Rescue Me: Bed-Stuy’s 1127, 1129 and 1131 Bedford Ave. are caught up in a court battle

Eye On Real Estate

August 13, 2014 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Bones of contention: 1127 Bedford Ave. at left, with 1129 and 1131 Bedford Ave. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

Share this:

Fire. Foreclosure. Eviction.

Awful afflictions, all of them.

They have left their mark on prime properties in sought-after Brooklyn neighborhoods, a stamp still visible in certain spots though our post-recession real estate markets get more prosperous by the minute.

Here is one such building which seems like it has “Rescue Me” written all over it.
* * *

It reminds us, just a bit, of “Bleak House,” Dickens’ novel about the law’s delays.

Bed-Stuy resident Daniel Fennessey has been in court for three years fighting a challenge to his LLC’s ownership of picturesque but abandoned-looking red-brick building 1127 Bedford Ave. and its smaller but serviceable companion buildings 1129 and 1131 Bedford Ave.

The judgment creditor bought the buildings in a July 2011 foreclosure auction, then assigned its bid to Fennessey’s Bedford Avenue Associates I LLC.

Another bidder, 3615-15 Realty I LLC, won a Kings County Supreme Court judgment ordering that it be allowed to buy the buildings instead.

On Aug. 6, the state Appellate Division’s Second Judicial Department reversed that judgment and sent the case back to the lower court for a do-over.

Fennessey declined comment on the case. His lawyer, Michael Sucher, spoke to us.

“Everyone wants justice to be speedy and economical. Everyone,” Sucher said. “If we can say anything about this case, it has not been speedy. And the effect of the [appellate] decision is to add more time to the case.”

The original brief for the appeal was filed in December 2012, and the court allowed a delay of about a year before hearing arguments, he said. The decision wasn’t rendered until August 2014.

“That’s an unfortunate amount of time for property in an up-and-coming area to remain under a cloud,” Sucher said.

Fennessey is known in Bed-Stuy as the co-owner with wife Elizabeth Giddens of a mansard-roofed manse at 421 Franklin Ave., where they raise chickens in the front yard.

Jacob Katz of 3615-15 Realty I LLC did not return our call about the Bedford Avenue buildings.