A long street of identical Bushwick-Ridgewood brick apartments can be a stunning sight, but like brownstones, the charm wears off after a few blocks of the same old thing. That’s why I love when an architectural maverick breaks up the landscape. This house on Suydam near Knickerbocker is one of my favorites facing the park. Its kooky English red brick and slate roof is so different from its blond brick neighbors, you have to wonder what the builder was thinking — and what the neighbors thought.
Since this architecture was most popular in the 30s, and the other buildings are certainly about 20 years older, my theory is that this used to be just like its neighbors, and an owner with a streak of individualism decided to add a “modern” facade — which would explain why the building sits about a foot closer to the street.
Any better-trained historians in the house to explain this place?
Dear apartment hunters: when you call on apartments you see here, please mention you saw it on BushwickBK.com!
#1 — $1050 — studio: I love these old parquet floors. A good price for an ample studio with a decent kitchen and bath. I’m guessing this is on Bushwick Avenue, will update when I hear back from the agent.
PETS OK Bushwick Avenue around DeKalb? Kosciuszko J
#2 — $1650 — loft: Sweet loft at a reasonable price. Exposed brick, wood floors, new and tasteful kitchen and bath.
PETS OK Hancock and Broadway Halsey J
#3 — $1700 — loft: There’s something about this place — the austerity? — that really makes me like it. It says there’s exposed brick and a spacious kitchen but there are no pictures. As always, proceed with caution.
PETS OK Bushwick and Myrtle Myrtle JMZ
#4 — $1100 — 1br: A bit far form the world, but cheap and renovated. Irving and Decatur Halsey L
#5 — $1300 — 2br rr: Good location, sunny, wood floors. It’s good. Hart and Knickerbocker DeKalb L
Bushwick wannabe: This Bed-Stuy apartment claims to be not just in Bushwick, but “border Williamsburg.” Haha, no.
It’s been a while since we have paid specific attention to the area on the other side of Myrtle, what we jokingly call “SoBu.” Well dry those eyes, my co-neighborhoodists to the south, for I bring news: a building is going up at 342 Eldert Street and Irving Avenue, right across from the scamps at 345 — and by the same owner. Contact Luis S., who lives on the same block, took photos and even called the developer, but all the info he could get from them was that it would be a rental. Asking about pricing is of course pointless at this stage. “It looks like it’s going on three stories, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it went to four,” he said.
To the hood rat who spray painted “FUCK KONDOS” on the construction barrier: I note your vain and misguided expression of anger with glee.
Tick. Yeah, that’s the Gentrometer yet again, emitting the sweet sound of ascent.
Residents finally moved into the gut-renovated Bushwick Initiative buildings across the street from me this weekend, four months after they were completed. Oh, the Bushwick Initiative? That’s where the City uses your tax money to fix up someone else’s private property for them, with a guarantee that all the people who lived there before can move back in afterward — with the same rent, of course. Where these families have been warehoused for the past two years, I can’t imagine, I mean — what are they, cattle? Don’t they have plans and dreams? They just live wherever the City plops them? What is the point of this?
Well, whatever, it seems like a great deal for everyone involved: the landlord gets his building overhauled for cheap and doesn’t even have to hire his own contractors; the tenants get fancy new apartments for the same rent which they can somehow — isn’t the point of regulated rent to help the poor? — then afford to fill with a truckfull of new furniture (see photo above); and the political bosses get to keep their subjects in Bushwick, while appearing far-sighted and magnanimous. Who am I missing? Oh yeah, the taxpayers who fund all of this, especially the losers who were unsavvy enough use their own damn money to invest in this neighborhood only to be spit in the face by this whole crooked, corrupt “Urban Renewal, Fourth Time’s a Charm!”
Is it even necessary to mention that Bushwick is exactly as rundown as its proportion of rent-regulated apartments would suggest? The Bushwick Initiative is just the City putting a sad little band-aid on the giant ax wound it created in New York’s housing situation.
The bright side is that ultimately, none of this matters. The desperate fight against the natural order of the market, though backed by practically unlimited pools of cash looted from middle class pockets, is failing on the most important front: the big picture. For all the City and “private” organization RBSCC’s idiotic talk of “revitalizing commercial corridors” though this or that program, it’s happening without them as entrepreneurs take their own initiative. So they renovated a handful of crappy apartments here and there in an arbitrary bit of Bushwick? Well, sorry, no medal for them — developers and landlords have rehabbed and built thousands of units in Bushwick in the same time. Bureaucracy is so dumb and lumbering it doesn’t even realize its much-touted grand efforts are but a drop in the bucket compared to what ordinary people, working mostly in their own interest and of their own direction, have done for Bushwick.
We don’t yet have our own yoga center here in Bushwick, but we certainly have plenty of interest. As a stopgap measure, may I suggest the services of the Bushwick Yogi?
The Yogi’s been practicing yoga since 1992 and is certified by several different yoga(l?) authorities. I’ll let him describe himself:
“I incorporate Hatha, Vinyasa, and Therapeutic Yoga into a comprehensive teaching practice focused on your individual needs. Individual sessions and classes typically include chanting, warm-ups, eye rejuvenation exercises, asanas, deep relaxation, guided healing visualization, meditation and breath work.”
Bushwick Yogi is also hoping to expand his business and is interested in renting space to teach classes, so if you can help him out, or you are interested in a private session at your home please contact him via email.
Money wasted on this map could have been used to buy produce.
Just when you thought the people of this city had endured quite enough paternalism, our benevolent overseers have now found it fit to tell us we don’t eat the way they say we should. Bushwick is, as usual, alarmingly red on the map of areas in the city which rate poorly. Lower Manhattanites, along with people in some other areas in the outer boroughs, apparently eat a bureaucrat-endorsed amount of veggies daily. Less-obedient people in other neighborhoods apparently do not eat “enough,” with up to 26% of people having responded to the one-day survey that on the previous day, they had eaten no fresh fruits or vegetables. That’s “400% less than Manhattanites!” I can see the stats-mongers screaming.
To remedy this, the city wants to recruit people to run fruit stands in these “underserved” neighborhoods, so that the people there will buy and eat the approved amount of fresh foods and thereby have lower rates of everything bad. They are calling it the Green Carts program. A few problems I will note:
The cameraman at one point shows his face and says, “scary!” I think it’s rather “embarrassing!” Funny how he stands there and is like, oh look the house is burning down, that totally sucks. Everything turned out okay in the end, just a bit of damage and some aggravated neighbors.
Assorted hipsters and such walk past Bushwick’s “future Bedford Avenue.”
I have been thinking that the Northern part of Wyckoff Avenue, with several vacant storefronts and underutilized warehouses, would be the perfect little hipster-yuppie “main street,” if only a few more atmosphere-contributing businesses could open. Several large residential lofts exist within a one-block radius, not to mention the thousands of Bushwick newbies that have moved into all the unglamorous standard apartments in the area over the past year. Northeast Kingdom and the Wyckoff-Starr anchor the block — of course, they’re both owned by the same people. One new storefront has recently been beautifully renovated, but it’s still not certain what is going in that space.
Why won’t someone with a clue buy the big, empty brick warehouse on the interior of the block? Chill out, someone has. And they plan on creating up to five storefronts, with the renovations inside and out to be designed by an architect “practically pro bono,” attracted to the project for its uniqueness.
This weekend I met with David Krieger of the Brooklyn Atlantic Real Estate Co. to talk about it. He and his team are working with the owner to find a “sustainable” mix of tenants, so we won’t just end up with whatever will pay the highest rent.
Irving Square Park in the snow, by eppleart, from the BushwickBK flickr pool
What’s the Password?: Bushwick food speakeasy! Well, not quite as exciting as that — a flat fee is charged that pays the overhead. Still, the food sounds pretty great. Um… invite?
KLAmor Over the Balkans: Serbians in Ridgewood seethe over Kosovo’s Albanian mafia declaring independence from Belgrade.
Stuck in the Snow: Jimmy Legs, in more kitty-related ramblings, wonders why snow makes people take so many cars that he can’t get one. After all, the train works, and traffic moves more slowly in the snow.
#1 — $1400-2500 — studio-3br lofts: Looks like this guy has several lofts available in this building. Great space and light, big windows, wood floors, utilitarian yet attractive kitchens. I like it a lot.
PETS OK Jefferson and Scott studio | 2br | 3br Jefferson L
#2 — $1750 — 2br loft: I hate how I can’t back away far enough for this ad to be pleasant to look at, but this agency always has very nice stuff. And look — it’s near “the new Bedford Avenue of Bushwick, Wyckoff Avenue!” Hm, not quite yet.
“Jefferson L Stop” Jefferson L
#3 — $1050 — studio: Nice place, decent kitchen, old style parquet floors, okay location on attractive Bushwick Avenue.
PETS OK Bushwick and Bleecker Kosciuszko J
#4 — $1450 — 1br: Totally renovated apartment with wood floors and high ceilings. Huge kitchen looks good for cooks. Intercom, security cameras, extra storage in basement, “attentive management company.” The backyard is completely private. Take over lease from current tenant. Locust and Beaver Myrtle JMZ
#5 — $1900 — 3br: Nice big place on pretty Stanhope Street in a solid brick building. Each bedroom has own closet — oooh! I’d probably ask for $100 off, unless the bedrooms are huge. Stanhope and Cypress DeKalb L
