House of the Day: Midwood Not Mid-Priced
This four-story limestone on Midwood Street in Lefferts Manor is the real deal but, man, $1.495 million is a lot of dough for this nabe, isn’t it? It looks like the extensive woodwork in the house (including several fireplaces) is in excellent shape. As usual, we’re not loving the kitchen reno, but that is what…
This four-story limestone on Midwood Street in Lefferts Manor is the real deal but, man, $1.495 million is a lot of dough for this nabe, isn’t it? It looks like the extensive woodwork in the house (including several fireplaces) is in excellent shape. As usual, we’re not loving the kitchen reno, but that is what it is. The house, which is of a grander scale than many in the area, also boasts inlaid parquet floors, pocket doors and stained glass. Still, $1.495 million? What do the locals think?
Update: This is 68 Midwood Street–the identical twin of #55. Both were built by W.A.A. Brown and were originally priced at $11,000 when they hit the market a century or so ago. According to Bob Marvin, the reason for the dumbwaiter is that these houses were built with TWO dining rooms–an informal one in the ground floor front and a formal one, over the kitchen, in the parlor floor rear.
Midwood Limestone [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
“Man, $1.495 million is a lot of dough for this nabe, isn’t it?” said Brownstoner at the top of this thread. Well, this house fetched $1.475M.
Wait to call ’em, Jonny B.
We moved to PLG from PH about 6 years ago. PH wasn’t the nabe then that it is now in terms of retail. I recall that someone had recently opened PH’s first coffee bar on Vanderbilt, which had one nice restaurant and a Key Food and that was it. Flatbush wasn’t much better. There was a Korean Deli and one nice restaurant. There were people hanging out on our corner of Underhill and St. Johns day and night. Retail is always the last thing to come around in a gentrifying neighborhood.
it’s hard to reach a consensus over whether 68 Midwood is overpriced when there is such disagreement over the terms of the discussion. some find the current state of PLG unacceptable; some find PLG lovable. some find PS heaven in terms of amenities; some find PS getting kind of bland and “yuppiefied”.
for PLG to survive and thrive, we don’t need 8 million New Yorkers who want to spend $1.4 million on 68 Midwood or similarly high amounts on other houses in the neighborhood. 500 New Yorkers would be just fine! (and if some of them would prefer to live in PS and can’t afford it – well, that’s fine, too. i would probably rather own a building in the East Village. not gonna happen. i’ll be okay.)
i understand the concerns about crime, harassment, schooling, etc. very well, and these are considerations that anyone needs to make in deciding on a neighborhood in which to live.
i must admit, though, that i don’t quite get the concern about the “amenities”. i get into discussions about the amenities i would like to have in PLG, and get excited about K-Dog and the upcoming Mexican restaurant. at the same time, i know that my “real life” routines are a mix of visiting Olive Vine and Pintchik in PS, buying small hardware items at Hawthorne Hardware, groceries at Associated, lunch at K-Dog, deliveries from Fresh Direct, other items from Target, ordering food from India Place in Prospect Heights, etc. would i be happier if Pintchik were where Phat Albert is? maybe. would i be happier if flatbush between maple and rutland had a Duane Reade, an American Apparel, a Starbucks, a Barnes and Noble and a Blockbuster? probably not.
if i were not reasonably mobile (even as a non-driver), it would be more of a concern for me that Pintchik isn’t two blocks from me, and a movie theater isn’t five blocks away. being reasonably mobile, i’m not sure i get the concern. are the fact that one has to drive, take a bus or a train (for 30 minutes or less) to get to certain stores really a fatal defect for a neighborhood, if the absence of (an abundance of) those same stores allows a particular type of charm to survive? for many people (not all) maybe it’s more important to think about what amenities are readily accessible within 15 or 30 minutes, than to focus only on places less than 10 blocks away, in figuring out the “value” of a neighborhood. (especially when you have within walking distance a small zoo, a large park, and beautiful gardens, with a great library and a museum not much further away.)
if you don’t live there, how do you know that there are gunshots at night? did someone else who doesn’t live there tell you about them? and did that person hear it from another person who lives there?
i haven’t been reading this blog for that long, but in the time that i have, i have yet to see a firsthand account of danger in plg. just non-residents expressing their negative opinions of the area.
All the houses in PLG are over priced. Yes there is glorious details galore. But no one mentions the gun shots at night that make me feel safe.
A handful of white gentrifiers expect to change a very large and predominent Caribbean American community.
One or two restaurants will not make much difference.
Still no public schools where the gentrifiers would send their children.
Maple Street school – glorified day care.
i grew up in PS during the 80s and 90s. my parents still live in the same limestone. prime block – between 8th ave and ppw, street that formerly had the haagen dazs at the corner of 7th ave, across from belimelios (old slopers know what street i’m talking about). anyway, as recent as the late 80s/early 90s we still had serious crime (woman held up at gun point in broad daylight while entering her home on our block, man shot in the head at ppw and 3rd street (west side of ppw) during daylight. car thefts and muggings galore in the wee hours. from what i understand and have observed over the course of house hunting in and reading up on plg, the nabe is safe and stable, and definitely no less so than the slope of the early 90s, which was pretty darn comfortable. sure plg may lack the amenities that park slope has, but it still has much of the diversity (ethnic and economic) and realness that is gone from the slope. and it’s right on the park, and faster door-to-door to midtown west offices than the majority of the slope. anyway, i’m looking at 68 midwood hard (i can confirm how amazing it is in person, inside and out (front and back). we’ll see what happens …
Please don’t buy in PLG, and especially Rutland Rd., unless you like the neighborhood just the way it is. I moved here two years ago and I shop in the local stores – who needs Starbucks? And those people on the corner are not all drug dealers; most of them are normal, middle to lower income apartment dwellers! I come home at 2 a.m. and feel perfectly safe; unlike other neighborhoods, Flatbush is never deserted and the people are friendly. If you don’t feel comfortable with neighbors of another race, culture or ethnic origin, if you don’t think you’d “fit in”, don’t try to change PLG – do us all a favor and buy an apartment in Park Slope!
I wonder what Brownstoner will cook up for us this time. Although I expect the typical back-handed compliment (e.g. Nice ‘hood, but…), the only prediction I make is that they’ll get a lot of hits and comments from it (so their advertisers will, at least, be happy!).
Actually, I will make a prediction: Brownstoner will do a “critical” look at recent real estate articles which don’t paint the gloom and doom bubble picture that they agressively endorse (just like the recent swipe at the Harvard Study).
Anyone wanna make a wager?
the official brownstoner sportsbook has the over under on this forthcoming plg post set at 212. place your wagers at franny’s – knock on the kitchen door twice and ask for rudy.