Sale at 61 West 9th Street #2B

Disagree. I saw the place this weekend with clients and the selling broker was lovely, making it clear that it was a gut reno that might soak up $300K. It's priced for that, I think, and since there are multiple offers sounds like others think so too.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

It appears this is the same broker as the penthouse and if so I found her to quite polite.
She does however think there is something "extra special" about this coop building compared to every other coop. And her arguing such to someone who prefers a condo anyway is a bit silly.
Even unicorn tears flowing through the taps of this building couldn't justify the asking price(PH) which if it sells, will sell at @ 60% of the asking price.

But anyway, have a look at 2DE,it looks nicer, and if Ali is right we'll see 2B in contract within a week anyway.

This is going to be an interesting building to watch in terms of the current offerings. I see #3A sold at the top of the market (11/2008) for $1.775.000. It is essentially the same layout I think as the main floor of 2E. So what is 2E worth after a GV market decline of 10%, estate condition, and with an added large upstairs room (sadly without a bathroom--layout would have made more sense if master could have been the entire 2d floor; as it is this is sort of odd layout). I can see where the pricing came from in terms of building comps and other current offerings. The PH seems absurdly priced, but I guess we'll see.

It is worth noting that one may shout "Gold Coast" all one likes, but this building is one building off of a bustling not-so-pretty corner of 6th Avenue. 63 West 9th nextdoor is the worst kind of post-war hideous exterior (personally I don't care for the apartments inside at all either) and has a PATH station that rumbles under it and Citarella in the ground floor (the lobby of 63 used to often smell like the Citarella cheese counter). Based on an 8th floor apt I saw in 61 E 9, the rear of the building has awful views of scrappy trees in the dark interior of block between buildings, wires, and 6th Ave traffic noise (more than you expect). Its a far cry from 30 Fifth Avenue further east and calling both "Gold Coast" is a stretch to me. This is Greenwich Village, surely a very nice location overall, but really more 6th Ave than the tranquil grand surrounds of lower Fifth's prewar swagers leading the way to the park.

I'm told you used to be able to hear the ladies screaming out the windows of the Jefferson Market back when it was a house of detention for the fair sex.

I saw this apt last week with some friends who are looking.The broker was very nice, patient and accomodating. The apt surely needs a complete re-do, but it is big and bright and in a pretty good location.I would not be surprised if it had several offers already.

I don't think Jefferson Market was ever a prison. The prison was next to the library on what is now an empty lot (garden) I was told.

Jefferson Market was a courthouse I believe in the 19th century. The Womens House of Detention (House of "D") was where the garden is and stood well into the 1960s. Yes, the pimpmobiles would pull up on the Greenwich Avenue side and the guys in fur coats would come out and speak with their "ladies" by hollering back and forth..the screaming out the window did not appear to be random. Since my mother preferred taking me to Washington Square playground, not that was one closer....Bleecker opened well after I passed the playground stage...we passed by these touching romantic scenes very frequently. Part of life.

This was also when Balduccis was a 24 hour fruit and vegetable stand on the West side of Greenwich Avenue (can't remember what is there now), not a fancy food emporium. There was a bakery on the corner of Greenwich and Christopher I think it was called Cake Masters--yummy. Across Christopher St was a men's clothing store that catered to gay men back when such distinctions had to be made with the greatest of subtly. Then there was this woman's store that might as well have been on a suburban main street in CT, the clothes were really WASPY, my mom and her friends always made fun of them (as opposed to the wonders of Orbachs, that's a name your mother probably remember Alan).

Okay "Mid-20th Century Village History and Sociology" is dismissed.

Thanks lizyank. Loved being schooled. :)

Kyle, isn't the address for the Citrella/PATH building 69 West 9th? I knew a girl who lived there and boy did she take abuse...(and this was AFTER high school). Maybe they changed it for exactly that reason.

Cake Masters! when I was growing up in Arkansas in the 70s, my mom coming back from trips to New York with a Cake Masters box was a real treat!

I still remember the pink swirly logo.

ali r.

you know what, lizyank. ur absolutely right. I was perhaps mixing this whole location up--I thought this was the Windsor Arms--isn't that the one next to 69 W 9? 61 is more mid-block. Much better location. Those couple of buildings actually make a big difference. You can sort of feel the caccoon of West 9 St envelope you once you move 20 yards off of 6th Avenue. Still, I think Gold Coast is just 5th Ave, but this apt's location is pretty great. Pricing will remain very interesting to watch. I just can't see a one bedroom PH going for near $3M. Maybe I'm wrong. We'll see.

liz - always a pleasure reading your posts. There's got to be a book in there somewhere!!

Suck up, much?

I remember a 60's demonstration in front of the Jefferson Court House Womens Prison where the protesters were chanting "put the pigs in the pokey and the people on the street." The women's prison was closed in 1974 after protests by Angela Davis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Women's_House_of_Detention

Kyle if you ever have any questions about "history" (1960 on although I have hearsay knowledge of the 40s and 50s) of the Village or what any location "used to be", I'd be delighted to try and provide answers.

I don't think that 30 5th has any natural layouts that are anywhere near as nice as the original classic 5 layouts which compromised the two front units at 61 West 9th. In fact, I don't think most of the prewar buildings in GV do. Although I do think it is a little disingenuous to say '"offered for the first time in 75 years" when the building went coop in 1983. But I'd take this unit over any other offering in the building (that I know of) by a big long shot, and I don't know where else you're going to find this kind of space for these $, regardless of condition.

one note: if there ever is a doorman strike (as once before) it's tougher in this building due to where the intercom is located.

And I agree with Kyle that I have never liked the rear units much.

liz - don't think they changed anything and it is still 69 W 9.

While I haven't seen this in quite some time, I remember always seeing in ads for 69 w 9 units "Views of Jefferson Market" (when it was on the other side of the Ave) and hearing "who cares if you can see a grocery store?" (obviously the ads were referencing the courthouse/library).

30yrs: i agree re: layouts on the "Gold Coast" in the prewars. They aren't spectacular. There are some pretty great exceptions though (40 Fifth larger PH). BTW: has anyone looked at the $28.5MM listing at the Stanhope conversion? 995 Fifth? Wow. My apt would fit in the kitchen I think. Talk about layouts.

No, CC, just real admiration for someone who writes so well, and so evocatively of a New York neighborhood which has changed so much since her childhood/young adulthood.

"BTW: has anyone looked at the $28.5MM listing at the Stanhope conversion? 995 Fifth? Wow. My apt would fit in the kitchen I think. Talk about layouts."

This was on "Selling New York" last week or so. Honestly, I was underwhelmed, mostly because of layout issues. A 300 sq ft kitchen (excluding the breakfast area) in a 8360 sq ft home is skimpy IMO. Everybody always loves gathering around the kitchen, and 300 sq ft starts losing its spacious feel after 5-ish people. I also dislike the fact that there isn't a second kitchen: there's plenty of space for it. If you're having a party, you don't want guests looking for a beer/wine tripping over the caterers preparing food.

The small choppy bedrooms along the top (11x11, 11x14, 11x14) are kinda awkward in size. I guess they're supposed to be staff rooms? Or are you supposed to put a kid in there, in an 121 sq ft bedroom inside your 8360 sq ft house? They're not great for staff rooms either as they are part of the main bedroom wing of the house: the staff rooms would be better placed along the bottom with more separated placement, no? Instead, the separated location gets the bigger bedrooms.

My final complaint is on the living room: a 10' ceiling does not support an 800 sq ft room. Yeah, I really understand why you need a 42x19 room in a 8360 sq ft home, but it just feels awkward with 10' ceilings. If the rest of the layout were good, I'd let it slide ("they had to make it work"), but the room just does not have the grandeur commesurate with a trophy home.

I'm sure the layout works for some target buyer, but I cannot envision that buyer. No doubt that buyer exists. I know, I know. I'm so hard to satisfy. Or else, I lack vision.

"BTW: has anyone looked at the $28.5MM listing at the Stanhope conversion? 995 Fifth? Wow. My apt would fit in the kitchen I think. Talk about layouts."

This was on "Selling New York" last week or so. Honestly, I was underwhelmed, mostly because of layout issues. A 300 sq ft kitchen (excluding the breakfast area) in a 8360 sq ft home is skimpy IMO. Everybody always loves gathering around the kitchen, and 300 sq ft starts losing its spacious feel after 5-ish people. I also dislike the fact that there isn't a second kitchen: there's plenty of space for it. If you're having a party, you don't want guests looking for a beer/wine tripping over the caterers preparing food.

The small choppy bedrooms along the top (11x11, 11x14, 11x14) are kinda awkward in size. I guess they're supposed to be staff rooms? Or are you supposed to put a kid in there, in an 121 sq ft bedroom inside your 8360 sq ft house? They're not great for staff rooms either as they are part of the main bedroom wing of the house: the staff rooms would be better placed along the bottom with more separated placement, no? Instead, the separated location gets the bigger bedrooms.

My final complaint is on the living room: a 10' ceiling does not support an 800 sq ft room. Yeah, I really understand why you need a 42x19 room in a 8360 sq ft home, but it just feels awkward with 10' ceilings. If the rest of the layout were good, I'd let it slide ("they had to make it work"), but the room just does not have the grandeur commesurate with a trophy home.

I'm sure the layout works for some target buyer, but I cannot envision that buyer. No doubt that buyer exists. I know, I know. I'm so hard to satisfy. Or else, I lack vision.

Wait, not even 10': "with nearly 10’ ceilings". They expect us to live like that? What are we, animals?

I lived in 69W9 for 15 years. I loved loved the neighborhood. I don't know if the building next door is 61 but if it is it was one of those buildings that sold apts to investors while others lived there. I have a friend who owned an apt there and had an old lady living there back in the early 90s. They were just waiting for her to die which may be the reason there are apts needing such large renovations. Oh I've loved those days - a little billy joel there. So great GV was before the invasion in 2000+

nada, the way I read the Stanhope layout it is indeed built for staff. I think it's a good acknowledgement of the fact that if you have a certain amount of money and have kids, you might indeed have two live-ins, a nanny and a cook.

there's no second kitchen but there's a wet bar in one of the studies, and I think some morning kitchen detailing in one of the dressing areas.

As far as your ceiling complaint: I think this whole high ceiling/high doors fad is just a fad, and it will blow over soon. I grew up in the suburbs with a double-height living room, and I'm not sure it's so necessary in an NYC apartment, even a grand one. 10 feet is plenty for 6 foot tall people.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

Dreamer, the reason for the "pigs in the pokey, people in the streets" demonstrations had nothing to do with run of the mill hookers, thieves etc who were the usual occupants of the House of D. The protests were sparked by the presence of the female members of the "Panther 21" a group of Black Panthers arrested in I think 1959 or 1970 for I don't remember what and I'm too lazy to look it up. Anyway, what is that group best known for today? On the women was the mother of Tupac Shakur. Up the revolution!

oops 1969 or 1970

30 yrs, do you agree the invasion was in 2000? i remember a post you wrote once about GV "it's not what it was, it's not what it was."
i remember it being great in the 90's but what do i know, i was in high school.
liz, please write a book. all you need is an angle! how about, "charms of the common man in old ny"

The change in Greenwich Village's demographics coincided 100% with the AIDS epidemic and the catastrophic impact it had in GV. The gay community was reeling in the 1980's and 90's and death was everywhere. One apartment after another was left vacant by the death of tenants. Straight people began filling more and more of the vacancies, and at the same time, real estate values began to climb in the 90's citywide, but especially in GV. Younger gay people couldn't afford GV anymore and the gay community's heart began the great northern migration north, first to Chelsea and later to Hell's Kitchen as Chelsea got too costly. GV got less gay, increasingly expensive, more generic, and the flavor began to change permanently. In influx of straight people into a previously gay neighborhood doesn't exactly signal a coming enhancement of the panache or hipness or interest of a neighborhood. Is the Village better or worse today? That's for each to decide, but I am saying it is unquestionably very, very different than the Christopher Street of yore, the days without big red tourist busses, swarming masses of families and baby carriages on Saturday and Sunday mornings at every eatery, and fewer special shops. Today the West Village is more generic, less interesting, more crowded. Bottom line: AIDS precipitated the demographic shift and then a cascade of factors fueled the changes.

Kyle I agree with you on the latest (and in my opinion worst) wave of change. While I was living outside the neighborhood by the time the full impact of the AIDS epidemic hit, aside from losing friends and colleagues who lived all over the city, my mother would constantly bemoan "all the empty stores" finally, realizing that each one represented the illness, and usually death, of another young man.

But the super upscale, tour bus, Sex In The City invasion was not the first wave of change in the to hit the neighborhood in the second half of the 20th century. For the most part, excluding the Fifth Avenue "Gold Coast" and its adjacent streets (sometimes extending as far west as 7th Avenue) the Village in 1960 was predominantly an Irish and Italian (with some Spanish) working class neighborhood. PS 41 was the only public school but there were options for Catholic schooling: Our Lady of Pompeii, St.Joseph's, St. Veronica's and St Bernard's and St Anthonys. I'm sure there were many gay men living there (I suspect the bar Fedora goes back to Prohibition, and Julius--where I had my first drink, does that tell you something--wasn't far behind), but I don't think of it as being a "gay community" the way it became in the 1970s. That change was precipitated by several factors including: the decline of the port and port related jobs, movement of original residents to the burbs but also to Mitchell Lama housing and a desire to live in a more hospitable environment and celebrate the spirit of Stonewall among gay men (and lesbians, although lesbians were actually more visible in the Village than gay men in the very early years--owners of very significant bars such as Trude Heller and Paula of Paula's were known to be gay as far back as I knew what it meant)

Rent control ended in 1971 and landlords at that point had a one time opportunity to set new rents when a tenant vacated an apartment.and then it fell under stabilization. As the neighborhood became less dock identified and more desirable, raise the rents they did.

In the mid/late 1970s the Village did have the feel of a "gay ghetto" as I remembered saying to a friend (guys I dated from outside the area were afraid to walk me home, how stupid is that???) but I think that may have reflected street life rather than actual residential demographics. (Face it old Italian grandmothers don't cruise by the IRT station on Christopher Street. Imagine being a teenager and going with your parents to the newly opened Baskin Robbins on Sheridan Square...I could care and thought the show was amusing, my father was uncomfortable as hell and I really think my mother didn't have a clue at that point).

Even as a straight woman, however, I felt more at ease there than I do in today's West Village (even before my Mom died, when I was there all the time and owned property there). Then again I'm probably the only straight woman who owns the DVD of a documentary called "Gay Sex in the 70s" cause it is focused on my neighborhood and places I vividly remember.

I know AIDS was already a factor in 1982 and yes, over the next 14 or so years it cut a tragic path that hit the Village especially hard. Not only were younger gay men priced out of the neighborhood but many of the survivors I knew didn't want to stay there given all the sadness and memories of so many friends. So in come the yuppies. And they were a pain in the ass. But at least in the beginning they were struggling young yuppies; editorial assistants, advertising people, computer people before it was cool, some junior bankers when they made low five figure salaries like everyone else. Kind of like the people I worked with, if not those I grew up with.

Another factor that hit the Village (and much of New York) in the 1980s and early 90s was coop conversion. Long time renters were able to buy their apartments at "insider prices" and if they didn't want to stay could resell for a handsome profit. And it didn't just impact buildings like the Cezanne or 69 West 9th, my parents building was converted along with just along with any other building large enough to sustain conversion, regardless of the class of people it had been built to or currently housed. Hence there were fewer and fewer rentals available in the Village for even the first waves of yuppies. More coops, more owners, higher prices, richer people, escalating ever upward. I read somewhere that 10014 is now the third highest income zip in America. Believe me it wasn't 30 years ago, or even 20, and that included residents of all sexual orientations.

Much the same story on the Upper West Side, formerly the second biggest collection of The Gays in NYC: AIDS deaths, no succession rights by their lovers (until the City's domestic partnership registry and a tweaking or two of rent-regs, including the automatic right to a roommate, any roommate).

NY Women's House of Detention:

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GV/GV028-F2.jpg

Note Bigelow when you could still get an egg cream at the cownah.

http://www.genealogyimagesofhistory.com/images/detention.JPG

glamma: I actually think the invasion began much earlier, I'll use as my proof the yuppie who moved into 61 Jane St and got shot while making a phone call at a pay phone on the corner. There was a LOT of talk back then about people who have no real idea what GV was like moving into the neighborhood and being ignorant. That was in 1990.

I always thought there was more to that story than yuppie naivete. I believe the phone booth in question was the one at 11th and Bleecker which was notorious at the time as an "office phone" for dealers. Oh those primitive days before cells when you had to wait somewhere for the phone to ring.

Alan, I actually preferred the milk shakes at Bigelows...much to my egg cream loving parents chagrin (youthful rebellion strikes again). But oh that tuna on toast with lettuce...um..umm...I still order it in diners from time to time...much thicker (and more expensive to a power above 10) but never as good.

So much for the "multiple offers," it's just plain off the market now.
All units in the building seem to be handled by the same Sothebys agent.
Was curious, for the coop experts, can a coop force sellers to use use a specific brokerage house for sales?

According to my computer system the unit is no longer available because it has a signed contract.

And as to your idea that the same agent handles all the units in the building .. I believe she lives in the building!

Of course, my firm is always happy to help buyers and sellers in the Village and Chelsea if they are looking for agents.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

That's strange, why wouldn't it be listed on SE? There is every advantage to it being listed as "in contract" whether it is or not and no advantage to just "no longer available."
I guess we'll see in 30 to 90 days.

And I was just making the observation since that unit and the other 2 for sale were all listed by the same agent, your explanation makes perfect sense.
Now rereading what I wrote and your response, it's possible you thought I was Glen Becking my way to implying this building is forcing sellers to use this agent, that was not my intention at all.

Just one set of circumstances(the one agent) led to me to wonder (considering some of the coop stories you hear) and sincerely so if a coop could force such a thing.

I think Streeteasy just uses bots to pick up the underlying data from whatever database the broker is updating. In RealPlus (which I get to through OnLine Residential, and yes, before people ask, what I see is more robust that what the public sees at OLR.com) there are more shades of meaning than there are at SE, and I think that's part of the problem.

As an example, a listing can "stale" if it isn't updated for seven days. Looks like that's what happened here - it was CS, but if the broker doesn't keep renewing that every seven days, the system requests an update, and Streeteasy reads that as "no longer available," not as "CS needs updating."

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

So this unit went from multiple offers 3 months ago to shadow limbo.

Must be some incredibly tough board......

And a note to Ms. Sothebys, Perhaps it's time for a more appropriate asking price on the PH?...say $1,799,000?

Appears to be around 1000 sq ft interior and maybe 800 sqft exterior. Great outdoor space but still only a 1 bed 1 bath.
Further, this apartment was listed for rent at $7800 per month unfurnished.
200 times monthly rent = $1,560,000. and it appears this amount of rent was not attained anyway

Anyway some comps for ya..

1)30 Fifth Ave PH17F
sold Nov 2009, $1,800,000 1 bed/ 1 and 1/2 bath

2)60 West 13th CONDO PHB
sold April 2010, $1,400,000 2 bed/ 2bath

3)63 East 9th st CONDOP 14R
sold September 2009 $1,475,000 2bed/2bath