That's the news tucked in this Streetscapes column from the NY Times, profiling the 1879 tenement buildings that peer out over Hicks Street and the BQE in Cobble Hill. "The 76 three- and four-room apartments in the Tower Buildings each rented for $1.50 to $2 a week, and the 1880 census lists tenant occupations like coppersmith, typesetter and tailoress," they write, and carried such luxuries as private toilets, decorative iron railings and a garbage chute. The buildings (including a sister nine-building complex across the street, called the Home buildings) were purchased in the 1970s for $450,000 by one Frank Farella, who gut renovated but kept rents low; they cite a one-bedroom with "killer views" that goes for $1,335 per month. Now, as we reported back in May, Farella has partnered with the developer Hudson Companies (our Third and Bond bloggers) to breathe new life into them; he put them on the market for $60 million with the clause that he remain a part of their future. Apparently, that future may include condo or co-op conversion. Will they somehow remain affordable, you think?
Architectural Wealth, Built for the Poor [NY Times]
Exclusive: Hudson To Partner on Cobble Hill Towers [Brownstoner]
Photo from the Brooklyn Historical Society
