POSTCARD FROM THE SLOPE_Third Street Mystery House

2cbw1606On Third Street just west of Seventh Avenue, there’s a house that’s been boarded up for as long as I’ve lived here. And that’s 14 years.

What a mystery.

There is rampant curiosity about this house. Years ago, I heard that the house was caught up in a contentious divorce battle.

Then I heard that the owner had died and his heirs were fighting over it.

Then I heard that the owner owed so much in back taxes that he abandoned the house;  the buyer of the house will have to pay back taxes that far exceed the value of the house.

For years, the house attracted riff raff. It was a neighborhood hangout for local teens for a while. Then, the people in the house next door installed a motion detector to discourage nighttime mischief. Derelicts slept in the house until all the floors were removed

Now, the house is a shell without walls and floors, I’ve heard.

In the summer of 2001, construction workers began working on the house. I was told that a developer was turning the house into condos – one or two per floor. That sounded plausible to me. A wooden fence was built and a Do Not Trespass sign went up. Work crews moved debris into dumpsters; it looked like they were readying the house for a major renovation.

After September 11, 2001, all work stopped. No worker ever returned to the building. I imagined that someone connected with the building died at the World Trade Center. Or that the development money was somehow connected with a WTC concern.

Maybe it was a coincidence. Since then, the building has been untouched. During the 2004 election, someone spray-painted on the wooden fence: VOTE FOR KERRY OR DIE, a bit of election grafitti that garnered some attention in the press.

The mystery continues. How in this age of overdevelopment could this house, a four story brownstone on Third Street, remain abandoned. Which, if any, of the many stories I’ve heard is true. I’ve observed many a Sloper walk by the house and confidently explain their theory of why that house is abandoned; their own private fantasy of the mystery house.

No one really knows for sure. Or do you?

5 thoughts on “POSTCARD FROM THE SLOPE_Third Street Mystery House”

  1. I think if you go to the New York City Department of Finance’s website, you can punch in the address of any building and find it’s owner history.

  2. George, oooh what a story that one is. But here’s a teaser” it’s not abandoned. The owner wants to keep it that way. Or at least she did. More to come.

  3. Thanks for bringing me up to date on that house. I been here a much shorter time than you but wondered about that place as well.
    Do you know about the apt building at Second St. and Seventh? What happened and why is it abandoned? It almost seem like it was abandoned pretty rapidly. The shops on the ground floor all seem to still have merchandise in them. Weird.

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