And Everybody Hates The Yuppies

Tom Lehrer can adjust his lyrics accordingly:

The Hasidic and Spanish communities of south Williamsburg are often rivals over the neighborhood’s housing stock, but they cooperate when it comes to keeping out a common enemy: gentrifiers.

Evidence of both the competition and the teamwork were on public display this Monday afternoon on South 8th Street between Bedford and Berry.

In the middle of that residential block, developer Michael Zazza has plans to tear down two of the oldest buildings in Williamsburg and put up a 20-story luxury condo in their place. “This is not going to be Jewish,” complained Ms. Cohen, who lives in an eight-story affordable apartment building down the block. “It’s going to be a new trend: Yuppies. They’re going to take over the neighborhood.”

Cohen was joined by over a dozen other orthodox Jews, the Four Borough Neighborhood Preservation Alliance (4BNA), Queens Councilman Tony Avella, and a few members of the local Spanish community to call on New York City to landmark 118 South 8th Street, an 1840s building which served as a social hall in the 19th century for Democrats, Republicans, Suffragettes, philosophers, healers, and teetotalers alike.

“This building represents the identity of this community,” argued retired firefighter Serafin Flores. “This is an important symbol which might be destroyed.”

When the Star asked Flores about the local rivalry between the two ethnic groups, he said, “We are competing for housing, let’s be honest. But on this, yes, we are united.”

Rabbi E. Katz quickly jumped in to agree to disagree and to just plain agree. “We have a problem,” he explained. “Everybody needs housing, but now we are united.”

And You Never Hear A Peep From The Neighbors

One thing should be for sure — God willing, you won’t be complaining to the community board about your noisy neighbors:

New Yorkers with a zest for life — and $1 million to spend — are dying to move into a luxury condo building with a killer view of Green-Wood Cemetery and its 560,000 permanent residents.

About a third of the condos at the ritzy “Simone” in Windsor Terrace overlook the cemetery and some of its famous graves — artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, editor Horace Greeley and political titan William (Boss) Tweed.

“A lot of people haven’t said anything about the cemetery,” said Corcoran sales associate Andrew Booth. “Or they say they like it because they know nothing will ever be built on it.”

Booth said 19 of the building’s 35 condos are in contract — at prices ranging from $275,000 to $999,000 — and buyers can expect to move in by early next year.

. . .

Brooklyn residents yesterday seemed to envy their new neighbors’ graveyard views, but some were deadly serious about the once-blue collar area’s skyrocketing housing prices.

“I can’t see paying that much anywhere, never mind next to a cemetery,” said Lang Price, 54, an attorney who lives nearby.

“But that’s what the market has done to real estate in this city. People will pay anything to live anywhere.”

Location Scout: Green-Wood Cemetery.

Developer Charged With Failing To Maintain Waterfront Property 434 Times

Though they cannot or will not prosecute him for actually setting the fire, the Brooklyn DA will charge developer Joshua Guttman with 434 counts of “failure to maintain waterfront property”:

Joshua Guttman, 58, faces 434 counts of failure to maintain waterfront property — a misdemeanor only brought once before in history, said lawyer Robert Hill Schwartz.

“Our research discloses only one reported case in which this statute was enforced,” Schwartz said yesterday in Brooklyn Criminal Court. “So there’s a question as to this statute and whether it’s applicable.”

The lawyer said the research did not indicate how that case was disposed of or which of the five boroughs it was brought in.

A spokesman for the Brooklyn DA countered that although their office could only document one such case that they prosecuted, other agencies and jurisdictions in the city had applied it “dozens of times.”

Brooklyn prosecutors hit Guttman and his son, Jack, 26, with the charges following the suspicious fire at the Greenpoint Terminal Market last May 2.

See also: Greenpoint Terminal Market Fire.

Great Idea! Unfortunately, I Think It’s Probably Also Illegal . . .

As Brian Carter reveals more of the seamy underbelly of life as a real estate broker (“Paying for access has its perks . . .”), a cottage industry of unlicensed/unofficial/impromptu brokering emerges (“Help me find an apt, get $500”):

I need to find a new place to live, you need $500. This could be as easy as a phone call to your landlord, a friend who lives in the neighborhood, or your grandmother who owns a building. Maybe one of your neighbors is moving out.

I’ve been looking for a place for the past month, dealing with sheisty real estate brokers, flaky apt owners who post on Craig’s List, and I’m fed up. You need the money more than some asshole broker, and I would feel much better paying you for real help.

Here’s what I’m looking for: a studio or 1-br apt in Williamsburg, near the Graham Ave L stop (Lorimer or Grand are also good), $1000/mo rent or less, no basements. I have a cat, and I’m a perfect tenant: great credit, responsible, quiet, etc. The ideal location for me would be the area bounded by the BQE and Grand St, between Union and Bushwick Ave. Nothing in Bushwick please (I already live there).

Please call or e-mail me if you have any leads. As soon I sign a lease, you get $500.

“Ah, I see!” says the blind man! You’re looking for . . . a broker!

And just so you understand what the poster is asking for, try searching on Craig’s List for “Williamsburg” for a maximum of $1000 (I got three words for you: “J M Z”).

And for a self-aware, self-reflective defense of that which is referred to therein as the “asshole broker,” see Carter’s Rental Dementia blog . . .

Leading Economic Indicators: Housing Starts And Brooklyn Sales

In Brooklyn, the Bubble still builds:

A new report, exclusively obtained by The Post yesterday, shows that townhouse and apartment prices in Brooklyn remain through the roof, despite a market slowdown nationwide.

And some of the borough’s hottest hoods are even outpacing parts of Manhattan.

The average sales price for one- and two-family Brooklyn homes for the first half of 2006 was $586,000 — a 15.6 percent jump from the $507,000 seen in the same period last year, according to the first-ever midyear sales report for the borough from the Real Estate Board of New York.

Prices for Brooklyn co-ops and condos also continued to surge.

The average apartment sold for $491,000 in the first six months of 2006 — up 4 percent from $472,000 for the same period last year.

But in a strange twist, the surging Brooklyn real estate market actually seems to be an indicator of the cooling housing market:

Interior designer Rony Sandoval recently paid $545,000 for a one-bedroom apartment in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, that was once part of a Catholic school.

He said he first looked in Manhattan but found it “outrageously expensive” before stumbling upon his bargain in Cobble Hill, where apartments sell for an average of $628,000.