110 West 123 Collapses To The Ground

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Jay Harper

A little after 4pm today Dan and I felt what I thought was an earthquake. Our whole building did a quick, but major shake. It wasn’t an earthquake – a building down the street form ours (110 West 123rd Street) collapsed to the ground – only about 15 minutes after Dan walked past the building…

A permit to do structural work had been pulled a few weeks ago, and they had started work earlier this week. First a construction fence, and then I saw the ground floor was pretty much gutted. Given what I had seen I thought for a moment about calling 311 and asking that a structural inspector check out the job to make sure everything is safe. But I didn’t call. Lesson learned on that one. Guess there are times when being a meddlesome neighbor is a good thing.

There was an empty lot to the left (east) and the block association’s community garden to the right (west). The building was sold late last September for $600,000. The last two SRO tenants had stopped living there around November, and the new owner put it on the market for $1.1M in December.

I had taken a couple clients through the house back in December/January. There were serious structural problems evident in the cellar. Here are some pictures of what the foundation looked like…

bracing to support failing structure

In the picture above you can see that they had put bracing in to support the structure that was failing. You can also see that a portion of the foundation had failed and was patched with cinder blocks.

In the picture below you can see another part of the foundation that failed was patched with brick…

brick patch of foundation

One of the times I went through it our contractor joined us. He told us he was “scared of the building”. That it was the type of building that could collapse without warning if you messed with it. He wasn’t worried so much about the patches as he was about parts of the foundation where the mortar was missing…

missing mortar in foundation

All in all it was VERY spooky to be in that cellar. You could just feel trouble. It wasn’t just that it was dark and dank – I go through a lot of places like that. It was all the bracing and patching.

The problems with the building were evident even outside the building. We were in the community garden next door a few weeks ago and I snapped this photo of the corner of the building…

problems at corner

Stuff like that just isn’t good – especially when combined with a wonky foundation.

The extension you see in the picture above is actually interesting. It hadn’t settled, but the rest of the building had. So at one point the floor sloped rather dramatically – probably went up 9 inches over as many feet.

The origin of the problems is that the townhouse used to be part of a row of townhouses, but over time all but this one were torn down. It was never designed to be a freestanding house. To be a freestanding house it needed a lot of reinforcement.

Our contractor said it would be best to tear the place down and start over. If it had to be salvaged you’d have to cocoon it and put walls all around it. Problem is, the garden folks didn’t want to give up land, and the party wall on the other side was already 6″ over the property line. I’m not sure there was really a way to save this building. At most, the façade could have been braced and the rest of the building demolished.

I will say it’s unusually lucky that the workers had left the site when the collapse happened and the community garden was closed and locked. Apparently no one was even walking past. While demolition was most likely what was needed – there are cheaper ways to demolish a building. The City is going to want to get paid all the overtime for their workers. NYPD, FDNY, Parks Department, etc. Apparently right now they’re taking every piece of the building out, spreading it on the street to look for body parts and anything else that can help them in their investigation – how much is that going to cost?

Inside it was a grand townhouse – 20 foot wide. There were some incredible fireplaces…

great old fireplace

And a grand staircase…

The ceilings were really high, and on parlor there were some that had great plaster work…

In fact the ceilings were so high that the 5th floor could see over it’s neighbors to the south – all the way to midtown.

It’s sad to see buildings like this die, but alas, it happens…

Shell Coming On The Market South of 125

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Jay Harper

I know some of you who read the blog are looking to do a project similar to what Dan and I have done. The problem is finding shells south of 125 that aren’t ridden with problems (legal, structural, etc) is easier said than done.

Just today I found out about a place in the Mount Morris Park historic district that’s about to go on the market. It will need a total gut renovation – so it’s a similar sized project to ours. It’s a good sized place (I estimate it to be over 4,000 sq. ft.) so the asking price is a bit higher than some other shells, but it’s got the square footage to justify the price.

There is a Certificate of No Harassment in place, so financing is an option, but even so you’re looking at a total investment (purchase + renovations) of around $2M for moderately high-end finishes. While you could do the project for less, that level of finish will result in the place being worth a bit under $3M when you’re done (assuming the market doesn’t drop) – so the project should be profitable.

If you’re interested and want to know more, send me an e-mail – jay@beatingupwind.com

127 & 136 W 123 Are Adding Floors

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Jay Harper

A year or so the Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association began work to try to get the blocks between Lenox and Adam Clayton Powell landmarked. Currently they’re recognized by the National Register of Historic Places, but not by NYC’s Landmark Preservation Committee.

mount morris historic district map with extension shown

The gray area is the part that’s landmarked, the blue area is on the National Register, but not landmarked – that’s the part MMPCIA has been working to get landmarked.

Well, on our block it’s a bit too late… Two buildings on the block are adding stories – something they wouldn’t be allowed to do if they were landmarked. The two buildings are 127 West 123 and 136 West 123. I’m fine with 127 adding a floor, but I’m really disappointed to see 136 add a floor…

127 West 123rd Street

127 West 123rd Street is one of two old townhouses that are sandwiched between the two halves of the Windows on 123 condos. Windows on 123 maxes out the possible building height and sorta dwarfs the townhouses. So from my perspective it’s not horrible that floors are added to the townhouses… Here’s a photo right after they started adding the floor…

127 west 123rd street

I wish they had set the extra floor back a little, but given what it’s up against, it’s not horrible… Here it is again as a 3D drawing…

Actually, I’m a little surprised 75′ is the max height on a 60′ wide street – but that is what it is…

136 West 123rd Street

In contrast to 127, 136 West 123rd Street is one of 16 continuous brownstones that have not been altered. Adding a floor to it is a much bigger deal since it breaks something that still has the potential to be pristine…

Brownstones on West 123rd Street between Lenox and Adam Clayton Powell

I’m really disappointed that the view you see above is going to be marred by an extra story on top of one of those buildings. Not only are they going up a floor, but they’re pushing the back wall back to the maximum 65 feet with the minimum 30 foot rear yard…

If we had been landmarked LPC could have mandated that the additional floor be set back far enough that it not be visible from the street. At least there’s some set back (6′ 6″), but a 10 or 15 foot setback would have been so much nicer.

As sort of a side note, 136 W 123 was for many years the neighborhood hangout – mostly older (Belizian?) guys with who were pretty big into music. (We even bought a couple CDs off one of the guys – and they weren’t bad). There used to be a social club in the ground floor which had it’s ups and downs. The guy who lives behind them on 122nd Street still has a bullet hole in his window thanks to that club. When the club closed they just moved their socializing onto the stoop. They’re generally good guys, but their hanging out got pretty loud. Just the other day one of the neighbors I “met” due to the RCN incident told me she got only 4 hours of sleep a night during the summer because they were so loud. So 136 being renovated will really change the block since it was one of the remaining centers of the old culture on the block.

Back when MMPCIA started their push to get the blocks between Lenox and ACP landmarked, I wasn’t so keen on the idea. I still don’t think landmarking is warranted for the north side of our street which already feels like it has three zilliion styles of architecture. But as I thought about it, the unbroken row of 16 brownstones on the south side of the street was worth protecting – but once 136 gets rehabbed, that purity will be gone. We can never go back to what it used to look like.

The architect seems like he’s got it in him to do a decent job. I just hope his client is spending the money to execute a good design. If we’re going to have a visible addition marring the view – please, just let it be fairly well designed.

UPDATE:

I went to see the Windows on 123 lofts yesterday and looking down I could see that there were already additional floors added to some of the brownstones on the south side of the street. Here you can see that 132 West 123 has an extra floor added already…

132 West 123 additional floor added

That’s a rather large amount of “stuff” that was added and it’s fairly close to the edge – yet it’s not readily visible from the street, so I’m hopeful that the additional roof on 136 won’t be visible either. [136 is the one two doors down with the blue tarp.]

152 West 123 also has an extra floor, but it’s stepped back further and features a bigger/nicer roof deck off what I assume is the master bedroom…

123rd street roofs

I just find it really odd that they had the money to add an extra floor, but not enough to restore their cornice.

[In the picture above you can see our bulkhead in the distance. It looks pretty small compared to everything else...]

So seeing that there are already several with extra roofs added, I’m far less worried about roofs being added – though I’m hoping none get added on 122 that would block our view

105 West 122nd Highest Sale Since Crash – $2.85M, $670/sq. ft.

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Jay Harper

Well, the high end of the Harlem townhouse market is certainly doing well – especially in Mount Morris Park. First 30 West 120 sold for $2.5M ($568/sq. ft.), now 105 West 122 just sold in less than 3 months for $2.85M – a whopping $670/sq. ft. Those sales aren’t outliers – The Wall Street Journal is even writing articles about the rise in prices in Harlem.

Admittedly there’s a lot to like about 105 West 122nd Street… It was recently converted to single family and prices for single family townhouses are typically higher than multi-family. Single family homes are luxuries and people pay good money for luxuries. The place is also a generous 19 feet wide with about 4,256 sq. ft. (including exterior walls) – 1,064 sq. ft. per floor, which is big.

The interior renovation appears to have been pretty much perfect. This bathroom is beautiful…

The kitchen looks like it might be European modular ($$) of some sort…

And you can see there’s a wonderful blend of traditional elements and contemporary living – which is what buyer’s want…

That said, at $2.85M and $670/sq. ft I expect perfection and there are things about the exterior that I personally find a little disappointing… Case and point is the newel post you see in the picture to the right – they didn’t restore the original ornamentation. The sister townhouses on either side have their detail intact – there were examples of what it should have looked like, but the previous owners didn’t take the time to do the work. Not a big deal, but at this particular price point I’d expect it to be done (30 West 120th’s façade work was impeccable). Also the façade is painted – which is something you do when you’re cutting corners to stay on budget (like we are with our place).

Then there are the windows – they’re just inexpensive aluminum windows (see picture below). They’re in good condition, but at this price point I expect better quality.

All in all it’s a great place with an excellent renovation (at least inside). It shows that if you spend time to do a good renovation it will come back to you when you go to sell. I get the sense that some people think we’re being a bit fussy about some of the details in our renovation, but a slightly higher budget and attention to detail really do pay off in the long run.

With the high end going up, the question is what will happen to the low end? Restrictive lending is holding down the prices at the low end for now… It’s a great time for all and mostly cash buyers to be buying and renovating…

Good Day: 243 W 120 Sells, Our Windows Clear Customs

Posted on October 1, 2011 by Jay Harper

It was a VERY good day yesterday. Our windows had come arrived in port Thursday morning, and managed to clear customs in a single day. Given all the other delays on our project I was half expecting to hear that there would be a 3 or 4 week hold for customs inspection. They’ll probably be delivered on Tuesday morning. Getting the building closed up will be a major step for us…

243 West 120th Street, Harlem But the really big news is that 243 West 120th Street closed yesterday – just in the nick of time – it was the last day before the loan limits dropped over $100K – so things went right down to the wire.

I feel a bit of accomplishment with this sale… I had done a blog post ages ago (April ’10) about how I thought the place was an excellent opportunity. Location is just incredible – it’s just steps from everything that’s new and exciting on 8th Ave / FDB, and it has a really high FAR for anyone who wants to add space. It took about a year for the blog post to get noticed, but early this year I started hearing from blog readers that they saw the post and were interested in the house. One contacted, me, then another, then another…

In the end it was a bit of a battle between two of those three blog readers to get the house. One of them was working with the real estate agent we used when we sold/bought, the other went directly to the owner through a social contact. The one working with our agent contacted me on June 20th saying “…so it looks like we got the house…”, then on July 10th the reader who had gone directly to the owner contacted me and said “we signed a contract on the house on 120th last week”. I was a little flabbergasted that two people thought they had it and I knew both of them. Turns out the listing agreement had just expired so the seller was able to sell the place without paying a commission.

For those of you who are curious – the sales price was $620K plus a few thousand in other concessions to the seller. That works out to about $182/sq. ft. The place is possibly in worse condition than ours was when we bought it since demolition has not been done yet. But it did have a certificate of no harassment and it had approved plans with active permits to convert to single family – so it was pretty much ready to go.

You can see from the pictures I took nearly 2 years ago that needs tons of work…

243 West 120th Street top floor

Given the location and the fact that shells south of 125 are getting very hard to get, I think the new owners got it for a good price. They could do a $1M renovation and not over-invest.

It was a nail-biting closing. It turns out there was a lien on the property that was rather sizable and when push came to shove there wasn’t enough money to pay off the seller’s mortgage. No one was expecting it to be a short sale and people had to scramble to get the seller’s bank to approve the sale in time for the buyers to get their loan before the loan limits went down. It almost didn’t happen, but after a 5 hour closing on the last possible day, it did finally go through.

And after all that the new owners went to the house last night to check things over and left covered in fleas! So job #1 is to get rid of the fleas…