Biking over there I felt good. That neighborhood has changed so much in the last 7 years, evidenced by the now always-packed cafe/bakery CHOICE on Lafayette and Grand, and a number of other cute establishments. Everywhere we looked a new luxury condo was being built, and brownstones were being renovated. Located between the C and the Gtrains, it was a pretty good area to be in.
When we arrived, though, and saw the horrid mint-green ultra-modern monstrosity that was the building's facade, we almost turned right back around. It just screamed ASSHOLE.
Which brings me to the point of this post. Irwin and I are figuring out as we house hunt, what the important criteria are. The obvious ones are how big the place is, how convenient the location is, how much the place costs. We are thinking of rating each place we see (with five star systems) according to the different criteria. There is a category of rating that we have been calling the "ASSHOLE" rating. Essentially, there are places we would not want to live in -- not because of unfavorable the price or the layout or location -- but because of how ashamed we would be to live there. You have to understand, Brooklyn is and has been a changing neighborhood. Gentrification has changed places like Williamsburg and Harlem and DUMBO. Fort Greene is wonderful but on its way to being the next Park Slope (babyland). The Clinton Hill/Bed-Stuy border is definitely the new frontier. You'll find tons of new luxury (read: ugly metal & concrete) high-rises popping up everywhere, their unabashedly tacky exteriors practically glowing against the brownstone landscape. Like have you seen that new lux-condo at the base of the Manhattan Bridge (on the Brooklyn side)? It's called ORO and it is hands down the ugliest thing you will see. Planted in the middle of the wasteland between housing projects and downtown Brooklyn, it's difficult to imagine what kind of person would want to live there.
Anyway, the place we saw, was in many ways a wonderful apartment. Great newly renovated everything, open kitchen, 2 bathrooms, and exclusive access to a BACKYARD.
The cons? OK, well I wasn't crazy about the layout (front door opening right into the middle of the living room. And... well, the off-the-chart ASSHOLE factor.
I am kicking myself for not taking a photo of the outside, but seriously, as Irwin says, we would need to wear a paper bag over our heads whenever we left or came back to the apartment. AND, because of the huge street-facing windows, we'd also have to wear paper bags over our heads when we were inside the house. Yes the backyard is pretty freaking amazing, but the dog we would be able to have because of the backyard would also have to wear a paper bag over its head to leave the apartment, AND wear one inside the house. People would come and egg the windows to our living room. And I don't want to live like that, no way.The other two units in the building were 3BR, and they each had private access to the roof, where we found something truly amazing. The roof next door had a pigeon coop!!!!
That was pretty awesome and weird.
Needless to say we aren't moving into that place. I'm not a fancy gal but paperbags have no place in my wardrobe.
If you have any question as to whether a place rates highly on the ASSHOLE scale, one good place to check (asides from the obvious outer facade & entryway) is the bathroom. Especially the faucet. A common ASSHOLE high faucet will look like this:
It's that high-end fancy design that's just nice enough to make you feel like you're in a hotel, but actually pretty generic and sterile.We're about to go see open houses today -- more on that later.
1 comment:
hahaha we are doing up our place in Italy and picking bathroom stuff and we saw those sinks and some of them were kind of cool but then i remembered where i had seen them before- the DENTIST office- they are the rinse and spit sinks! I am sure of it!
and why do all the asshole apts. have to have those green railings?
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