Cherokee apts

I love this building - I think it's like a mini-Apthorp for people shop like Europeans and whose legs still function.
Tina
(Brooklyn broker)

Tina: I was about to mention the "working-class" tenements built by the BQE. The red brick ones with black ironwork balconies. Love them. I think the same dude built some Bk mews houses as well.

This is architecture that is classically beautiful. Compare and contrast with the projects built postwar.

The tenements with the wrought iron balconies were originally built as longshoremen's housing. They are largely rent-stabilized, and rarely come on the market - it's a kind of mythical place. The long-time owner recently partnered with a developer, but my guess is that little will change there in the near term. Hopefully people have learned from PCV and Stuy Town. There's a similar development on Columbia Place in Brooklyn Heights, where the BQE elevates again. And the lovely series of mews houses you mention - "workers' cottages" as they were known - are on Warren Place in Cobble Hill.
Tina
(Brooklyn broker)

Very utopian!

Two things I didn't like about this place: no elevator (6th-floor walkup, anyone?) and noise. The central courtyard has some kind of acoustical effect that amplifies everything coming out of the apartments, and the apartments facing the river pick up a lot of traffic noise from the freeway. There are a lot of interesting architectural details, but those do not make up for these two drawbacks (for me, anyway).

I see that that there are a lot of units available and while they are small seem reasonably priced. I too have been interested in these buildings for a while. what do you think, good or bad investment?

I love this building, used to jog past them. They remind me of walk-ups you find in paris.

Call me unromantic, but all I see is a long winter walk from the subway and then up the stairs with my groceries :) (This from someone who runs 5 miles a day -- shrug).