From the NY Times:...a single block — West 134th Street between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard — offers a vivid illustration of just how cool the market and the mood have turned.
On that block, developers have been trying to figure out what to do with at least four town houses they bought during the boom. Two years ago, the developers planned to renovate the homes and resell them for more than $1 million apiece. But they are leaving them boarded up, letting them fall into foreclosure or selling them, in one case for less than $600,000.
Craig Charie, who is trying to sell an unfinished brownstone at 221 West 134th Street, said he had contemplated chopping up the home, which belonged to a Harlem family for nearly 90 years, and renting it out to Columbia University students.
Some see a benefit to the market’s cooling, saying it will allow a greater opportunity for residents, new and old, to work together to restore some of the neighborhood feel that had been lost through gentrification.
Still, for many involved in Harlem’s remaking — real estate agents, bankers, shop owners, new residents — the swing in real estate fortunes has been breathtaking.
8 comments:
Regrets the lost opportunity for more building collapses like the excellent Harlem facade collapse that trapped 8 people in the pizzeria.
How dare they eat in the face of progress.
On that block, developers have been trying to figure out what to do with at least four town houses they bought during the boom.
-----------------------------------
Here is a novel idea, ho about LIVING there, since it was good enough for you to buy it!
I must not have received that memo, I never knew that Harlem ever was hot!
Id rather live in Harlem as opposed to a place like Howard beach or Bensonhurst.
Yeh ,it's a little harder buying weed or heroin in howard beach or bensonhurst.
A few years aggo, business used to take me up to the state office building on 125 and Lenox. Going down Lenox and surrounding streets, I would see on quite a few occasions, a pack of about 30 Real New Jersey Houswives who fancied themselves as savy real estate investors, being shown various "hot investmentb brownstones area. The natives always seemed to keep their distance, but the never seemed veryhappy to see the fresh new faces in the area.
Where are the "Black Panthers" when we need 'em?
Uh "Wade"...your brain was never hot ...you 'ol honky!
Continue taking your little cat nap in backwater Queens.
We'll wake come dinner time.
I must not have received that memo, I never knew that Harlem ever was hot!
Or maybe - just maybe - you weren't paying attention.
Post a Comment