Another Brick in the Wall

There are those red brick ‘60s-style attached homes with garages you see scattered throughout the boroughs. A handful of them are wedged between brownstones in my immediate neighborhood and I always wonder who lives in them since transplants would never think of living in such non-authentic structures devoid of historic charm. I imagine it’s now old people who didn’t have a prejudice against the new and shiny half a century ago. Maybe like the buyers of all those so-called soulless condos springing up today.

I think they’re fascinating in their suburban out-of-place-ness–at least in theory–but what do they look like inside? A smart design savvy type could really take the era and run with it, though I strongly doubt anyone has. I vaguely recall a Hunt column from maybe four years ago (by the way, I loved last week’s with the Belgians who lived in Ridgewood by choice and thought that insane new castle-themed condo in the neighborhood was “too hip” for them) where a young couple wanted something classic and tasteful in a good neighborhood but could only afford one of these red brick buildings in like Windsor Terrace.

Based on a glimpse into this $699,000 specimen in Kensington, my dreary, geriatric fears have been confirmed. Did someone just die in this room?

No matter how much they tout staging and cheap fixes for reselling on television design shows, “You’ll never get your full $200,000 unless you paint the entire house, landscape the front yard, change all the light fixtures and hide all your tacky LOVE, CHERISH and TRUST mantle-top sculptures and sticky, plastic kids’ furniture.” NYC properties don’t even try.

This is the typically luxurious, modern, granite-and-stainless-steel-appliance-free kitchen you’ll find for nearly $1.9 million in College Point, Queens. For the unfamiliar, that’s an industrial neighborhood with no subway line, across the river from the Bronx

Here is the kind of bathroom you’ll get for $1.3 million just blocks from where I live. That kind of money will provide a mirror with those dated dressing room lights I’ve had in every Brooklyn rental including my current one. Just don’t expect to receive more than one actual bulb for that kind of chump change.