26 October 2007

Henry Street Cleans Up Its Act



I've often found it curious in recent years that, despite the ongoing development and restoration of our time, certain brownstones along the prominent Cobble Hill artery of Henry Street simply refused to be spruced up. At least one building a block, between Altantic and Kane, featured a structure that could easily double as a haunted house: cracked facades, broken windows, overgrown greenery.

Well, such things don't escape the all-seeing eye of Real Estate for long. In the past couple months, I've noticed that nearly every one of these holdout buildings has been shored up or is on its way to returned statliness. The above house, near Baltic, sported the most unsightly skin of peeling paint for years. It was a genuine eyesore. Seemingly overnight, it's gotten a fresh coat of white paint. The below building still has a long way to go, and remains a candidate for complete collapse. But work is underway to fix its crumbling facade. Work orders adorn other windows up and down the street. It's all fine and good. But where are the crazy old cat ladies going to live now?

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