Most Popular Stories 2023: Woman Fights Home Investors in Court, Gingerbread House for Sale

The end of 2023 is nearly here, which means it is time to look back at the year’s most popular stories. Grabbing readers’ attention in 2023 were posts on affordable housing lotteries, while controversies and achievements focused on homeownership also ranked highly.

Click through the list below to find our top 15 stories of the past year.

15. Affordable Housing Lottery Opens in Greenpoint Tower With Studios Starting at $848 a Month

An affordable housing lottery has launched for 230 apartments in an under-construction two-tower high-rise on the waterfront in Greenpoint. The development, which tops out at 40 stories and is known as Tower 77, sits close to the mega-development Greenpoint Landing and was similarly made possible by the 2005 rezoning of Greenpoint and Williamsburg.

14. Affordable Housing Lottery Opens for Boxy Park Slope Tower, With Studios Starting at $834 a Month

An affordable housing lottery has launched for 36 apartments in a long-in-the-works tower on the corner of 4th Avenue and Dean Street in Park Slope. Dubbed Signum, the glassy, 143-unit mixed-use building will be one of 4th Avenue’s taller developments at 17 stories.

13. Sunset Park HDFC Co-op With Three Bedrooms, in-Unit Laundry Asks $599K

In Sunset Park, this income-restricted co-op is a bit unusual: It is the second floor of an early 20th century row house. The listing doesn’t divulge the details on the qualifying income range for the HDFC (Housing Development Fund Corporation) co-operative, but the unit is spacious with three bedrooms and in-unit laundry.

12. Vinegar Hill Construction Uncovers Mysterious Round Structures

Workers recently uncovered two large and mysterious round structures at 218 Front Street in Vinegar Hill while prepping the site for construction of a new 218-unit seven-story apartment building. Brownstoner reader Marc Agger snapped some photos and sent them to us to see if we could identify the structures.

11. Mother Gaston Affordable Home Ownership Program Helps Brooklyn Teacher Achieve Dream

Growing up in a rent-stabilized apartment in Park Slope, 44-year-old Amy Hamberry remembers seeing the waves of gentrification roll in. At school, she started to notice differences with other kids, like not being able to go on ski trips, not feeling like she fit in. Having a Black father and a white mother just accentuated that, she said. “I was in the community, but I was always, you know, on the outsides of it,” she said.

10. A Bay Ridge Tudor With a Garage and Three More to See, Starting at $875K

Our picks for open houses to check out this weekend are found in Midwood Park, Bed Stuy, Bay Ridge, and Marine Park. They range in price from $875,000 to $3.25 million.

9. A Classical Westchester County Manse With a Farming Heritage, Yours for $1.3 Million

It is an impressive sight, with its bold portico and a setting amidst a spacious lawn, but while it has some hints of Greek Revival about it this Westchester County dwelling got an early 20th century renovation that shaped its look and a 1970s restoration that rescued it from decay. Perhaps not surprisingly it also has a fair bit of mythology to go along with some of the recorded history.

8. Affordable Housing Lottery Opens in Cypress Hills for $419 Studios and $722 Three-Bedrooms

A lottery has opened for 341 apartments in the 100 percent affordable Atlantic Chestnut development under construction in Cypress Hills on the site of a former food processing plant that burned down in 2012.

7. Affordable Housing Lottery Opens for Co-op Apartments, Starting at 183K, in Brooklyn

An unusual affordable housing lottery is taking place, for five Columbia Street Waterfront District co-op apartments for sale rather than for rent. Estimated sale prices range from $183,039 to $203,904 for a studio or two-bedroom apartment. The lottery is open until the end of the month.

6. Lottery Opens for 125 Affordable Units in East New York, Starting at $419 a Month

A lottery has launched for 125 truly affordable apartments in an under-construction development at 583 Emerald Street in East New York. The apartments will be in Linden Terrace III, the final of three buildings that make up the 548-unit Linden Terrace development.

5. ‘Graham Ave-Ave of Puerto Rico’ Street Sign Was Changed to ‘Graham Ave,’ Then Quickly Restored

Williamsburg residents awoke to a surprise today: The “Graham Ave-Ave of Puerto Rico” street sign that hangs above traffic on corner of the busy thoroughfare and Moore Street was removed and replaced with a sign simply reading “Graham Ave.”

4. Housing Lottery Opens for First-Time Home Buyers for 11 Bed Stuy, Crown Heights Houses

An affordable housing lottery has opened for the sale of 11 two- and three-family houses in Bed Stuy and Crown Heights. The lottery is specifically for first-time home buyers with households of between two and seven people earning between $104,500 and $227,630 a year.

3. Lottery Opens for Greenpoint Stabilized Units With Views, Central Air, Starting at $410 a Month

A lottery has opened for apartments in a 100 percent affordable building going up on the waterfront in Greenpoint. The 22-story, 375-unit development is part of Greenpoint Landing, a 22-acre 10-building high-rise complex made possible by the 2005 Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning.

2. Bay Ridge’s Quirky Gingerbread House Is Back on the Market, Asking $8.75 Million

A fairytale-like abode in Bay Ridge is back on the market, looking for just the right buyer to succumb to its eccentric charms. Known affectionately as the Gingerbread House, in architectural terms the abode at 8220 Narrows Avenue is more properly Arts and Crafts in style with rubble stone walls and an organic, swooping roofline.

1. Woman Who Claimed Abandoned East New York House Fights Investors for Possession

Ten years ago Sybil Green, who goes by the name Tami, was biking down a stretch of Jackie Robinson Parkway’s residential frontage road, which connects Vermont Street in East New York with Highland Park, when she noticed a house that looked in disrepair, with a door ajar and a bright orange notice pasted on the front.

Related Stories

• Most Popular Stories of 2022: The Demolition of the Dangler Mansion, Affordable Housing Lotteries
• Most Popular Stories of 2021: Development in Downtown Brooklyn, an Ikea Hack
• Most Popular Stories of 2020: Coronavirus in Brooklyn and a Renovation Diary

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