And now for something completely different: Park Slope townhouses.

Manhattan is not the center of the universe.

Okay, it is the center of the universe.  But there are plenty of reasons to be just a little bit away—close enough so you can get there when you want to, but not right in the middle of the heavy traffic one finds at the crossroads of the world.

A lot of those reasons are in Park Slope, the parallelogram-shaped area in Brooklyn defined by Flatbush Avenue and the Prospect Expressway, Prospect Park West and 4th Avenue. 

Prospect Park runs along its long eastern border, gorgeous and green, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.  By way of rehearsal, they had designed Central Park.

Brownstoner photograph

You'll find charming little gathering places like Sweet Melissa Patisserie on 7th Avenue near 1st Street, which offers pastries so light they float off your plate if you don’t hold them down. 

And there are excellent restaurants including but not limited to Rose Water, for locavores, on Union Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, and al di la trattoria on 5th Avenue near Carroll Street, where you can enjoy saltimbocca alla romana for a trifling $17.00, and braised rabbit with black olives and polenta for $25.

But I was going to talk about townhouses.

Park Slope is the home of the genuine brownstone.  Yes, I know there are those who will casually refer to an 1823 federal style brick row house as a brownstone.  There is a special place in hell reserved for these people.  

But in Park Slope, you’ll find  block after tree-lined  block of beautiful and historic examples of the real thing, far more than on Manhattan’s upper west side, many with much of their original detail, a few with all of it. 

Most of a five story mansion on Prospect Park West of more than 5000 square feet appears to have rested untouched since as early as the 1920s.  The rooms are of a magnificent scale, the paneling and floors are for the most part intact.

Montgomery Place

                                                                             FlickR

Most were built in the 1880s and ‘90s when Park Slope became seriously popular after the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883.  The 1890 census showed Park Slope to be the richest community in the United States, and the houses built in this era reflect that.

The predominant style is Neo-Grec, a late version of Greek Revival.   Brownstoner.com says  “Like the Italianate style, with which it is often combined, the Neo-Grec style row house has a smooth brownstone front, with a pronounced deep cornice, heavy entryway and window details…….Neo-Grec is very masculine in its severity, with angular incised lines and forms, geometric and precise.

"The curved window and door frames [have] squared off edges, the large lintels equally large rectangular blocks. On the steep steps, the large balusters end in squared off cast iron and stone newel posts, with incised ornament, and geometric detail.

"The most striking and signature aspect of Neo-Grec brownstone architecture is the incised carved detail, appearing on window ledges, door frames, and most grandly and beautifully, on the flat surface of the brownstone building. The two most popular styles were an incised flower and vine design…”   http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2010/01/walkabout-archi/#graphic1-2   for more on this.

Urban sprawl and declining local industries led to the decline of Park Slope in the mid-20^th century, but in the ‘60s and ‘70s, young people and artists began converting what had often become rooming houses back to single and two or three family homes.  Thus began Park Slope’s renaissance.

Today, the median age is 34 and the median income is just shy of $100,000 a year.  

Prices for townhouses in Park Slope are minuscule compared to prices for similar houses in Manhattan.  Some recent sales of single family houses:

address	price	sale date	square feet	price per square foot
375A 12 STREET	$2,200,000	6/14/11	1764	$1,247
420 7 STREET	$1,620,000	6/13/11	1552	$1,044
387 6 STREET	$1,950,000	6/10/11	1920	$1,016
532 3 STREET	$2,750,000	8/31/11	2730	$1,007
369 8 STREET	$2,000,000	8/23/11	2208	$906
395 7 STREET	$1,850,000	5/2/11	2295	$806
158 ST JOHN'S PLACE	$3,220,000	7/29/11	4225	$762
106 LINCOLN PLACE	$2,528,000	9/7/11	3240	$780
104 LINCOLN PLACE	$2,400,000	6/1/11	3240	$741
621 3 STREET	$3,050,000	5/25/11	4152	$735
355 14 STREET	$1,476,000	7/29/11	2112	$699
588 5 STREET	$2,500,000	7/6/11	3744	$668
380A 6 STREET	$1,095,000	8/25/11	1680	$652
311A 15 STREET	$1,315,000	9/8/11	2160	$609
235 14 STREET	$650,000	8/9/11	1304	$498

What are the "best" co-ops in Soho? (Some will actually pay you to live there.)

Third in a series on what it costs to live in Soho and what you get for the money.

There's a bigger difference between Soho co-ops and Soho condos than there is between co-ops and condos in the rest of the city.

Condos in Soho have doormen.  They have exercise rooms.  They may have pools, or wine cellers, or dog spas, or all of the above.  Many of them are newly constructed.  Some have the cachet of a famous architect's name attached to them.

If a new building was built on a parking lot, the city does not require  its residents to be artist-certified.

The co-ops are actual loft buildings which were once factories or warehouses.  They're the original residential buildings of Soho, converted by artists in the long ago '60s and '70s.  For more on this subject, see http://withconfidence.blogspot.com/2011/06/should-soho-and-nohos-artist.html

325 Lafayette Street


The buildings are usually five to seven stories tall, and the units are usually full floors, with (today) an elevator that opens into each loft.  Sizes vary, but you won't find anything smaller than 1200 square feet, and few if any that are that small.  Most are about 2000 square feet.

And none of them have the bells and whistles that the condos have.

141 Prince Street


Few sell for more than $5,000,000, although the penthouse at the top of 141 Prince Street traded for $27,500,000 in June of 2010, and again for $25,000,000 in April of 2011.  It has always been an interesting space.  More than twenty years ago, it was an actual farmhouse:  http://withconfidence.blogspot.com/2011/07/from-farmouse-to-penthouse-141-prince.html.

But extreme luxury and popularity with the rich are not the only things that qualify a building as "best."

There are several co-ops in Soho that, because of the income they derive from the retail space on the ground floor of their buildings, have little or no maintenance charges.  Owners in a few of these co-ops not only pay no maintenance but actually get income.

(Yes, of course I'm going to tell you which co-ops these are; at least some of them.  I am not mean enough to keep them a secret!)

325 Lafayette Street, which sits on a trapezoidal plot of land bordered by Lafayette, Mulberry and East Houston Streets, has no underlying mortgage and owners pay a maintenance fee of $600, or 30 cents per square foot, per month for each unit.  Units also derive income from the commercial space on the ground floor.

307 West Broadway, between Canal and Grand Streets, is another such buildling.  Maintenances here are about 50 cents per square foot, and unit owners also derive income from the commercial space.

473 Broome Street


The Gunther building, at 473 Broome Street between Greene and Wooster, has a beautiful castiron facade, some units have wraparound windows, and nobody pays any maintenance.

541 Broadway takes the prize, however.  Not only does it have a beautiful castiron facade, not only does it have a maintenance of $200 per month, but unit owners receive an income of $5,000 per month.  Each.

541 Broadway

Welcome to the stratosphere! New buildings head for the moon.

I'm not exaggerating as much as you might think.

The condo building being constructed at 157 West 57^th Street (to be known, cleverly, as One57) will rise 90 stories, or 1000 feet above ground level.  For a while, at least, it will be the tallest residential building in New York.

The second tallest is the Richard Gehry rental building at 8 Spruce Street.  At a piddling-by-comparison 870 feet, its website (http://www.newyorkbygehry.com/) claims, for the moment, to be the tallest residential building "in the Americas."

The Empire State Building is 1250 feet high.  But the Empire State Building doesn't have floor to ceiling windows that, if you press your nose to the glass so you can't see your feet, make you feel like you're floating in space.

A thousand years ago, when I was flying my little two-seater rented Piper Colt (108 horsepower), cruising altitude was 1000 feet above ground.   I’ll have to go to the 90^th story of One57 to see if I feel nostalgic.  Or maybe airsick.

157 West 57th Street apartment (Artist's conception--they're not built yet)

Prices will range from nearly $7,000,000 to nearly $100,000,000 for the 95 condos which will sit above a Park Hyatt hotel. 

Here's a link:  http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2011/12/05/midtowns_massive_one57_officially_launches_sales.php

But One57 is not the only building on its way to outer space.  

The Wall Street Journal reported recently that, “Four blocks to the east, on Park Avenue, Los Angeles-based real-estate investors CIM Group with developer Harry Macklowe are building a tower that they have said privately has the rights to top off at more than 1000 feet…..Meantime, [a] Houston-based developer…is trying to revived the stalled MoMA tower project on West 53^rd Street that has been approved to build up to 1,050 feet.”

The Journal goes on to say, “But Donald Trump, whose east side residential tower could slip to fifth tallest in New York in a few years, wasn’t about to concede ground.  ‘I still have a lot of the tallest buildings in the city,’ he puffed…”

Yes, Donald, we know you have.  I have long wondered why The Donald has been allowed to work out his Freudian problems on the Manhattan skyline. 

What do you want to bet he starts building one 1100 feet high in the next year?