Love Among the Ruins: Bed-Stuy’s 417 Tompkins Ave.

Eye On Real Estate

August 20, 2014 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The building front and center in this photo is decrepit but charming 417 Tompkins Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

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A little bit of decay — or in some cases, a lot — can be absolutely eye-catching.

Brooklyn’s got its fair share of buildings whose decrepitude is part of their charm.

The historic buildings at the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s hospital annex, weather-beaten and astonishingly beautiful, are stellar examples.

Love Among the Ruins? For the real estate-obsessed, yes indeed. ( A digression: Which do you think of first when you read that title, the Robert Browning poem or the Katharine Hepburn-Laurence Olivier movie?)

Once these properties capture our attention, of course we want to know all about them.
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The storefront looks like it’s been empty since the Middle Ages. But we can’t take our eyes off this Bed-Stuy row house.

Say hello to 417 Tompkins Ave., on the corner of Hancock Street. In early-evening light, the red-brick upper floors glow. The locked-up shop seems mysterious.

City Finance Department records indicate it has belonged since 1974 to Patricia Wilcox.

It’s at the other end of the block from a pair of worn-out but winning Bedford-Stuyvesant properties, 433 and 435 Tompkins Ave. See related story.