Come see Bushwick, before or after the L-pocalypse starts

Eye on Real Estate

September 18, 2018 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

This is the L train's stop at DeKalb and Wyckoff avenues. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

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The L-pocalypse is coming. Oy vey.

There’s something Brooklynites should keep in mind amid the planning for mitigative measures to deal with L-maggedon, as the looming L train line shutdown is also called.

When the rightfully dreaded 15-month closing of the train between Williamsburg and the West Village commences next April, the hexed, vexing subway line will keep operating within our borough.

You’ll still be able to ride it to various fascinating Brooklyn neighborhoods.

We’ve decided to show you some of them. It would be nice if Brooklynites visit them next year when day-trippers from Manhattan are likely to be in short supply.

The other day, we rode the L train deep into the heart of Bushwick.

We fought our instinct, which was to make a beeline for beautiful Bushwick Avenue. We’ve photographed the historic properties on that stellar street many times.

Instead, we decided to show you a different slice of the neighborhood. So we hopped off the train at the DeKalb Avenue stop on the corner of Wyckoff Avenue.

Eat, drink and be merry on Wyckoff and Irving Avenues

It’s thoroughly entertaining to walk in a loop down Wyckoff Avenue to Myrtle Avenue, past the White Castle, up Irving Avenue and back to the DeKalb Avenue train station.

Picturesque rowhouses with storefronts populate many of the blocks.

You can eat and drink yourself silly at Colombian bakeries, shops with specialty foods from Mexico and Ecuador, Thai and Caribbean restaurants and hipster-friendly coffee shops.

Wyckoff Heights Medical Center at 374 Stockholm St., which is topped by a tower, is a key part of the streetscape.

You’ll notice white-coated doctors with stethoscopes draped around their necks strolling along Wyckoff Avenue during their lunch breaks.

That's Wyckoff Heights Medical Center at left, as seen from the corner of Stanhope Street and Wyckoff Avenue.

As you of course know, Bushwick was one of Brooklyn’s original six towns.

Trailblazing Peter Stuyvesant chartered Boswijck, as it was called, in 1661, Kenneth Jackson and John Manbeck’s book “The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn” notes.

Stately buildings across from the hospital

As you stroll along Wyckoff Avenue, you’ll notice that many picturesque rowhouses with storefronts are three stories tall. But on the corner of Stockholm Street, across from Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, there’s a quartet of stately four-story, creamy-colored brick multifamily buildings with storefronts at 131 to 137 Wyckoff Ave.

They have window arches with keystones decorated with human and animal faces.

Two of these beautiful buildings, 131 and 133 Wyckoff Ave., belong to 133 Wyckoff Holding LLC with Jacob Aini as managing member, city Finance Department records indicate.

The LLC bought the properties in 2006 for a combined $1.575 million in a package deal; they were sold due to Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings, Finance Department records show.

The third building, 135 Wyckoff Ave., belongs to Barberan Properties LLC with John Barberan as member. He had owned the property for two decades before transferring the title to the LLC in 2012, Finance Department records indicate.

The fourth building, 137 Wyckoff Ave., has belonged since 1999 to 137 Wyckoff Avenue LLC with Ann Nasary as president, Finance Department records show.

This rowhouse sold for $2.225 million

Almost every storefront we saw is filled with tenants.

There’s a rare retail vacancy at 205 Wyckoff Ave., a handsome old-fashioned rowhouse near the corner of Harman Street.

The asking rent is $3,750 per month for the ground-floor space, a posting by leasing agents Olga Pidhirnyak and Kimberly Fong at Coldwell Banker Commercial Reliable Real Estate notes. That’s $60 per square foot per year for the 750-square-foot space.

The space is newly renovated and has an exposed brick wall, their marketing material says.

There are also five apartments in the three-story rowhouse. It belongs to an LLC with Haim Zarif as sole member, Finance Department records indicate.

The LLC bought 205 Wyckoff Ave. for $2.225 million last year, Finance Department records show.

Eye candy all over the place

Eye-pleasing sights are everywhere.

At 146 Wyckoff Ave. on the corner of Himrod Street, a blade sign spells out the name Variety Coffee Roasters in neon letters.

On the corner of Bleecker Street, there’s an especially handsome grouping of rowhouses at 229 to 235 Wyckoff Ave.

Three cheers for St. Brigid’s Immigration Services, which is on Wyckoff Avenue. A snapshot-covered poster in its window says, “Congratulations to our new U.S. citizens.”

Wyckoff Avenue has been turned into a pedestrian plaza between Gates and Myrtle avenues, with food vendors and outdoor seating.

The next stop on the L train, namely the Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues station, is located on this plaza. The M train also uses this station.

A movie house and a knitting factory

The walk up Irving Avenue is scenic as well.

An eye-catching commercial property at the intersection of Irving and DeKalb avenues was recently renovated. The old-fashioned 25-foot-tall building has small crosses embedded in its brown-and-gold-brick facade and a stylized tower on its corner.

It has a ground floor, a mezzanine and a cellar.

According to certificates of occupancy in city Buildings Department records, the property was a “motion picture theatre” in the late 1920s and the 1930s and a “light knitting works” in the 1940s.

A certificate of occupancy issued in 1962 says it was a retail store with a stock room on the mezzanine.

Today, the various tenants in the building have individual addresses. They include a wine store called Irving Bottle at 155 Irving Ave., a bar called Carmelo’s at 1544 DeKalb Ave., Haven Cycles at 1546 DeKalb Ave. and a salon called Power Hair at 1548 DeKalb Ave.

The building belongs to an LLC with Angelo Grasso Sr., Angelo Grasso Jr. and Giovanni Grasso as operating managers, Finance Department records indicate.