I can’t pass up a good Bed Stuy article….or my Monday NY Times report. This Sunday there was an article on Micheal Andaloro, a commercial interior designer who moved to Bed Stuy from the East Village a year ago.
He’s one of the old time New Yorkers in search of NYC circa 1980s and he has discovered it in Bed Stuy (just like us!). He first looked in the South Bronx but wasn’t too impressed with the housing stock (just like us!).
Michael GC’ed his own renovation, which gave him an appreciation of Brooklyn’s ethnic diversity. He says of his renovation “It was like the U.N. in here.” Just like us! We had the Brooklyn native Italian American plumber (he really said “Fugettaboutit”), the Dominican jack of all trades/master of plaster, St. Lucian carpenter, painter and sheetrocker, Israeli debris hauler, Jamaican stair guy and welder and us, the American chick with her uber handy Irish husband.
Back to the Times story… Unlike us, Michael didn’t want a lovely old brownstone. He bought a corner building with a garage and deli. Kudos to him for thinking of the garage. Although I love this neighborhood and the newer amenities we’re getting, I have noticed that parking is getting more difficult. When we bought the place 2 years ago, we could often find parking right out front. Now we’re lucky if we get the next block. A garage, anywhere in Brooklyn, is a total luxury!
Oh…and also unlike us, Michael spent close to $700k on renovations.
2 Comments
He did a beautiful renovation but it cost nearly as much as the building! Is it possible to find already renovated homes in that neighborhood for less than $1.5?
Because the neighborhood has been run down for so many years and it’s just being rediscovered, there aren’t alot of properties that are already renovated. Not nicely renovated, anyway. We saw some horrendous flips when we were looking. The other thing is, this guy is a designer, so I’m sure he wanted to put his own stamp on it.