Careful––You Might Like It

NOT HOT: Postcard view (dated 1910) looking south on Westervelt Avenue from Richmond Terrace, St. George, Staten Island. Because this hasn't been a hot neighborhood for slightly more than a century, every building shown in this image is still intact and in a moderately good state of preservation. A portion of our house is shown in the upper left section of the image (notice the double-windowed gable and the spire to its right).

LIVING WHERE THEY WOULDN'T BE CAUGHT DEAD

Despite the sneering disdain of metro journalists who pay two grand a month for a closet in a renovated tenement on Avenue C and Houston Street, it's possible to live where they wouldn't be caught dead and actually like it. On Staten Island, I mean. Specifically, in one of the older neighborhoods on the north shore, near the ferry.

After a while, the plucked-from-the-Midwest streetscapes of Staten Island's north shore stop looking quite as foreign as they did. It starts to seem normal to be able to see the sky without craning your neck. Or to be the only person walking down the street, utterly alone with your thoughts, and not feeling in the least unsafe. You even get used to the quiet.

What You Give Up and What You Get

Don't get me wrong now. Staten Island is hardly Valhalla. We live in a place everybody's heard of but very few actually know--a place routinely overlooked, underserved and dismissed. But there are times when going unnoticed, unacknowledged and underrepresented pays off.

Leaving Manhattan for places like New Brighton, St. George, Tompkinsville and Stapleton gets you twice the space for half the price, give or take a hundred or two. And maybe a view, a garden or a fireplace as well. There's always a seat on the FREE Staten Island Ferry. Always a chair at the barber's. Always a table at a decent restaurant; no reservations required. At public parks, even on the weekend, it can often seem like everybody's left town. Though the north shore's hilly streets are challenging for cyclists, they're one of the best non-park environments I've found so far as a walker.

My neighbor Martha, who moved to St. George from Battery Park City with her husband and two children, is hyper-alert for signs of gentrification hereabouts. She winces whenever she sees positive media coverage of our area, which she's certain can mean only one thing: She and her family, having found a pleasant place to live they can afford, will be forced out by high rents once again.

Given the national economic downturn and the shaky state of real estate everywhere, including Manhattan, I don't think Martha has a lot to worry about for the forseeable.

Comments

[loz]

As for Westervelt, well it depends what part... We moved further up the hill on Westervelt and little did we know on that rainy spring day we first saw the place that a group home existed next door that would create chaos, garbage, and unbearable noise at all hours of the day and night. A little 'gentrification' up the hill would be welcome. And trust me, we pay for the luxury of living in the forgotten borough. It's not like our rent is cheap.

But alas we're moving soon to a condo I'm buying off Victory that has amazing views of harbor. And that place I could never afford anywhere else in NYC, so i suppose the non-gentrification works both ways. Although I'd like to see conditions improve on the north shore, homeowner or not.

[Dan Icolari]

I wish I could stir up some controversy by saying I disagree with what you've written here, Brooklyn Controversy, but I don't.

Probably because my view of the world was influenced by people whose views were formed by the experience of the Great Depression, I'm a political progressive but a conservative when it comes to personal finances. I don't take on debt thoughtlessly and I don't take risks, which amount to the same thing.

I'm not Hercules; why wouldn't I exchange a modest amount of property maintenance and upkeep for some help with the expenses? We owned a one-family house only once; we built equity there that allowed us to buy the income-producing house we have now.

Thanks again for writing.

[brooklyn escort]

The key is to hedge your investment with an income producing property. Whether its a basement, garage or parking spot... anything is better than a 1 family with no income options.

[Dan Icolari]

Thanks for your comment, Vee. I agree completely.

While there's nothing to cheer about as people of all ages lose everything because of (a) lax regulation of the mortgage industry and (b) their own stupidity, there are at least two positive effects of the return to sanity in property valuations in New York.

Probably sooner than we think, people who were priced out of the market will find a way back in. Just as important, if Obama, Summers and Geithner are serious about reform in residential lending, the financing options available to buyers will protect them from predators.

What I would also like to see is a de-emphasizing of the One Family House as the gold standard of residential property ownership. One of the reasons my wife and I are in good shape financially is that it all doesn't depend on us; we depend on the rental income we collect each month. And because our property not only provides us with living space but provides income, too, the value of our house has remained pretty stable.

[Vee]

'Given the national economic downturn and the shaky state of real estate everywhere, including Manhattan, I don't think Martha has a lot to worry about for the forseeable.'

Yeah, and ain't that GREAT?!