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Tenants' Rights Flash Cards!
Some people wish for that dream job. Other daydream about a knight in shining armor or someone comfortably within the Madonna/whore complex. New Yorkers, however, tend to hallucinate about real estate - "Will the owners rent to me?" "Can I find a place downtown and within my budget?" "Will I pass the co-op board?" etc. So news of Brooklyn developer and new Nets owner Bruce Ratner's offer to buy out residents of one Brooklyn building, near where he wants to build the new Brooklyn Nets arena, seems like a fantasy: He's basically paying owners twice the amount their apartments cost. And these aren't your standard downtown Brooklyn apartments - this is a, according to the Daily News, "swank" condo, with owners of a $600,000 three bedroom, 1300 square-foot apartment getting $1.2 million to get out. The Daily News reports that some residents are worried that Ratner's moves will force people to make deals, because "nobody wants to make the last to make a deal." Well, money does talk. What Gothamist wants to know is when is Ratner coming to Manhattan? We'd like to sell him our old TV for twice what it's worth; our argument is that the TV will get in the way of us going to Brooklyn for Brooklyn Nets games.
The Daily News also looks at what $1.2 million can buy in the five boroughs: "Park Ave., Manhattan - A 'super-luxury' one-bedroom apartment" and "Jamaica Estates, Queens - A six-bedroom Tudor."
Gothamist on the Nets coming to Brooklyn and on NYC real estate.
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That's the Atlantic Arts building, one of my favorites in the area. Photos and discussion here.
Better than having it taken through fraudulent Eminent Domain proceedings.
Take a look at the building and see a TGI Friday's in its place. Thank God for progress.
This is probably a huge turning point in most of whatever public opinion was against this project.
Haha - this is hilarious. Ratner will basically turn all of these people against each other. The majority will cut the deal, the others will be pressured to cut a deal. Even if they don't, he'll get such a large majority of the 160 out of the 'hood that displacing the others won't seem so bad. And in the end, there will be an arena on Atlantic Avenue.
Money talks, nostalgia walks.
Are they buying out any other buildings in the area? My ex lives down the block from the Atlantic Arts building. If he gets bought out for 2x the purchase price of his apartment, I will frigging plotz. There will also be rending of garments and gnashing of teeth at his windfall, lucky bastard.
Hillarious! Does any of this really shock anyone? I think the idea of buyouts has enetered everyone's mind from day one. But I personally find it hillarious that the immensely overrated Atlantic Arts Building is the first one to fall under the spell of buyouts. They have been one of the more vocal voices against the Ratner plan--which is much more than an arena--and the building is really basically a "gut rehab" taken to the extreme. It barely resembles what it once was pre-gentrification. And now it's an overpriced condo building that is really not that architeturally special in any way. Go too any NYC neighborhood with pre-war buildings that are maintained and you can find nicer buildings.
The arena plan is still a bad idea. But the people taking the buyouts. Man, are they one big first domino to fall in a chain. I hope others in the neighborhood are treated as well. Especially the poorer non condo families who rent.