the streets, quieter nights, better schools. Like it or not, poor people carry a lot of baggage and once they are gone things always improve.
I also disagree with anon 1:49. There will not always be violence in the area. As wealthier elements move in and displace the poor, the projects will be further isolated, as they have in Carroll Gardens. While I agree with the poster advocating the Chicago-style demolition and mixed-income housing, I think that good old-fashioned gentrification will do the job soon enough.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 2:05 PM
Why is everyone so quick to jump on the racism accusation? Kindly point to any of the above posts that mentioned a specific race and then we can talk. People are taking issue with behavior, not race.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 2:14 PM
huh? I believe the only time race has been mentioned in this thread was by anon 1:40 who seems to share your sympathies.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 2:16 PM
Okay, folks time to back away from the keyboards. First of all when the projects were built they were not designed to be "low income" housing but were thought of as a way to get people out of tenements and provide new modern housing for working class folks. Many of them had great amenities like dry cleaners, supermarkets, movie theaters, etc. (Albany Projects has a swimming pool). Vestiges of this can be seen in the one story structures located right in front of the projects on Myrtle Avenue. Some also had community centers, child care centers or schools within the boundaries.
The reason that they developed into the ghettos you see today has to do with the economic and social changes that occurred in New York between the end of WWII and the early 70's. In Ingersoll and Whitman, many people left as jobs left the Navy Yard. As Brooklyn began to change in the 50's and 60's and become blacker and browner, so did the projects. As the fiscal crisis hit the city, all services, especially those delivered to the poorest started to erode and folks found themselves living in communities that were vastly unlike the reality of the projects twenty years prior. People who could leave did leave, and those left behind became victims of the cycle of poverty and drugs that has been synonymous with living in the projects since the 70's.
Yes, its prime real estate, but those projects are also the homes of many folks who’ve lived in this community through all the bad times. Do projects work? Clearly, most of those in NYC have not. However, I’d submit that the best way to deal with housing for the poor is to integrate it throughout the city. Build more townhouse style projects and design them for a range of folks from welfare recipients to those making less than $100k per year. But to say “Well this is waterfront property so kick those lazy poor folks out” is wrong. Those folks are here because they lived here when no one else would. We all need to deal with that.
Posted by: Oh Lord! at March 23, 2006 2:17 PM
wow. this is some crazy stupid mudslinging.
this discussion about the projects doesn't really pit new gentrifiers (who don't like projects) against longtime locals (who do)-- I think most people who study urban housing agree that projects don't work well for the people who live in them, nor do they benefit the surrounding areas (as anon 1:37 said). so both sides should be able to agree on that much at least.
then the question is- what would be a better solution? And locals & gentrifiers may disagree somewhat about that, but I don't think there are too many people who read this site who'd want to literally just make this area unaffordable to the people who currently live in the projects.
We need to mix in some decent affordable housing, to make a better alternative...
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 2:18 PM
why "lucky for them"? is that some implicit threat of violence...why the assumption too of racism? are you assuming that only white people don't like the residents of the projects? that's right no african-american could have written that because we're all so enlightened at not racist in the least
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 2:18 PM
Why is talk of eradicating projects considered "racist". Its a failed system, point blank. And free housing should not be located on some of the boroughs most prime property. Its really quite simple. If these projects were producing great results, or improving the lives of its residents, it would be one thing. But last I checked, the vast majority end up in this horrible cycle. HIV, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, etc, are NOT falling in the projects. Check your facts before you slam people for wanting to end a failed system. Last time I checked, this was not a communist nation- and free housing- no matter what the color of the residents is- shouldn't be on the waterfront.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 2:20 PM
Can't we all just get along?
Posted by: x at March 23, 2006 2:32 PM
It will be interesting to see how these condos are received on Myrtle.
Will those that can afford these be ok with living on a commercial strip - especially one that isn't known for its beauty.
The extra noise of avenue, not a place where you can send kids out to sidewalk to play with nextdoor neighbors, etc.
Let's see if the dramatic space and relatively decent per sq ft. price will get them.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 2:37 PM
To anon 2:16,
Race was also mentioned in anon 2:04 and 2:05.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 2:50 PM
Is it true that the projects are already half empty?
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 2:53 PM
What about the PJs on the lower east side? They certainly havent put a dent in the exponential real estate growth in that area. What about the PJs on the upper east side (spanish harlem, 96th to 100th). No dent in the rent there.
It seems to me that the class differences don't make for lower real estate prices. They do make for higher taxes, and they certainly do make for people getting bought out and/or evicted (depending on whether the slumlord sells it vacant or not; or keeps it himself, evicts, and makes the $$$$).
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 3:02 PM
The timing of this thread was too good to pass by. I'm in a play that will open at the Paul Robeson Theatre (Greene Avenue @ Adelphi) on April 20. It's called "Cabrini-Greene" and explores an interracial couple who lives in mixed-income housing. One spouse wants to stay the other wants to move. Call the theatre for more details.
Posted by: Brooklyn Actor at March 23, 2006 3:08 PM
Oh Lord excellent post re: history of public housing.
Personally I have no idea why people advocate the destruction of these 'projects', from a Real Estate perspective there generally is nothing wrong with them. In fact the 'plans' are generally identical to (what has become) luxurious Stuy Town/Peter Cooper Village and (what has returned to) middle class Parkchester.
The problem is that the projects based on both their design and horrible policies have become vast ghettos of poor and unempolyed which tend to reinforce this plight often due to the developments actually being designed to be a 'complete communities'(which doesnt work if the complete community is largely unemployed and/or poor and under educated).
While our 'new urbanism' taste might want vast rows of brownstones and low density in place of the projects - the most realistic solution might be to convert 50-75% of these projects to market rate/more upscale apartments and take the income/profit and build more mixed income properties to make up the difference.
Of course none of this is going to happen anyway.
Posted by: David at March 23, 2006 3:24 PM
BTW - the world is definetly coming to an end when $550 a sq ft on Myrtle Ave (projects or not) somehow seems normal.
Posted by: David at March 23, 2006 3:28 PM
I find it interesting that there's a healthy handful of readers and commenters who constantly point the finger at b'stoner regulars and their elitist views, when in fact it seems that they too are regulars and balance it all out with their extreme leftist views - I wouldn't castigate the site if I were you - you are part of this community too. Also, I'll bet the residents of these hallowed projects probably don't like them very much either. If polled, I would imagine that many heads of those households (probably women) would love a mixed income environment. just a thought.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 3:34 PM
back to the point of it all: I can't believe they can charge that much on myrtle. it's not exactly a charming street...
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 3:36 PM
Brownstoner, is this the marketing help your friend asked for?
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 3:45 PM
News Flash: A lot of people in the projects have jobs. I know, it's shocking but as a reader of a real estate blog you might have noticed that real estate in this town is expensive. I have several friends - college educated and fully employed - who live at home in the projects they grew up in with their families (now paying market rent) b/c where else can one get a two bedroom for $700? For those without resources to buy, who are saving up to buy, or who don't want to spend 50% of their incomes on rent, the projects of their youth might not be as bad as an outsider would think. There are numerous inconveniences - like random police raids in the middle of the night, dealing with criminal minded or inconsiderate neighbors - and in an ideal world most wouldn't live there, but there are worse options. While the projects might ruin your dreams of a utopian Brooklyn, they serve a purpose that is much more useful, providing affordable housing in an unaffordable city. You want to tear down the project, fine as long as newer, better affordable housing replaces them.
Posted by: Big D at March 23, 2006 3:47 PM
David said: "BTW - the world is definetly coming to an end when $550 a sq ft on Myrtle Ave (projects or not) somehow seems normal."
it's all relative, though. i'm sure ppl thought the same thing when they found out clinton ave coops were selling for over $450 psf..
or when studios at the griffin are going for over $600 psf..
whodathunkit??
Posted by: ltjbukem at March 23, 2006 3:50 PM
I also think the place seems expensive. I've heard rumors of other condos coming up on myrtle. Is it possible that the developer of this one is counting on others?
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 3:52 PM
what shootings?
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 4:00 PM
http://www.corcoran.com/property/listing.aspx?Region=NYC&ListingID=834605
and this is the listing for the lofts right next door. 2 per floor plus a big commercial space in what used to be a burnt-out pharmacy.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 4:03 PM
Cop shootings!
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 4:12 PM
Thank you, Oh Lord, you took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to post much of the same, but had to go to a meeting - pesky job!!!!
I'm really loving all the elitists who are more upset that projects exist on prime land, than are upset that projects exist. I'm so glad that wealthy people are the only ones deserving of a good view, or living on prime land. I know developers, as well as location hungry yuppies curse the day the city built housing developments in Chelsea, lower Manhattan, on the Upper West Side, and the killer - behind Lincoln Center. And now Brooklyn!!!!
Oh those damn poor people! With their kids and their loud music and the crime and unemployment, and poverty, and their love of fried chicken and junk food. How dare they take up valuable space, where sensitive souls with money, sophistication and taste should be living. Why something should be done! I know, we'll bulldoze the projects, and replace them with luxury condos with river views, a park, and a Viking range and Sub Zero fridge in every apartment. We'll fill all those condos with well educated, attractive youngish people with good jobs in finance, advertising and publishing, and they'll all have one child, who will play in the new riverside park with his/her peers, and will attend the new private school that will be built on the premises.
All those pesky poor people who used to live there? Well, they'll survive, they always do. The more tractable and trainable will be housekeepers and nannies and groundsmen and drivers. The rest can go to the jails - oh! not the one on Atlantic - that's condos too! Or somewhere, we don't care, it's not our problem, and it's their fault they're poor anyway. The ones we hire, they'll have to take the subway in from Far Rockaway, or Long Island, because they can't afford to live closer. Hmmm, Far Rockaway - there's some nice beach land there. We shouldn't allow poor people to live on a BEACH, for godssake! We could put luxury condos there!
French Revolution, anyone?
Posted by: CrownHeightsProud at March 23, 2006 4:30 PM
I agree, let them eat cake...
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 4:46 PM
This is all just sensationalism!
Those who consider themselves race- and class-conscious shouldn't bother to dignify the comments of idiots with a response. Just ignore them.
It isn't surprising to me that any news regarding projects east of flatbush ave ends up in a nasty debate.
I'm sure brownstoner is sitting back and revelling in all the muck that he stirs up on a daily/weekly basis. Wouldn't be surprised if he's posting some of those anonymous comments himself just to get the pit bulls going for the jugular.
I'm surprised that anyone would consider the fort greene projects to be on 'waterfront' property. That's like saying that the apartment buildings on 8th avenue in manhattan are on waterfront property. Sure, if you build a tall enough building you might be able to retain some waterfront views but you still have to walk several blocks to get anywhere near the murky waters of the east river.
To suggest that the projects should be leveled is totally ridiculous and falls in line, in my opinion, with genocide and ethnic-cleansing. Mixed-income housing sounds like a great idea. It's proven to work in several housing developments across the country. People respond to their surroundings. Time after time it's witnessed that 'poor' people begin adopting the values of the 'rich' once the neighborhood gentrifies.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the rich folks started eating fried chicken, watermelon and shooting cops...calm down...just a bad joke made by someone of color.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 4:47 PM
CHP Ignoring the huge % of wealth people who dont fall into this category for a sec - dont the people who get an education, and/or honestly work hard deserve prime location and views more than those that dont and depend on the govt instead?
Posted by: Anon at March 23, 2006 4:48 PM
Cop shoot cop shootings!
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 4:49 PM
Well said, CHP.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 4:52 PM
I would be overjoyed if the ft greene housing projects:
a) got a make over
b) were converted to coops or condos.
Poor people deserve a piece of the pie also. I would be elated if they all got to purchase their apartments for $5k and then turned around and sold them 2 years later for $500K. Many of you readers have seen your home equity shoot up in value over the last 5 years. Why shouldn't these poor folks also get a part of the action. I think it would help to eradicate a lot of the crime associated with that area.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 4:53 PM
Agree anon 4:48. The rich are entitled to whatever they can buy and the poor are entitled well because their poor. There are a lot of hard working people at all levels of income that pay for their own housing.
And what's with throwing around all the race, fried chicken, genocide, etc comments by all those who have posted sympatheticly of the projects. Not one poster in criticism of the projects said anything about race or killing people.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 4:56 PM
anon 4:47. paranoid much? Brownstoner didn't even write the piece and the piece was about condos on myrtle. good grief. I always wonder if the people who accuse b'stoner of anon posts are the ones who are doing it - would love to see his list of IP addresses right about now...
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 5:01 PM
I grew up in the Rupert-Yorkville towers on the upper east side. They are now condos. They used to be rent-stabilized (mitchell-lama). There was a lot of mix in the income level, everything from borderline homeless, to mentally handicapped people with live-in nurses, to very very old people with live in nurses (lots of live in nurses, believe me), to low income families, to middle income immigrants, to savvy/frugal rich people with gigantic summer houses in the hamptons and nannies.
Now it's a condo conversion, complete with fake wood panelling, gold crap on the columns, a canvas canopy, and a "service entrance" (converted from what once was simply a second entrance). But other than the atrocious and tasteless change in the lobby, I haven't seen that much difference in people living there. All my old neighbors are still there (my parents live there,so I visit). A lot of those low-middle income people were given a chance to buy in below market; many of them now have kids who go to good colleges and support themselves.
This program was excellent in how it created a doorway for many people who otherwise, struggling with rent or an oppressive prison-like, gov't subsidised housing project, would never have had. I really think that building, ugly as it has always seemed to me, changed a lot of people's lives for the better precisely because of its mixed income program.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 5:01 PM
04:48 PM, you would only understand if you were:
a) born into poverty
b) permitted yourself the freedom to 'walk in the shoes' of the poor and disenfranchised.
Leave the poor people alone. The majority of them, like the majority of readers on this post, don't mean anyone any harm.
Stop focusing on the few bad apples that create 'blight', the same way that a few pieces of litter/trash strewn about changes your impression of a neighborhood (or on this blog for that matter).
BTW, CrownHeightsProud, I think you're sooooooo coool!!
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 5:06 PM
I totally agree with CrownHeightsProud, I couldn't have said it better myself. as far as anon 4:49 comment, these ppl were living there when no one else wanted to so in that sense YES they deserve to live there more than anyone else. do you suggest we just package them all up and ship them off to North Dakota? I've got an education, I work hard and I totally disagree that I should be able to swoop in off my perch and kick these people out of their neighborhood because my paycheck has more zeros on it. its okay for you to say push all the poor people to one undesirable part of brooklyn or the earth for that matter yet if someone said lets stuff all the white stroller pushing gentrifiers like Brownstoner and his clan in one area, that wouldn't be okay because only people with money are entitled to choice or anything good? let all the colored folks have the crap you don't want but then you get priced out of BH or Carroll Gardens or Park Slope and suddenly Ft Greene and Clinton Hill is starting to look more desirable. mr/ms moneybags don't have enough money to stay amongst the desired and suddenly it becomes okay to kick the people who have less. give me a break how far do you want to push these people away? they'll always be poor people get over yourselves. I LOVE the fact that Ft Greene projects are right near those million dollar homes those people deserve to be there because they were the ones sticking it out when there were shootings so let them have the views that you didn't give two cents about just a few years ago.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 5:11 PM
So why are you SO okay with hard working stroller set being priced out of their neighborhood (BH or PS) but are up in arms with the idea that not hard working (that was my premise) poor people might face the same prospect.
Posted by: Anon @448 at March 23, 2006 5:20 PM
Anon 4:56. You are missing the point. People on various sides of this discussion share in the criticism of the projects. Hell, the people who live in the projects have criticism of the projects. What you mean to say is that not one poster who has called for the eviction of poor people from now-prime Fort Greene territory has mentioned the race of the proposed evictees or claimed that the method of ouster should be murder. They don't have to. Codespeak is in ample play in these parts. It's used by folk who identify with the sentiments of the trolls but who don't want to appear as being too provocative. (That wouldn't be a polite expression of racism or elitism, now would it?) But even coded commentary can still leak a racist or elitist worldview, and even when that is not the conscious intent of the post. Don't blame the rest of us for seeing those leaks.
Fantastic post, CrownHeightsProud,as usual. Hats off also to Oh Lord! and Big D for bringing some factual content into this discussion.
Posted by: GardensGal at March 23, 2006 5:28 PM
I can tell that this is going to be another one of those posting with 80 comments associated with it. There isn't enough time in the day to educate all you 'priviledged' posters. You've got to live it or love someone who've lived it in order to understand. This is the reason why so many of us consider the rest of you 'far right' leaning fools to be heartless and soulless.
I'm the one who considered the idea of leveling the projects tantamount to ethnic-cleansing/genocide. Why? Because you're talking about displacing thousands of residents just because you're uncomfortable with their presence.
A mixed-income housing project sounds like a better solution....which is what it will become if the projects were converted to coops. So, why not just let them be.
I don't want to generalize, but I find that so many whites are uncomfortable with the 'legacies' of slavery, the projects being one of them. They would prefer to ignore it or paint it over with invisible ink or simply knock it down rather than attempt to come up with a constructive solution for a problem that is a several hundred years in the making.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 5:29 PM
GardensGal I understand what you are saying but from my perspective it is those throwing around the race card that are using codespeak. Its codespeak for "Uou're moving into my neighborhood. You're are different color, probably a racist and I don't like it."
There are plenty of poor white people in America.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 5:33 PM
Seems like a strange thread to take a swipe at us in, but as David Lee Roth once said, "You've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real." And, no, we have not been posting Anonymously. Since when have we been afraid of speaking our mind?
Posted by: Brownstoner at March 23, 2006 5:33 PM
Who Knew? Now the people with money are royalty? You have to be kidding- anon at 2:20. The last time I read comments that sounded like yours (poor people shouldn't be allowed on "prime real estate")was in a Dickens novel and they had a date with the guillotine. As several other people have pointed out, the working poor also pay taxes and rent. The majority of soldiers fighting today, and in Vietnam were working class. They have fulfilled their responsibilities in fighting for this country. The working poor are the majority of lower income neighborhoods and are far more victimized by local crime than you will ever be. THey are not an expendable, portable population that can be moved around at the whim of the rich, zoning planners, or developers. It may surprise you to realize they also need a decent place to live. I grew up in projects- hated them because they are people warehouses- even the nice ones. In ten years Ratner's travesty will be a "projects" too. But there are very successful ones- such as amalgamated in the Bronx. The failure is not the people who have to live in them, it's the failure of management and the city to run them properly.
This isn't a communist country but we are supposed to be a compassionate one, founded on the principles of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Sometimes that means caring about the people around us- whether it is convenient or not. You may think you are entitled to everything if you throw enough money around. Money doesn't make you the lord of the manor and the rest of us peons. You can't buy class- you have to live it.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 23, 2006 5:35 PM
Anon 4:48, in answer to your question: no. In case you hadn't noticed, very few people in this world get what they "deserve", good or bad. Do attractive, good looking people "deserve" to get more in life because of their looks? Do tall people "deserve" higher ceilings in their homes because they are tall? (Any other analogies about people are going to get me in trouble, so hopefully you get the point.)
And of course, not all wealthy people are elitist snobs. Never said they were. Likewise, not all poor people are unemployed, unmotivated, or have criminal tendencies. Would that we were all blessed to have had good schools, encouraging teachers, supportive parents, and educational options and opportunities, enabling us to move up in the world. The amazing strength of the human spirit is that there are so many who don't have any of those things, yet they perservere. I don't worry about them, they'll do just fine. We need to be about the business of helping those who want to help themselves, not lumping them with those who don't, and consigning the whole bunch to the wayside, while the rest of us try to shove them out of the way while we get what we "deserve".
What does that have to do with housing? As goes your environment, so goes your chances of success. I agree, the projects as they exist today need to go. But only if they are replaced without displacing people, and offer New Yorkers an opportunity to have safe, affordable housing, mixing income levels, coops/rentals, etc. Everyone deserves the opportunity to have a good place to live.
Posted by: CrownHeightsProud at March 23, 2006 5:47 PM
Anon 5:33 Here are 2 quickies:
1. People of color did not invent the "race card." The "race card" is actually an inventive label that was coined by intolerant white folk as a means to quickly devalue and dismiss any legitimate criticism of a racist act and/or idea.
2. I agree with you that there are plenty of poor white people in America. In fact, I seem to remember reading somewhere that the majority of welfare recipients in this nation are white people. But I don't believe poor white folk to be the majority occupants in the Ingersoll and Whitman Projects -- nor in any other of these hoped-to-be gentrified, prime property communities that we have been dicussing on these forums.
Posted by: GardensGal at March 23, 2006 5:49 PM
Oops- great post CHP!! And anonymous 5:33, yep- lots of poor white folk (me for one). But I have always found it interesting how white people use economic terms as codespeak for their biases. And how do you expect the Black people of any neighborhood to feel, when they have lived for years in the neighborhood- for good or bad- and now white gentrifiers have decided they are prime property (with great views!) and they should be relocated? You're damn straight they are going to feel there's a racial bias. We're talking people here, not cattle to be herded wherever you want. The way some people have posted about those who live in projects makes it obvious they feel money buys them more rights. Look at the disaster plans for New Orleans- they made no intelligent plan for the poorer Black neighborhoods and look at the result. Before you carry on about welfare- let me point out that not only were man (if not most) of the families in the 9th ward homeowners, but most of them had businesses or jobs. Just not a lot of money.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 23, 2006 5:49 PM
This thread has become, at its base, a thread about what rights poor people in a gentrifying neighborhood should have when prices rise to the point where they can no longer afford to live in the area. Of course there are racial issues involved, but ultimately it is about socioeconomic class. If you live in the projects, you are a more insulated from market forces in the neighborhood since the government owns the land and your apartment and cannot as easily find a way to continue to uphold its obligation to house you if it wanted to use the land for a different purpose. Hopefully, in the long term, the City will be able to provide new housing alternatives (which would hopefully be mixed income communities, not ghetto projects). I don't think people on either side of this debate, for the most part, are racists. I do think it is socioecomnic and class based and is a microcosm of the issues faced in any gentrifying area.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 6:03 PM
I know some people who live in Manhattan housing projects. Their apartments are registered in relatives names who don't work and have little income. But the folks I know make about 100k/yr and so do their siblings who also live nearly rent free in Chelsea or East Village housing projects.
Of course, most project dwellers are poor and uneducated, but there are lots and lots like these folks I know who are SCAMMIMG the system.
Not to mention, these people have access to huge private parking lots and drive expensive foreign cars. Drive by any big project in Manhattan or Brooklyn and you'll see many expensive cars in the parking lot.
If I wanted a private parking space where I live in lower Manahattan it would cost almost 500 bucks a month!
WHAT A SCAM!
Posted by: Ebomb at March 23, 2006 6:07 PM
I heard a story on 1010 WINS this morning about a school in the Bronx that doesn't have any computers, and is trying to get some. A teacher said that one of the questions on a standardized test was "How does Windows help us in today's world?" Some of the kids answered that windows help us to see out of buildings. They had no clue. They have no computers. How do we expect poor people to climb out of poverty, get good jobs with prospects for moving up the corporate ladder, and out of poverty - and perhaps the projects, when our schools can't provide a tool that is now as important as paper and a pencil? To those of you who think the poor just don't want to get it together, how do you suppose they do it if this is what they are faced with?
Prime land, indeed.
Posted by: CrownHeightsProud at March 23, 2006 6:09 PM
Just to tie this all up in a nice bow and bring it back to the condos on Myrtle...
Many of the people that moved out of Ft Green projects purchased homes in the neighborhood. Many of the people who sold their brownstones five years ago to people for $500k were folks who purchased them for $50k back in the 70's and 80's. The question is, lets assume there is a two income household in the projects today, both gainfully employed (say working for the city) and each making mid-$60's and they wanted to buy a house where could they buy?
Myrtle Avenue, as a commercial strip with the associated traffic and noise is probably one of the least desireable strips in the neighborhood on paper. The cheapest condo in this building is $877k. That is way out of our mythical family's range.
I think that the condos are an interesting renovation, and I like what they've done with the space. Given the way the community is going folks will probably come in and snap them up, if everything is as it appears. But for that family that wants to remain in the neighborhood they've grown up in, its a pretty sad state of affairs.
Posted by: Oh Lord! at March 23, 2006 6:10 PM
Oh Lord, that's where I think that family has to be realistic and look beyond the borders of the neighborhood in which their project is. My family was solidly middle to lower middle class and we lived paycheck to paycheck. We could not live in the fancy neighborhoods. Taking your example, why is that family entitled to be able to buy in Fort Greene now? They can find a more modest place somewhere else and work their way up like everyone else - focus on the kids and move somewhere with better schools. Be practical.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 6:16 PM
E-bomb,
I could tell you stories about landlords who provide no services for their tenants, and force them to live in situations that you wouldn't let a junkyard dog live in. You are a landlord. Does that make you, or all landlords cheating scum?
I could also tell stories about crooked stock brokers, cops, grocery store owners, sales people, and people in every possible group imaginable who are dishonest and are cheating the system in some way. Does that mean all stockbrokers, cops, etc are crooked? Of course not.
Every time there is a discussion about poor people, someone has to bring up the poor people who are scamming the system. No S%$t, there are thieves out there. You do no one a service in telling these stories, they only distract from a much larger picture and serve to damn an entire group of people who have more than enough on their plate already.
By the way, MOST of the people who have cars, or whatever possessions they have, paid for them by working legitmate jobs. Thank God for credit cards and payment plans. This is still supposed to be America.
Posted by: CrownHeightsProud at March 23, 2006 6:20 PM
CHP, unfortunately they are often faced with much worse, foremost being absentee parents and no nuclear family. And think of the irony of the parents serving, for example, in iraq and elsewhere, with taxpayers footing the bill. think of the resources that money could buy. vicious cycle indeed.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 6:21 PM
And good for those who moved out of the projects and had the foresight to buy in in the 70s and 80s for cheap. That's how it is supposed to work and those families have established a legacy that will help their children and beyond. The hypothetical couple should do the same, but they will have to look somewhere else, maybe even outside of the NYC area. People across the country move all the time to try to establish economic security for their families.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 6:21 PM
You don't know the financial realities of those people. Did it ever occur to you that many families in the projects have several members working? Or work multiple jobs? With a lower rent maybe they can afford a decent car to make their lives a little easier. As for the parking lots- well, they were built into the projects. You might not also be aware that many projects are not all that close to subways and the buses may not be as good as in other areas. And have you ever watched some elderly person get on the bus with bags of food too heavy for her to really carry? Face it - the amount of money you have doesn't buy you the rights in this country to all the decent cars,shelters,views or parking. If you think you're owed because you pay more in taxes? Wrong- the higher your income level, the better your tax breaks. Sure some people will always scam the system, - do you think Kenneth Lay didn't hurt people in the Enron bust? White collar crime is even worse in scale and impact- I don't hear anyone talking about that.
The only thing money seems to give some people is an air of entitlement. So let's stop trying to paint the desire for those nice views the projects have as a function of the market. There's a difference between market dynamics and greed.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 23, 2006 6:24 PM
Oh Lord - isnt virtually every 'up and coming' neighborhood in Brooklyn filled with people in that same boat - priced out of in their original/1st choice neighboorhood and looking for a nice place to live w/o leaving the city - at least your mythical 120K a year family has subsidized housing while looking (not to mention a much better pension than virtually anybody)
Posted by: David at March 23, 2006 6:30 PM
They absolutely could and should. The problem is that in Brooklyn that puts them in further north and east in Brooklyn, where there are many single family homes that are still affordable, and new construction going up everywhere.
The problem is that there is little to no access to public transportation in these areas. Many of those neighborhoods lack any amenities and require people to drive EVERYWHERE. While they can find housing, their costs for everything else increase. One of the advantages the poor and working poor always had in NYC was access to public transportation and centralized housing. That is going away. The poor are being pushed further and further out in the boroughs and while many people think that may not be a bad thing, NYC needs a working class. Moving to communities with better schools essentially means moving out of NYC today.
NYC can't be all celebrities, famewhores, and investment bankers. Teachers, bus drivers, locksmiths and plumbers need to be able to live in the city as well. Why not in Ft. Green where they always have?
Posted by: Oh Lord! at March 23, 2006 6:32 PM
See y'all have driven me crazy what I was trying to say was:
They absolutely could and should. In Brooklyn that puts them in further north and east, where there are many single family homes that are still affordable, and new construction going up everywhere.
Posted by: Oh Lord! at March 23, 2006 6:34 PM
No harm meant Brownstoner. But a good debate makes for a lively forum so I can't help but believe that you're playing devils advocate and stoking the fire in the background. Either that, or there is a lot of 'relics' out there with small-town ideals (the wrong kind) who aren't able to adapt and keep up with a rapidly changing, multi-cultural, global society. Leave the poor people alone; live and let live.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 7:02 PM
Taxpayers are footing the bill for Iraq courtesy of our present administration.You may want to take a look at the numbers of working class young men and women who are in the military to try and make a better life for themselves and their families. We don't do well for our veterans- I've seen this first hand. And yes there are family problems in these neighborhoods- but show me one level of American society that doesn't have them. When you're in upper income brackets you can pay to keep the truth hidden.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 23, 2006 7:11 PM
Oops, better stop posting anonymously. Joseph McCarthy III and the House of Un-American Activities Committee is out to get our ip addresses and weed out the communist factions. If I wasn't paranoid before I definitely will be now.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 7:14 PM
The sense of entitlement is in the fact that people think that they should be able to live in any neighborhood, even if prices rise. I agree that we need more low income and moderate income housing. I don't think that people who receive it are entitled to say they want it in a specific neighborhood. People all over the country move in search of economic security trying to make the best with what they can afford. It is silliness to say that since you have lived in a project building for 30 years in a specifc neighborhood that you are entitled to live their forever or that if you've saved money for a down payment on a house, you're entitled to buy a house in the neighborhood you grew up in. Come on people, take off your blinders and think outside of the box.
Posted by: lp at March 23, 2006 7:45 PM
Sorry for the typos and grammatical errors in the post above "there" not "their" etc.
My point is, look beyond whatever some provocateurs are saying on this thread. If you've been thrifty and lived in a the projects and saved up enough dough for a small down payment on a place, you might have to be a "pioneer" somewhere else. Be proud, get excited, don't stagnate lamenting that the prices are not still the same as the 1970s or that the rough neighborhood you grew up in has now returned to its former upscale beginnings.
Posted by: lp at March 23, 2006 7:50 PM
Some of the people who post on this topic are just clueless about how the other half lives, and some of the things you write are not just divorced from reality but vile. CrownHeightsProud, GardensGal, Bx2Bklyn--some good points, as usual. But...when renters are displaced by gentrifying neighborhoods, further south in Brooklyn is not always a choice--they are often evicted from apartments cheaper than they could find, and racism still plays a part in housing in Brooklyn. And to you guys who say, with shock worthy of Casablanca's chief of police, "But I'm not the one who brought up race!" Oh yes you are. This is about race and about white guilt and let's face and address that. In other areas, it may be more about class or about class alone, but it's about race in this part of Brooklyn. And you may be a real upstanding guy who is deeply offended by the wipe em all out rhetoric of some of these anonymous posters, but you also may secretly agree that things will be better with white money and taste running things. Just realize that better for you is not an absolute--it is not better for people forced out into housing scams in the Poconos or some other such crap.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 23, 2006 8:04 PM
I'm sorry- I just can't agree with that. It shouldn't be up to a real estate agent or a gentrifier to decide how other people should live their lives and where.You are talking about putting people out of thier homes because you've made a judgement call saying that only money has rights. I grew up poor- if you don't know what it is like, you have no right to either judge or determine where poor people "ought to be put" (my quote marks).
Maybe I'm overly sensitive but I really distrust those attitudes- it's too easy to go from "that group needs to leave because I say so" to "gee, I don't like looking at disabled people. Make them go away." I can hear the screaming now but it's a reality. Look how we are treating gay people in this country- We want America to be a Disney theme park- well, that's not the human condition. And it's not reality. And where in the Constitution does it say you are more equal if you have more money? Better think long and hard about whether or not you really want things that way because the door is already open to eminent domain. Someone richer can take your house too.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 23, 2006 8:15 PM
Sorry anon- my post was directed at lp.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 23, 2006 8:17 PM
"We'll fill all those condos with well educated, attractive youngish people with good jobs in finance, advertising and publishing..."
LOL, CrownHeightsProud, better off living in the projects if you have a job in advertising or publishing.
You don't make any money in those fields.
Posted by: Supergirl at March 23, 2006 8:52 PM
1. Not all people who live in the projects are criminals. But maybe it's a crime to be poor?!
2. I happened to like NYC in the 70's.
3. CHP, Bx2Bklyn and Oh Lord...you rock!!
Posted by: anon at March 23, 2006 9:39 PM
Anon 9.39, no one said all people in the projects are criminals.
Bx2Bkln:
What are you talking about? Of course it is not up to a real estate agent or gentrifier to decide where people live. In the case of the projects, it's the City who owns the land and the buildings and decides where the free and low rent housing will be. In the case of all other property owners, it is the property owner's decision to sell in a high market or increase rents. Should you blame the working class black families who bought in FG and Clinton Hill in the 70s and 80s when it was very rough and the prices were cheap for selling when the market picked up? Are they sell outs? I don't think so. I think they were savy and invested well.
As for being poor, I'm white, my family was (as still is) very working class (I've been fortunate enough to do better as they worked their cans off and made sure their children worked hard in school so we could get into good colleges (something they did not do) and get good jobs). I know what it is like for a family to live pay check to pay check, not have the newest clothes or cool shoes, have old beat up family cars, a run down house, not go on family vacations often because money's tight, so spare me the you don't understand being poor story. I have empathy for hard working people who are still just getting by - my parents are those people.
I think you are reading into peoples' posts, or at least mine, where you think I'm making judgments as to where poor people "ought to be put". I prefer an economically diverse community. My income would allow me to live in a gated whitebread suburia, but that would drive me insane. I just don't think that you should get preferential treatment in your choice of a neighborhood simply because you are poor or because the cost of housing has risen.
We need low income housing and moderate income housing. I think the projects are clearly a social failure and mixed income communities (not segregated ghettos) are the only way to potentially raise the standard of living for the poor. I do not think, however, that low income people are entitled to live wherever they want if their economic situation does not permit them to do so. I'm not advocating making some far off community a new project ghetto, but if you live in the projects, I do not think you should think that you are entitled to live in the same projects, in the same neighborhood forever. It is supposed to be a safety net.
When I was growing up, we moved around for the express reason of finding a better place for us to be economically. In fact, I know my parents would love to live in Brooklyn now too, but they can't afford it. I'm happy they can come and visit with me and my family now in Brooklyn. They love it here.
As far as some earlier comments that people should be able to buy in they neighborhood they grew up in or where their parents lived, while that is a nice thought and would be great, it's just not realistic. Neighborhoods change over time. My family's been in this borough for over 160 years but I don't here my parents complaining that they can't buy a place here now. They live in a very modest place in another state because that is what their income allows. I suppose they could say they are 'victims' of gentrification and should be entitled to live in Brooklyn because generations before have and they should not have to leave their roots. They don't think that way though. I don't think it is healthy to think that way - it is self limiting and causes you to focus too much on what you don't have as opposed to what you can achieve. Trust me, I'm no pull yourself up from the bootstraps republican - I recognize it's much more complicated than that and believe the government has a place and responsibility in trying to address housing problems. At the same time, I think you have to be pragmatic in your approach to life or every bad turn in your life will just beat you down and you won't be able to deal with change.
Posted by: lp at March 23, 2006 10:18 PM
sorry for the typos, it's late, "suburbia" not "suburia" and "hear" not "here".
Posted by: lp at March 23, 2006 10:23 PM
This applies to too many comments on this thread to count:
If everybody could take a pledge not to try to read another poster's mind, or intuit what they secretly believe rather than what they actually said, or attack them based on what you claim they would do/say in a hypothetical situation... we could possibly get somewhere with this conversation. Yeesh.
Posted by: linusvanpelt at March 23, 2006 10:29 PM
What I find interesting is that in these threads those that decry the plight of the minority resident being dispaced by gentrification the loudest, are usualy the same ones who speak of what was described as the "white stroller set" in the most contemptuous terms.
Yet in reaity this "white stroller set" was more often than not simply dispaced in the exact same manner as facing the minority resident. I mean face it, most people buying these condos or even Brownstones, if they could afford it would take one a few bocks from Central Park or Greenwich Village rather than in Bed Stuy or Myrtle Avenue. In fact maybe they lived in those areas or similarly post-gentrified areas but expanding families or a desire to own has forced them outside their usual haunts, Wall St job or not.
I dont know if its envy or racism or guilt but somehow this "white stroller set" has become fodder for a whole section of our city to attack and critisize- from left wing radicals to W'burg hipsters - as if they are somehow the mirror equivelant of those who fled the city in droves during the 60's-70's.
Yet besides themselves being 'displaced' what is even sadder about all this contempt is that this 'stroller set' even in its worst form is generally made up of the most tolerant, socially and enviormentally conscious a of our population - think about it, the suburbs are filled with millions of its own stroller set who just decided that they dont give a s*t about any of this crap - they just want space a yard, good schools, and a garage. Yet here are these peope determined to stay in a city they love, despite outrageous expenses, poor schoos , crazy high taxes, crime, etc - ....
So while its fun to create a boogeyman - maybe doing so says more about your own insecurities and biases then about the people you are attacking.
Posted by: David at March 24, 2006 1:09 AM
Lp-I think you do have to be pragmatic but that's a far cry from being told you have no rights to live in any neighborhood simply because the demographics change. But you also said: "I agree that we need more low income and moderate income housing. I don't think that people who receive it are entitled to say they want it in a specific neighborhood." So did you mean that those who aren't rich should just accept being pushed around by those with more money bcause essentiall y that what will happen. It's one thing if I can't afford a neighborhood, it's another if I am forced out by gentrification. My life gets ripped apart but if you have more money you are entitled to do that?
Not for nothing but poor people pay taxes too. It isn't racism or guilt that makes people resent the white stroller set, it is the arrogant assertion that now that money is in the neighborhood the residents should simply shut up and move. The white stroller set is not about tolerance or environmental consciousness- it is simply about protecting its own investment. No one is attacking them, just the assertion that if they want it they deserve it.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 24, 2006 2:00 AM
So, let's see, in approximately 12 hours, this thread has gone from:
"Projects should not be on prime property" (1:26 p.m.)
to ". . .these people don't even need to be in the city" (1:34 p.m.)
to "Like it or not, poor people carry a lot of baggage and once they are gone things always improve." (2:05 p.m.)
to "This thread has become, at its base, a thread about what rights poor people in a gentrifying neighborhood should have when prices rise to the
point where they can no longer afford to live in the area." (6:03 p.m.)
to "somehow this "white stroller set" has become fodder for a whole section of our city to attack and critisize . . . . this "white stroller set" was more often than not simply dispaced in the exact same manner as facing the minority resident."(1:09 a.m.)
Wow.
Posted by: GardensGal at March 24, 2006 7:09 AM
I agree with everyone, except the idiots on both extremes. does that mean I'm a waffler? can I have empathy for the poor and not agree with current social policy AND own a brownstone and have 2 kids? can I, can I? gee, I SURE hope so...or wait...did I not grow up poor enough...? Oh bother, I guess I'm not equipped with a conscience. I guess I have no right to comment. Oh well (shrug).
Posted by: bright eyed at March 24, 2006 7:54 AM
Bx2Bkln stated: "It's one thing if I can't afford a neighborhood, it's another if I am forced out by gentrification." I don't see the distinction. Either way you cannot live where you want to because you cannot afford it. Why is it that only very poor people who live in subsidized housing can gripe about market forces pushes them out of a neighborhood. If you want to overhall the whole system and become a more socialist society, fine, say so. But it is hypocritical to villify the "white stoller set" who were priced out of more expensive neighborhoods and are gentrifying enomically depressed neighborhoods. It thind David was spot on.
What also seems to be coming out in this thread is that if you rented an apartment (I'm not talking about people who own) in a bad neighborhood through the tough years, you are entitled to stay in that neighborhood if it gets gentrified. Why is that? Should we pass laws that give renters the right to stay in an apartment even if the property owner does not want to renew their lease, simply because the renters have lived there a long time? Should we prevent owners from selling buildings at a profit when the market is up because it will change the demographic of a neighborhood?
I think lp has a point. Most people sympathize or empathize with the plight of poor and low income people trying to get by in NYC, agree housing is needed, don't like the idea of projects as they simply create ghettos, think mixed housing is the better alternative, but don't think that people receiving subsidized or free housing should be able to have the ultimate decision in where their free or subsidized housing is going to be. It should not be a segregated ghetto as the projects are, but why should low income or poor people be able to demand where they want to live when no one else can simply demand conveniences but have to pay for location?
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 9:42 AM
"Should we pass laws that give renters the right to stay in an apartment even if the property owner does not want to renew their lease, simply because the renters have lived there a long time? Should we prevent owners from selling buildings at a profit when the market is up because it will change the demographic of a neighborhood?"
Yes, yes, yes!
Property is theft! Change is violence! Freedom is an illusion that justifies oppression!
Now give us your money and move back to Iowa!
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 9:47 AM
"Should we pass laws that give renters the right to stay in an apartment even if the property owner does not want to renew their lease, simply because the renters have lived there a long time?"
Ummm... we already have those laws.....
Posted by: David at March 24, 2006 9:59 AM
If we have those laws, then what is the problem?
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 10:04 AM
Good posts David and anon 9:42. Most people have to make some sort of compromise regarding where they live based on their means. I'm sure most people at some point have had to move from someplace they would have liked to stay because the rent got too high. That's the way it is.
All these complaints about "I lived here for this long when no one else would so I should get to stay" are silly. If you bought something then yes you get to stay if not when rents get too high you have to move. Yes you may have lived their when no one else wanted to but if you were renting then there is a landlord who risked his capital by owning something in that same neighborhood.
Yes I wish there were better low income housing options in NYC. The bottom line though is that owning a specific piece of property is your only way to guarantee your right to live there.(Let's save eminent domain for a shorther thread.)
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 10:56 AM
One assumption many people are making is that poor or working class people are all on welfare or in subsidized housing. That is simply untrue. I live in one of those lower income neighborhoods where, yes there are people on welfare or in section 8's, but the majority of people have worked hard for years and what they have they have earned a hundred times over. They get forced out too- from their homes and neighborhoods that they have lived and invested in for years. Renter or homeowner, everyone plays their part in the social/economic fabric. And where would landlords be without renters?
My point was that "home" has a special meaning for people. The stability of neighborhoods, their character are important to the overall health of the city. No one group should be forced out at the behest of another- and there is a world of difference from being the gentrifier who sees the earlier residents of a neighborhood as something to be swept away (and has been pretty much bluntly stated on this thread) and being the recipient of such unwanted attention. Mixed income housing and neighborhoods are the best solution but I see very little interest in that from upper income level. I don't complain about the "white stroller set"- I like the amenities they can bring, the mixing up of groups, etc. What I don't like are people coming in and deciding that they have the right to say who should live in their neighborhood or not. If you want that much control, move to a nice gated comunity in the heartland.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 24, 2006 12:05 PM
There is a huge difference between being priced out and being systematically forced out. Once a neighborhod becomes trendy, there is a concerted effort to force out the old for the benefit of the new. It my surprise you folks who blithely post that you must move if you can't "afford" your own neighborhood, that not only is it a painful process, but those who are being forced out are at a disadvantage and do not have the financial resources to fight back. Could happen to any of us- there but for the grace of G-d go I. Wish more people had more of a moral code instead of believing they can buy one.
Posted by: wjf at March 24, 2006 12:17 PM
Aren't we talking about 2 separate things here:
* whether projects should be torn down and residents relocated
* whether people in gentrifying neighborhoods should be protected from rent increases, condo conversions, etc.
To lump both together as the same thing -- people with money "forcing out" poor people and "saying who can live" in a neighborhood -- is a stretch. The first is a clear application of force. But how does someone with "with money" (however defined) prevent the second? By refusing to move to any neighborhood where there are poor people?
Posted by: linusvanpelt at March 24, 2006 12:21 PM
"It my surprise you folks who blithely post that you must move if you can't "afford" your own neighborhood, that not only is it a painful process, but those who are being forced out are at a disadvantage and do not have the financial resources to fight back."
This is not something special that applies only to poor people. It applies to people at all income levels. Everyone can get priced out of a neighborhood except perhaps for the the one wealthiest person on the planet. It may not be fair but it is what it is. I agree that moving from your home is a painful process but its something that everyone experiences.
"Once a neighborhod becomes trendy, there is a concerted effort to force out the old for the benefit of the new."
I've never heard of this. Is there some new owner's society that secretly meets to plan the ouster of people who have been there x number of years? People don't move or purchase property as an organized group. Its many indivuals making their own decisions.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 12:24 PM
One comment with regards to tearing down the projects:
"Develop don't Destroy"
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 12:33 PM
Bx2Bklyn - "My point was that "home" has a special meaning for people. The stability of neighborhoods, their character are important to the overall health of the city."
True, and we have the strongest laws in the country to limit the price increases LL can charge year over year.
Bx2Bklyn - "No one group should be forced out at the behest of another-"
Other then some troll-like posts where in this city is one group being forced out at the behest of another?" - do economic forces result in one group moving in and another moving out - yes, but that is a world of difference from one group "behesting" the removal of another - and I said above, often the 'displacing group' is just displaced people looking for a new place to live.
Bx2Bklyn - "Mixed income housing and neighborhoods are the best solution but I see very little interest in that from upper income level."
Actually most posters here have stated they would like that; most 'upper income' folks in this city seem to vote for candidates that support that; the upper income folks buy apartments in such developments like crazy (where they are common in Manhattan below 96th st) maybe for the tax breaks or socially conscious reasons - so all evidence seems to be that there is support for mixed income development (and I cant think of a single group or politician that advocates the opposite)
Bx2Bklyn - "I don't complain about the "white stroller set"- I like the amenities they can bring, the mixing up of groups, etc. What I don't like are people coming in and deciding that they have the right to say who should live in their neighborhood or not."
Could you please site anywhere in this city that anyone is trying to exercise such a right - again a couple of troll posts on a message board doesnt make it so.
Bx2Bklyn - "If you want that much control, move to a nice gated comunity in the heartland"
And my point is that many people do just that - just not the "stroller set" being discussed here
Posted by: David at March 24, 2006 1:04 PM
Linus,
you are right- it is two different things and I don't know how the process can be made more equitable for everyone. As far as some secret ownership society- I seriously doubt there is any such thing. But like wjf I do believe that once a neighborhood is "discovered", the real estate agents crawl out of the woodwork and begin a serious selling campaign. Then the landlords start to raise prices, and it snowballs. And of course landlords need to live too- it's a business. I understand all that but I still feel that there are other forces in play that make up a viable, livable society and if we don't pay attention we could very well become a ghetto-ized,repressive society- one part living in proverty and despair, the other part buying its social isolation. And societies like that have never worked.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 24, 2006 1:29 PM
And you're right too David, about the trolls. I like to think that most of us who care so much do advocate for all levels of society. Part of the reason we post here is because we do care. But I sometimes feel that people pay a lot of lip service to mixed income housing and neighborhoods but find ways to not follow through. Politicians do it all the time- and Ratner's bad faith deal with community groups is an example. It can't be denied that developers are building everywhere without giving a hoot about the neighborhood. And sometimes they are so uncaring it endangers buildings and people around them. I've already lived through that once in Brooklyn Heights.
I'm not quite you what you meant in your last comment though, referring to the gated community question. Can you please clarify?
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 24, 2006 1:41 PM
Bx2Bklyn, At least one good thing about an urban environment like Brooklyn, and NYC in general, is however rich you are, it is almost impossible to buy yourself utter social isolation the way you can in the suburbs. You can't simply avoid seeing a single poor person, etc.
Not disputing yr larger point, I just think this is, ironically, one thing that keeps many gentrifiers in the city -- even tho their market decisions do have the effects you describe. Or let's say, anyway, that gentrifiers often like that cross-class, cross-cultural mingling in theory, even if they end up having problems with it in practice.
Posted by: linusvanpelt at March 24, 2006 1:48 PM
I personally like the design of these condos. Thought the developer made a great choice with the black paint and glass. The first time I saw it I was like 'what the f...' but, in a good way. I think that the buyers will have an ultra-hip, aesthetically pleasing condo at the end of the day. There might be some growing pain as the neighborhood transitions but all in all I think its a great buy. I'd say the same for any condo within the fulton mall area.
And for the poster who said that myrtle ave is unremarkable/bland...I disagree. The strip is peppered with a lot of architecturally interesting buildings that are similar to the ones that line upper 5th/6th/7th ave in Park Slope. The beauty of some of these structures are hidden by the street-front/signs. Also, next time that you drive by, check out the lamp-posts. Many of them have the original cast-iron designs.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 2:45 PM
What I was esentially trying to make the point Linus did - that this 'evil stroller set' is actually made up of people who generally support the idea of an integrated, mixed community - and that the suburban gated communities are filled with the people you seem to have a beef with
Posted by: David at March 24, 2006 2:47 PM
If nothing else, brooklynites seem to be very opinionated about social issues, politics, design, real estate, etc. It's a good thing but y'all need to learn to get along better.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 2:59 PM
Speaking of rent control squatters, did you see this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/realestate/26habi.html
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 3:08 PM
And you thought those people in the projects with their mercedes were running a scam!! This couple takes the cake. I wonder if Anon March 23, 2006 12:37 PM who thought that it was a waste of money to add new roofing to the projects would object to the taxpayers paying to fix the damaged ceiling of rent-control royalty. Ah...but their provenance, and this couple is royalty, has history, there's a difference.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 3:22 PM
No actually there is no difference. Rent control should be abolished.
Thanks for trying to put some words in my mouth though ;)
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 3:45 PM
their 25-by-40-foot living room is bigger than my apartment, sigh. Sounds like they had friends in high places 60 yrs ago and they continue to maintain those friendships. It's a travesty though because these people seem like they can afford market-rate rent, heck, they probably could buy that 14.5 million apt. in brooklyn heights if they wanted to. But they're so cheap that they'd rather abuse the system and keep a $350 apt. even if it means taking an hour to go up and down the stairs. I feel sorry for the landlord that they're suing.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 4:05 PM
OK, so from various thread I have been reading lately, I believe I need to become (pick one):
circus performer
starving artist
poverty stricken project dweller
And I can live for next to nothing for as long as I want with no rent in any part of the city I choose. And if my LL tries to kick me out all the bleeding hearts on this blog will come to my rescue and defend my inalienable right to not have to bother to support my self.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 24, 2006 6:57 PM
Crown Heights Proud,
I didn't say in my posting that everybody living in a project is scamming the system. It just so happens that the people I happen to know are and it's obvious many others are too. SOCIALISM DOES NOT WORK. CAPITALISM WORKS. There should be a safety net for those incapable of working, but the standard should be very very very high.
I also have to admit, I hate it when people complain about landlords who don't properly maintain their buildings. JUST MOVE OUT. SIMPLE AS THAT.
In New York City landlords are forced to lose money renting to rent regulated tenants, some of whom, in my experience, have nothing better to do than complain about their dirt cheap apartments because they don't work and have nothing else on their minds. I SAID SOME TENANTS, NOT ALL.
Housing projects in NYC are ugly as hell and should be torn down. Poor people should move to places where rents are low -- outside of NYC if necessary.
Diversity makes this city great, but subsidized housing in not fair to those paying for the subsidization -- the taxpayers. I've owned low income housing as well and can tell you from personal experience that there's a reason most low income housing stinks. Many low income tenants destroy their own apartments and behave like spoiled children. They don't respect anything or anyone. It's nearly impossible to find responsible low income tenants.
Crown Heigts Proud, I challenge you to buy a low income building (it can still be done cheaply in many places near NYC) and run it profitably while keeping everything in good condition. You'd see how difficult it is and your postings would change dramatically.
Posted by: Ebomb at March 24, 2006 9:21 PM
David - thanks for the explanation. I don't have a beef with any of them- I just think people who want to live in gated communities miss out on a lot but hey, it's still a free country. What I object to is people in NYC who think they can create gated communities in a neighborhood. But I'm also the person who screamed when the Hasidic community tried to stop women in shorts riding bikes through the streets should not be allowed in their neighborhood. Don't know whatever happened with that but I guess I m saying that no one owns a neighborhood or is entitled to it. And yes- your point is good about the stroller set- perhaps I should have said it is the politicians and developers who are the real problem.
Ebomb-if you want to take on CHP you are going to have to have better arguments. One thing you are forgetting- working class poor depend on public transportation to get their jobs, schools, stores etc. How do you think they are going to get to work cleaning your houses and offices,working as salespeople, serving you dinners in restaurants, watching your kids, and more if they live outside of NYC and can't afford to get there? Westchester? Or yeah- that's sooooo much cheaper. Long Island? Car or LIRR- a hell of a lot more expensive than the MTA. SOme people have 2-3 hours round trip everyday to get to a low-paying job that you can afford but they can't. You keep talking about the people who don't work and live on welfare. Most of the poor in this city do work, and get the least out of it. The other thing is that where are rents low? You may mean lower but low? What planet do you live on?
As far as housing subsidies not beig fair to the taxpayers- well there's a lot that's not fair and we suck it up. I wasn't able to have kids- do I still pay my taxes for schools? Yup. I don't own a car- do my taxes still go for roads? Yep. A lot of my tax money goes to do things for which I get no benefit- I still have to pay it. I'd rather pay for subsidized housing than the jail those idiots paid 50 million to renovate and now are thinking about tearing down. So socialism doesn't work. Capitalism isn't doing so hot lately either. What does work is ethics.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 24, 2006 10:11 PM
E-bomb, I'll get back to you in a minute, I just have one more comment, and then I think I'll let this one go:
Too many posters here seem to think that subsidized housing (the projects) is free housing. I see this mass resentment by people who think their taxes are paying for vast housing projects of poor people whooping it up living rent free on their dime. That just isn't true. The MAJORITY of people in subsidized housing are the working poor, not over-hyped Welfare Queens who have made careers out of scamming the system, whose adventures are trotted out whenever these discussions come up. The working poor, by that I mean making under $35K for a family, are paying, and yes, THEY are paying, $700 month for an apartment in say, Whitman Houses, it's not like they are on easy street, by any stretch of the imagination. OK, that rent may be under market value, because the gov't is paying the difference by absorbing some costs, but to the renter, who is taking home maybe $350.00 a week, they are still paying half of their income in rent. Add to that the other market rate costs of living, especially if they have kids, and they are barely scraping by. They are never going to be able to save up and buy a house or apt. anywhere in this city, or even out of it, as some have so cavalierly advised. Add to that the joy of living in isolated, population dense high crime areas, where they are more likely to be the victims of crimes that never make the news, because let's face it, no one gives a damn until a child gets shot, or something sensational happens, and yeah, that sounds like the good life to me. Not.
By the way, the paperwork and beaurocracy for all of this is tremendous. I have helped one of my co-workers send mountains of forms, proof of income, bank statements, letters from employers,etc, whenever she needs services fixed, or is applying to stay in the program. Higher income people would be screaming to the Supreme Court if they had to go through all of that just to get basic services. The working poor mostly just endure.
E-bomb, you need to read what people write. I NEVER said that you said that everyone in the projects is scamming the system. What I did say, and still say, is that people such as yourself are always holding up this small minority of people as examples of the norm, and of why the system doesn't work. My arguement is that you can find scammers, frauds and criminals in every walk of life and occupation, but why is it that these people define the population? It's not a viable argument for why the entire system should be done away with. Should you eliminate stock brokers because a couple got caught with their hands in the till? Come on.
I have much more problems with statements such as "I hate it when people complain about landlords who don't properly maintain their buildings. JUST MOVE OUT. SIMPLE AS THAT." Yeah, simple. Aside from the fact that a landlord is legally obligated to keep a building up to certain standards, you show a callousness that is rather appalling, and a total disregard for reality. I guess you haven't moved lately; even if you choose to move, it's traumatic, time consuming and EXPENSIVE, even for those who are not poor. And why should I move out of my apartment, because you can't do your job as a landlord, even though I've done mine as a tenant? I'm going to try to find another apartment and go through the stress and expense of moving to spare you the inconvenience of the responsibilities of landlording? Oh, HELL no.
"Poor people should move to places where rents are low -- outside of NYC if necessary." - I believe that system is called apartheid, and no, that didn't work either. A city of the rich surrounded by the poor, who have to commute long distances daily to service the rich - Not a good system for social stability, and not a place I choose to live in. Perhaps you might like Rio, or apartheid era Johannesburg, but most people I know don't.
Finally, I bet I could make a low income building work, because I don't see poor people the same way you do. I believe that when given a fair shake, and when treated with the dignity we all want to be treated with, MOST people will respond in kind. Of course some won't, and some people are the kind of people who would try the patience of saints, and I wouldn't want them in my building anymore than you would. I think the difference is that I wouldn't automatically assume that they were all the latter.
Posted by: CrownHeightsProud at March 25, 2006 11:01 AM
CHP,
I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think it's just a small number of project dwellers who are scamming the system -- of course, like you, I have no proof, but it's my opinion that at least half of them are. I'd go so far as to say that nearly every single person I've met with special housing is scamming the system.
You brought up my cleaning lady. She makes at least $120.00 per day. When I write her checks, she has me put them in her husband's name, so as not to jeopradize her section 8 status. CHP, I'm sorry, but as I said early, SOCIALISM DOESN'T WORK. It's pathetically easy to cheat the system.
I don't mean to get you angry, but the truth is that government housing has always been a failure, in this country and all over the world. A free market economy works best. If service workers were in short supply because they lived far outside the city, the price of their services would increase and hence so would their supply -- supply and demand -- you should read a basic economics book.
Regarding your claim that landlords should maintain their buildings properly because of the lease, unfortunatly when tenants don't pay their rent regularly, it's impossible to pay for repairs -- again basic economics. Unfortunately, in NYC the courts favor tenants and it takes months, sometimes years, to evict a non-paying tenant.
Believe it or not, landlords are just normal business people. Government laws like rent regulation in NYC screw up the basic economics of running a privately owned apartment building.
Sorry, CHP, but you wouldn't do better than I have with low income housing. Looking someone in the eye, shaking their hand, whatever, does not change the fact that they do not have the self discipline to get up in the morning and go to work.
Allentown, PA would be a good place for you to start your low-incoming housing empire. The laws in PA make it easier to evict for non-payment than NYC, so it's a little easier. The Beaver Bus from Port Authority can get you to Allentown in less than two hours. You can get an eight or nine unit building in downtown Allentown for about 200K and of course you only need the downpayment, proof of income, and a good credit history.
I hope you're successful, but experience tells me it's nearly impossible. Of course, the market may go up and you might make money selling, but after taxes, expenses, insurance, and everything else, you won't make jack on a cash flow basis even though the purchase price is so damn cheap.
Too many of those tenants just can't keep their jobs, keep screwing up, and simply DO NOT PAY THEIR RENT. It'll drive you crazy after you nicely fix up a place and a month or two later it's trashed, the tenants have disappeared and all you have is a month's deposit. . . if you're lucky.
Good luck,
Ebomb
Posted by: Anonymous at March 25, 2006 1:59 PM
Ebomb-You can read all the economics supply and demand books you want - in an ideal world maybe that works. But this is reality and while socialism may not work, the free market system is brutal to those without the resources. Your ridiculous comment about increasing the supply and demand for service workers pays absolutely no attention to what happens in the meantime. People can't get to work, they get fired, they can't get another job becasue they are all in the city- they sink into proverty and then what. We let them starve? SO your cleaning lady (I mentioned cleaning ladies- not CHP) gets extra money- did it occur to you her husband's job may not be enough for them and their family to live on? Do you think the stores price food lower because people are poor? Inflation is much harder on those with less money. And as CHP has pointed out, subsidized housing is not only paid for by the government. THe tenant also pays part.
My question is if it's so bad, why do so many landlords accept section 8? Because they get more money, is why. DOn't think for a moment the landlords of subsidized buildings are losing money. And subsidized housing is NOT the same as rent control or rent stabilization. Many landlords know a golden egg when they see one- and believe me they take full advantage. When a landlord can charge the city over 1500$ a month for a rat and roach infested, falling down s***hole, you have to wonder who is cheating the taxpayers more. (Perhaps you missed the many reports about this, especially on converted sro's- oh wait... you may have been living in Allentown then.)
Landlords don't make repairs because it's all the tenant's fault- give me a break. If you are talking about subsidized housing, the landlords are getting money. If you are talking about poor tenants who struggle from month to month- well, if the landlord is not making money why hasn't he unloaded the building? Let me guess- the tax breaks, the value of property, the financial pluses- the law is the law. Landlords have to maintain their property for reasons of safety.
People lose their jobs for many reasons, and it isn't always their fault or their screw-up. I bet you've lost jobs over the years that you will insist was not your fault.I lost my job because of 9-11 and it took me over 2 years to find another. My landlady however happened to be a very remarkable, understanding woman. My present landlady has also been more than wonderful. Not all seem to be like you. And in fact many of the jobs available to working poor are hardly secure- leading back to that supply and demand issue. If that were true, then it must be a fantasy that so many corporations are outsourcing to other countries to maximize their profits. Why are they doing that- because they want to pay people even less. So saying less service workers means they can raise their prices is patently false. YOu need to read an economics book published after 1960.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 25, 2006 2:40 PM
Oh, where to start?
No, you certainly don't have any proof that "that nearly every single person I've met with special housing is scamming the system." That may be your impression and opinion, but that's all it is. I don't know where your buildings are, but you certainly seemed to have tapped into the mother lode of deceitful wrechedness there. Amazing.
And you pay your cleaning lady an entire $120 a day? Wow. That must be that free market premium price you were talking about. Does she work 5 days a week for 8 hours a day? Do you deduct taxes, and social security? Or does she pay that out of that $120? Do you pay her health insurance, or is she covered by your corperate insurance so that if she gets hurt cleaning, she doesn't have to go to the emergency room for 8 hours, and pay a small fortune to see an overworked intern, and perhaps miss a day of work, for which she will not get paid? If you don't, aren't you scamming the government as well? Maybe her "scamming" of section 8 is allowing her an affordable apartment somewhere so that she doesn't have to spend 2 hours commuting to your place of business. If you factored in your food, utilities, medicine, commuting costs, even work clothing, plus those of your family, plus rent, could you live on $120 a day, even in one of your building?
I have read a basic economics book, thank you, I took university courses from the people who wrote them. I also am a landlord. I know it's not easy, and it certainly isn't profitable for most small landlords and the system is not on our side. I've had to evict, and it was very costly, and unfair. My current tenants are both great, but even at market rate rents, they are only enabling me to break even, not get rich. I need them to pay my mortgage, they need me to supply them with decent, livable housing.
Your bad experiences seem to have made you very bitter. If you hate it, and your scamming, worthless tenants so much, why don't YOU sell and move out? Or buy a building with higher income tenants in a higher income neighborhood? You seem to have lost your compassion and your objectivity. As much as we all hate government interference, the government has to step in when the private sector steps out. I'd rather my tax dollars paid for even "undeserving" people to have a roof over their head than not. It's a better alternative than stepping over them in the street, or running from them in a dark alley, or having them crawing in through my window. History, one of those other classes I took, teaches that a society that villifies, blames, then isolates and ignores the poor, will soon find itself in a class war with those same poor people at the gate with weapons, hungry and desperate enough to take what they want. Don't think it can't and won't happen here.
Yes, the best solution is a free market. But you can't just wish that into being, with everything else being unequal. In the meantime, shipping them off to Siberia is not the solution.
Posted by: CrownHeightsProud at March 25, 2006 2:54 PM
Sorry, that was "wretched" and "crawling" - typo errors above.
This is getting positively Dickensian.
Posted by: CrownHeightsProud at March 25, 2006 3:15 PM
Just curious, Ebomb...Are you a Republican?
I agree with CHP. If your buildings are making you so stressed and hateful, you need to get out of it. Relax, baby, learn to love again.
Posted by: anon at March 25, 2006 3:33 PM
CHP and Friends,
I'm not complaining about being a landlord. I wouldn't be one if I hated it that much. My point is simply that owning and managing LOW INCOME housing is very difficult to do profitably. I NO LONGER OWN LOW INCOME HOUSING because we made very little, if anything when we owned it. I'm just trying to share my extensive personal experience with you folks.
I currently own and manage some apartment buildings in lower Manhattan. I have a mix of free market and rent regulated tenants. I've renovated many of the apartments and replaced boilers, electric, etc., so I don't have too many maintenance issues.
Of course I dislike rent regulation in NYC. I'm forced to directly subsidize lucky individuals who happened to rent their apartments years ago. It bothers me when I hear folks say they deserve their "deals" since they've lived in their apartments so long. It's crazy . . . as if occupying an apartment is in some way similar to working or paying for something.
Through a combination of risk taking, luck, and hard work, I've done pretty well. My buildings are all in great shape and everybody's apartment problems are resolved immediately, whether they're low rent or high rent.
For your information, CHP and B2B I have several low rent tenants who I have given break after break after break to and still they are several months behind on their rent. I'm the exact opposite of the GREEDY LANDLORD you envision.
Whatever difference it makes, I'm a Democrat who wants lower taxes, like I'm sure many of you are. I'm not "bitter about being a landlord." I'm just experienced and willing to tell it like it is.
Posted by: Ebomb at March 25, 2006 4:52 PM
E-bomb, I offer you my most sincere congratulations on your success. I'm sure it's not easy, and I personally would not want to be a landlord on that scale.
In regards to your non-paying tenants, I am fully aware, as I have always said here and elsewhere, that while most people are honest, some are not. I believe in reaping the consequences of what you sow. If you've held up your end, and they are not holding up theirs, without other mitigating circumstances to the contrary - I have no problem with you evicting them. I may be a liberal softie, but I'm not a sucker.
I think our differences are that your experiences have made you feel that those people are the norm, while I still feel they are the exception.
Posted by: CrownHeightsProud at March 25, 2006 6:19 PM
CHP,
Thanks for the support. Owning and maintaining a brownstone in Brooklyn is certainly something to be very proud of as well, so I congratulate you too. I've passed up many great opportunities but am still living in an apartment.
Hopefully one of these days, I'll go for quality of life and get a brownstone . . . either that or move to Southern California and get a house. . . I haven't really decided. Until then, I'll just plod along, check out Bronwnstoner, and dream.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 25, 2006 9:15 PM
in case anyone wants to know anything about the actual units:
http://ltjbukem.blogspot.com/2006/03/364-myrtle-close-up-with-bonus-video.html
Posted by: ltjbukem at March 26, 2006 7:08 PM
heh brownstoner, can you please set a word limit? all these long responses are just too much. they need to be a little more concise in their statements. didn't they have fabulous english teachers at their prep schools?
Posted by: Anonymous at March 26, 2006 8:14 PM
My husband and I went to the open house on these condos today. My thoughts:
PROS:
-Love the layouts on all. Neat to have a duplex with a proper staircase
-Bathrooms are going to be very nice, with marble, separate shower and bath
-Laundry in each unit
-Amazing decks on apt. A and C
-Spacious feeling
CONS:
-Plenty of street noise in front
-Cheesy kitchen cabinetry (i don't care if it's imported, it's cheap looking)
-NO elevator but LOTS of stairs
-Expensive!
Posted by: Brooklyngirl at March 26, 2006 10:41 PM
Anon 8:14 You mean that fab prep school Evander Childs? And my pre- prep, Olinville JHS AND my pre-K, PS 78. Yes they did have fab teachers who taught that content is better than quantity. I guess the implication is that it must be the white people who are expressing themselves? Not so- in fact one of them is Black who went to Yale on a scholarship. But if you don't want to bother to read a post you're totally welcome to skip it.
Posted by: Bx2Bklyn at March 27, 2006 12:19 AM
I don't know why I'm bothering to comment on someone's complaint that we are too verbose. MY preppy school, rural, public Central High School,where I was in a graduating class of 32, I feel, aptly prepared me for coping with people who have trouble reading more than one paragraph at a time. If someone has something they feel is important to say, what's the harm? If you don't like it, scroll down. We don't need the word counting police. Sheesh.
Posted by: CrownHeightsProud at March 27, 2006 11:20 AM
I have a fairly good job and still pay over 1/2 my take home pay in rent, so it's not just the poor that have this issue.
Unless I win lotto, get hit by a bus ( have a slight injury and great lawsuit), I'm just not in a position to have enough of a down payment for a huge NYC mortgage.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 27, 2006 11:59 AM
Hey anon 11:59-
you belong to a bigger club than you know. But I suggest instead of the bus (too iffy in my book) you slip on a sandwich in front of a City government building. Tuna is quite slippery. The lottery of course would be best but you may have to find a fortune teller to up your chances. :-)
Posted by: Feeling Puckish at March 27, 2006 1:22 PM
This is probably beside the point, but I rented a place on Greene St. close to this very area two years ago. Trust me, I'm POOR, very poor, and was sharing with several people.
When we were at the realtor's office when an 'old timer' yelled through the window 'why are you giving a place to those white folks?!' Much to the embarrassment of my black landlady and black realtor, who were the real winners in the situation for making business for themselves.
Those people who think they have a 'right' to live in that neighborhood and those moving in are too rich, elitist or have a racial problem need to take a good hard look at why THEY are the ones making generalizations, often based on race.
ps. good for you Ebomb - my father lives in a rent controlled building. There are definite differences between people with low incomes. The building used to be filled with hard working immigrants. Now people have moved in who piss in the elevator and rip apart the paneling, spit their gum on the floors and constantly break and spray paint the front doors OF THEIR OWN BUILDING! Sad to say it's the attitude of thinking they deserve everything they've got instead of being thankful for it that is to blame.
Congrats to you - I don't grudge you your success one bit! And neither should anyone.
Posted by: Sarah at March 27, 2006 3:56 PM
Thanks Sarah. There's no easy solution to problem tenants like the ones you describe. Anywhere else in the country, a landlord would just not renew these tenants' leases, but with rent regulated apartments in NYC you can't -- they have to be renewed by law.
Posted by: ebomb at March 27, 2006 9:34 PM
You've missed the point again...Sarah.....it's the minority of 'old timers' who make hurtful comments like those and it's the minority of 'poor people' that destroy their neighborhood.
The majority are just trying to mind their own business, stay alive and survive.
It's obvious how routine observation can turn into stereotype and eventual full-blown racism.
The sense of entitlement flows both ways. I've witnessed a certain arrogance and sense of entitlement on the part of 'new-comers' in my neighborhood. There's this notion of 'taking back' or 're-claiming' the neighborhood that I find disturbing. it carries an inherent prejudice against everyone that doesn't fit the profile of the new hipster and a cavelier disrespect for the 'locals'.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 28, 2006 10:00 AM
correct me if i'm wrong, but before the homeowners on south portland and south oxford made their home sro's for mostly black workers at the navy yard, these blocks were mainly inhabited by white folks. and before that, manhattan was inhabited by the dutch.
so let's take it with a grain of salt when we always talk about 'taking back' or 'reclaiming'
Posted by: ltjbukem at March 28, 2006 10:40 AM
I'm with anonymous 10:00- and I have seen it from both sides. But Anon is right- it seems everytime there is a discussion on gentrification, the same people- or new ones- always bring up the "bad tenant" issue, and some have even gone so far as to claim that 50% are scamming (although they also admit they have no proof other than their own opinion). Sarah is a prime example of the attitude that gets a backlash. Oh poor you! Some one made a comment.Time to whine. How about remembering your Black landlady and Black realtor who helped you get your place? WHy insult them by pointing out problems of some tenants or an "oldtimer?" What have you ever done to win the goodwill of the locals in your neighborhood? Your feelings were hurt, so the first thing you do is whine about reverse discrimination while trotting out whatever bad story you can remember. All that says is you are prejudiced because there are far more people like the realtor and landlady who work hard and maintain their homes who you don't mention.
You reap what you sow.
By the way- Before the Dutch, the land was inhabited by Native AMericans (not to mention the entire country). ANd the fact of the matter is that when one black family moved into a white neighborhood it set off a white flight. I've seen it. However if you want to read about what white people of principle were willing to do, get a copy of the Sunday Times and read about the integration of an apartment complex in Brooklyn. Too bad that story wasn't repeated all over the city.
Posted by: Feeling Puckish at March 28, 2006 11:36 AM
And who was there before the dutch...the indians??? ltjbukem, why does your history of the area stop with the dutch. If anyone needs to 're-claim' or 're-tak
i hope they follow through with planting a tree out front... the computer generated image on corcoran certainly looks better than the actual photo.
Posted by: lc at March 23, 2006 11:54 AM