My house has seen a lot. Based on its size (small!), it’s probably one of the oldest houses on the block, and would have witnessed the construction of the brick buildings around it. It might have seen a rail line that would turn the corner right here at Jefferson, turn south on Central and chug to the Cemetary of the Evergreens; due to municipal ball-dropping, a company was never assigned the route.

But the years, and previous owners, have been harsh. A house that once stood in the back yard burned down, and only the foundations and a few feet of brick wall survive, trees having long ago grown up through the floors and weeds having decomposed into several feet of dirt on top of the rubble. The interior of the house has been hacked up many times — the rooms have been flipped around all over, and bluestone slabs in the floor leave a hint to where fireplaces might once have been. But the most shocking damage is to the facade: a once-ornate front has been ripped off, replaced by poorly done stucco and cheap white flashing. My carved wooden double doors were ripped out, replaced by a smaller, single door, the extra space in the frame filled in sloppily with random pieces of timber. My storefront has been gone for almost 70 years — the Italian family that owned the house sold jewelry here.

The full horror of it was revealed to me the other day when I received a photo from the City from “around 1940.” Brace yourself: below is the before and after:


And from my neighbor’s City photo, you can see our now-residential street used to be mostly commercial at street level:

Other tragedies are apparent on my block. The building next door is now a lot used by an irresponsible construction company called “Greenleaf Cost.[sic] LLC” to store vehicles, chop up cars, and toss tons of trash. Across the street is another vacant lot that breaks up an an otherwise-attractive row of brick apartment houses. The remaining woodframe buildings have been defaced, too. We even have a “Fedders special” (called a much more un-PC term here in Bushwick) on the corner, which is not that bad and at least matches our setbacks.

There is no way we could afford a full restoration of the facade, but some decent window frames, shutters, a proper front door, and a simple new cornice — not to mention a new paint job! — might deghettofy our sad little pink box.

Anyone have any suggestions for a way to approach the facade? Or at least how to shut down the rat-and-mosquito-breeding lot next door?

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