Как вы полагаете, коллеги?
Вопрос - и опрос - открыт.
А это - для затравки:
By JAKE MOONEY писал(а):
May 6, 2007
Brooklyn Heights
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/nyregion/thecity/06hote.html]As a Big Landowner Plans to Sell, Mouths Begin to Water
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In the lobbies of some of the buildings near the Brooklyn waterfront owned by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, visitors can pick up plastic-wrapped packets of postcards depicting the organization’s various properties. On one, an aerial view of Brooklyn Heights, it seems as if nearly every third building is a Watchtower dormitory.
Since 1909, the neighborhood has been home to Brooklyn Bethel, as the organization, whose members are known as Jehovah’s Witnesses, calls its world headquarters. Other postcards in the packet, though, tell a story of change: They show neatly dressed volunteers at work in a sprawling new complex north of the city in Wallkill, N.Y., where the Witnesses moved their Bible- and magazine-printing operations in 2004.
Now, the residential buildings are beginning to go, too: The Witnesses plan to sell six of their Brooklyn Heights residences, including the venerable 12-story Standish Arms Hotel building, as part of what they are calling an organizational consolidation. With the printing presses gone and the former warehouse and shipping facility at 360 Furman Street sold, Witnesses spokesmen said, the organization needs less space for members to live.
Besides the Standish Arms, at 169 Columbia Heights, between Clark and Pierrepont Streets, the buildings for sale include four-story and seven-story apartment buildings on the same street, and three 19th-century houses nearby.
The offerings, which were reported in The Brooklyn Eagle, have Brooklyn Heights residents buzzing about the potential for the new properties hitting the real estate market. Residents are also speculating about the future of the former Bossert and Leverich Towers Hotels, two other meticulously restored buildings the organization owns in the neighborhood.
“When people hear that they’re selling the Standish Hotel, they start drooling about the Bossert,” Robert Perris, district manager of Brooklyn Community Board 2, said of the opulent tower at Montague and Hicks Streets, where the Brooklyn Dodgers celebrated their victory in the 1955 World Series. “The speculation runs rampant.”
According to Richard Devine, a Watchtower spokesman, the organization is not working with an outside real estate agent and has no set asking prices, but it will evaluate offers as they come in, as it did with the sale of 360 Furman and three other buildings on Livingston, Hicks and Clark Streets that the organization recently sold.
As for the other 24 buildings that Watchtower owns in the Heights and nearby Dumbo, the organization, as it often does, is keeping its plans close to the vest.
“Currently we don’t have any plans to sell any more,” Mr. Devine said. “At least not at this time.” JAKE MOONEY
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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Ответил вторым - пока живут дураки! Хотя если на ОСБ возложат большие налоги за их деятельность,то может быть..
и.т.д.
