Had an opportunity to spend a few hours behind St. Anne's Saturday afternoon. We spotted this place at 287-289 Monroe Street at the corner of Peckham.
![IMG_6796[1]](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/180/477511778_970a7f717b.jpg)
The City took possession of this four unit building during the tax sale last October. It's clearly marked for demolition as the notice was stapled to the boards some time last week. Only one problem. The building is structurally sound. The roof is new and there's not a crumbling brick. The side door was open...so. Lots of cosmetics, mechanics and a dozen new windows are needed. The apartments are divided along very traditional lines with two bedrooms in each unit.
While I fully understand that the market may not be catching up to this neigbhorhood anytime soon, would'nt it make more sense to "moth-ball" a building like this...than send it to the landfill?
This City owned building is arguably in better condition than many of the City owned buidings listed in the City For-Sale Catalog, that I wrote about last week.
Anyone want to venture a guess as to how much we're spending on knocking this down? Plywood is probably cheaper...really!
So it goes...
__________________________________________________________________________While I fully understand that the market may not be catching up to this neigbhorhood anytime soon, would'nt it make more sense to "moth-ball" a building like this...than send it to the landfill?
This City owned building is arguably in better condition than many of the City owned buidings listed in the City For-Sale Catalog, that I wrote about last week.
Anyone want to venture a guess as to how much we're spending on knocking this down? Plywood is probably cheaper...really!
So it goes...
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5 comments:
I used your link to google maps to take a look at the immediate neighborhood, and it's amazing to see how many properties are already gone. Heck - it looks like the properties inside the block of Peckham / Monroe / William / Adams are already 50%+ gone. I wonder what we've already lost that we didn't even know existed?
aaron...
What amazes me is that digital cameras cost next to nothing and blogs are free so, why aren't more people out shooting up what's left of the urban landscape before it completely morphs into prairie?
Any thoughts?
Good point...I'm only just starting to realize the scope of the problem.
aaron...
I'm in meetings on a regular basis with city hall and various policy people. NO one has there hands around the full extent of the abandonment and vacancy. It's compounded of course by the recent accelerating of our city/region's population decline.
One of my summer projects is to assemble a team of volunteers - with some brief training - head out and complete an intensive street level survey of the area bounded by Main/33 - Ferry/Summer. Interested in helping out? Let me know...
This place was so sweet. It is currently divided into 4 units, upper and lower on each side with full basement and attic.
The really cool feature is a light well down the center of it. I think this would make an awesome upper and lower built around the light well. The natural lighting and layout would be amazing.
Being an all brick structure (except for the stairways added to the rear to pry meet code at a later date), it should be mothballed. Its solid and all brick buildings are not getting built anymore. We walked by houses that have burnt years ago and are still standing, yet this place gets the demo nod? A system in place or are the plowing on whims?
Yesterday I was driving around exploring off Broadway between Memorial and Bailey. Want to see what this area used to look like before they started the demo, go there. There are some streets fully intact, but with 80% of the houses boarded and or burnt. The scope is quite insane and appears fully insurmountable without some innovative initiatives from the city government. We know what the chances of that pry are....
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