Stoop to Our Level

I love the sound of sledgehammers in the morning

2006-10-31T11:20:00.000-05:00

Every morning at exactly 7 a.m. comes a construction wall of sound that'd make Phil Spector's head spin like a hit platter. (Did that make any sense? Maybe I'd know if I got more sleep.) Bits of plaster snow down from my water-damaged ceiling, meaning the extra vibrations are speeding up the process of my building crumbling apart. The latest development (har de har) is that for the past month or two, my bed literally shakes from the construction.

Here is a panoramic tour of the activity from my kitchen window. This building is awesome for anyone who's been nostalgic for college lately. It's dorm time again!

This lil' guy has been slapped up where there used to be a single-story garage. The workers got tiny cement splatters on my beloved car, and therefore are my enemies, but that's just one of the perils of parking in Brooklyn, I guess.

Then there's this thing, complete with view of jail.

And then these piledrivers (is that what they're called?) which were making quite a ruckus this morning. Reilly says some sort of artist/low-income housing tower is going up there? Whomever ends up there will have prime jail view [left].

Not shown, since you can't see it from the window: mystery construction project in the lot directly to the right of my building.

But hey, you know what's going to totally rule? When that Ratner monstrosity comes in! Traffic, parking, litter, and noise level, all of which are already bad, are going to get exponentially worse! I'm not sticking around for that, but good luck to the suckers who bought real estate here...though I guess luck isn't a big factor if you can afford local real estate.

Ahh, but let's all breathe and look at something more pleasant to conclude. The only bit of view left that I enjoy, my favorite nearby tree, is especially nice at this time of year. Weird, though, how it matches that banner...

Specialty items for the littlest consumers

2006-10-25T22:56:00.000-04:00

So I noticed a new direction for the local Clipper coupon magazine cover. Usually the flyer contains mostly promotions for kitchen redecoration and some restaurants down on the waterfront.

This part of the cover was of extra interest.

Because you know who really appreciates the blond wood and vaguely Scandinavian design of high-end baby furniture?

Babies.
That hand-me-down dresser and passed-along crib will simply not do for BoCoCa's demanding baby, although it may have done so in all previous generations ever. It really is best to start ’em in on materialism before they can even form thoughts.

when you play with fire...expect to be burned

2006-10-04T18:31:00.000-04:00

I have finally moved on from what became a nightmarish living situation. I am trying to forget, but some images just stay burned on the retinas for a while. And I don't have my deposit check in hand yet, but I am planning on crashing the open house next Sunday, and causing a scene if I dont have it by then.
Wait, what have I learned about playing with fire?

A couple of weeks ago, I thought I would be really clever and leave some pieces of cat poop on the ledge I know was being painted the next day (IN my apartment BEFORE I moved out). A little irritation in return for my own, you know, but nothing that could be traced to me. And I giggled all day to myself, and I giggled when I got home and saw the ledge painted, and then I went up to my room, and I stopped giggling.
There was a huge pile of dog poop in the middle of my bedroom floor.
Bigger than my own.
BTW This dog is groos, dumb, weighs about 80lbs, and looks like it has scabies.

I cleaned it up, and then went downstairs to see Mr Landlord. He laughed, and told me it was impossible it was his dog. I then had to have the conversation I never thought I would ever have to have, explaining various animal sizes and the comparison to the waste they produce. I told him it could not have been my cat, I knew it wasn't me, I really doubted it was my roommate, so if he was really saying that it wasn't his dog, then was it him?

He joked that if his dog was in my room, it was probably only because he was trying to eat my cat! GRRRR!
I mumbled something about only two weeks left, can we just make this as easy as it can be and respect each other's space, and started back up to my apartment defeated.
He yelled after me that I should pick up the toxic caulk mixture he left on the living room floor in case my cat accidentally drank it and died.
The one silver lining in the conversation was that he didn't call me Moonchild for probably the first time in six months.

Stooperbowl Sunday

2006-09-25T18:19:00.000-04:00

Stoop sale totals are in:
ECS: $90
Colleen: $60
Reilly: $30
Hannah: $10
After food and beer.

Not too great if you are counting by the hour, but fun to sneak in a little stooping.

The landlord did stop by and hang out for an awkward twenty minutes, taking me aside briefly to ask me if I have been putting "inappropriate" things down the toilet. I said no, but what would be inappropriate, since I do sometimes put dental floss in there, but he said that was fine. I assured him that my BMs were pretty consistent throughout the year, and that I couldn't vouch for the roomie, but I hadn't heard anything different from her. Curious? Wipes, apparently, are the big danger to the plumbing system.

We then moved on to how we set off the alarm system all the time. I explained politely that we have never once used the alarm system (that they got to protect us against their now deceased, but then violent and alcoholic friend, who tried to break into the house) because they never gave us the code.
Their response was simply to assume that if it wasn't me, it must be one of my friends playing a joke. Don't know about you, but all my friends thing the funniest thing is setting off people's alarms.
Hahaha...remember that time I set off your alarm?

Enough with the ranting. I know.

But then I saw this???

So back to the sale. Very fun way to spend an afternoon. We had tons of stuff. And we sold a good amount.

Here's two very Brooklyn looking ladies.

I though all would be overlooked in the stoop sale, but there was no forgiveness for my sleeping bag skirt. I didn't even get a "I could maybe see in the winter" or "It could have looked good in the store" Nothing. Even my explanation of having gotten it myself at the Salvation Army didn't help. Even modelling it didn't help.
It didn't even get taken overnight in the free pile.

Colleen looking cute with the sleeping bag skirt over her right shoulder.

Hmm...then this happened.

Yep.

Nobody actually bought any of the vibrators (all unused), but after we decided everything was free, and were kind of too drunk to be paying any attention, a little old lady asked me if I had a black plastic bag. After she left, I noticed that the box was empty. Damn lady, that's like eight vibrators.

And we had a celebrity soop by: Emily Mortimer shopped our sale. But she didn't buy anything becasue our stuff's not fancy enough for her. Nice and bitter.

Come stoop with us: Situation Critical

2006-09-22T18:04:00.000-04:00

The sad news is this will be our last opportunity to hang out on this stoop. My landlord has decided to renovate the building, and then sell it, so he gave us the choice to raise our rent 50% or move out.
His fabulous renovations included painting the stoop, so of course his "slovenly" (oh that's me by the way) tenant was asked not to hang out on the stoop after that. So we are not hanging out on the stoop, we are having a stoop sale.
The last few weeks have been ugly ones, and after I get my deposit back, I will fill you in more, but for now, check out the landlord's fabulous band website...the band I have been "completely unsupportive of" and indeed "completely unsupportive of his entire lifestyle". Thus his failure is directly my fault. We are a "forced family" after all.

Band

Come by and hang out.

Sunday Sunday Sundayyyyy!

2006-09-22T14:21:00.000-04:00

scar(r)ed from the stoop

2006-09-01T22:44:00.000-04:00

If some of you have been wondering why there hasn't been much stoop action lately, its not just the rain. Let me share a little something...

This guy, Mark, has been hanging out downstairs on the stoop.

And I got a little talking to from the landlord who lives downstairs about how I am so "slovenly" for leaving a cigarette butt on the stoop.

On Saturday, as I am leaving to go camping with Colleen, I discovered my landlord and Mark are painting the stoop without warning so I had to jump over a couple of steps carrying all my stuff. Instead of helping me, Mark commented that I could hop on his back, (the hairy sweaty back oozing out from that same green tank top) unless I was too worried about what people think. I quickly told him the best help he could be was to shut the door behind me, hopped into the camper and saved my puking till I was around the block.

Riddle me this!

2006-08-28T20:14:00.000-04:00

It has come to my attention that we have at least one local bestselling author among our fairly silent (but I assume totally supportive, loving, and massive) readership. So in the literary spirit, I bring you a famous-author-inspired riddle.

James Joyce once said, "A good puzzle is to walk across Dublin without running into a pub." Meaning, just try to walk any route through Dublin without encountering a pub. The wiseacre response to this would be, "Right, so I'll walk into all the pubs on the way." Which is what I did while living there. (I wrote down the best bits, dare I say shenanigans, from those days and if blogs had existed back then, oh the blogging hilarity that would have ensued!)

My version of Joyce's puzzle is, "You cannot walk from the pet food store to my apartment without sidewalks being blocked off almost the whole way because there is so much construction going on. Where do I live?"

The answer is, "everywhere in Boerum Hill." Another answer could be to walk into all the pubs on the way. But my personal answer now is to try to become a successful writer, so that I can scram-o out of here and visit Dublin soon while Auntie Nell is still around.

Catching Up

2006-08-26T22:56:00.000-04:00

I got to hang out on a different stoop last night a couple of blocks away, amazingly with my roommate from ten years ago, who I haven’t seen in just as long. In between catching up on a lost decade, and sharing tidbits about who got fat and who got racist, we visited the local liquor store of Fortress of Solitude fame. Remember the guy Dylan and Mingus tag while he is passed out in front of the liquor store?

I have been going there since I moved in the neighborhood, and the guys there and their dog have always been very nice. But I got to see a whole different kind of nice last night. As soon as we walked in, up popped some Dixie cups and a small bottle of Jack Daniels. Which we all drank together talking about the evolution of the neighborhood, the yupsters and the early morning customers who come in from sleeping out front, who appear to be on the way out.

Things like that make me love this neighborhood.

And in the spirit of loving things, one reason I am loving being single right now…no more boxes of super ugly lingerie in the mailbox from future mother in law’s with little notes reading “hope you love it…all my friends have grandkids and all I have is grand-cats”

Another one bites the dust

2006-08-24T11:32:00.000-04:00

Hey, remember stooper ecs?

(Yes, this is the third time using this very, very awesome photo.)

Ecs is one of my favorite people, who I fully expected to continue making inappropriate comments with well into our old age and cackling our wrinkled old asses off. If years from now we didn't still live nearby, well, we would surely still live in some reasonable drivable or flyable proximity to each other.

So last week, she decided to move to Melbourne, Australia, where her fiance lives. Originally, he was going to move here, and they've been jumping through the many flaming hoops of the visa process for the past half a year. Finally after his recent visit, they were like, F this. Why go through this whole elaborate process just so they can continue to live like college students in Brooklyn and never save any money because it's all going to rent, with no end in sight? I was sad and surprised at this news, because while it's normal for love-interest dudes, no matter how awesome they may be, to not stick around for any significant period of time, I really don't expect a good friend to disappear so quickly. But I really can't blame them. And of course it gives me an excuse to go to Australia, and all I need is the flimsiest excuse to ever travel. But if they stay there permanently, the reality is I'll probably only see them a handful of times again.

Ecs' fiance's aunt Elaine, who by my understanding, has been living in Little Italy since way before scary Warriors era, remarked, "New York is a hard city, but it wasn't always like this. It used to be reasonable to expect to pay one week's salary for your rent. But who makes $2500 a week now?"

I'll tell you who, apparently: those late-twentysomethings in the coffeeshop who can while away the day casually chatting without going to work. Ka-BLAMMO! I just SLAMMED those guys! I bet they'll feel really bad as they drift off to sleep on their like 1000-thread-count sheets tonight.

Tonight, I pour out a bit of my Corona to the memory of ecs on the stoop.

Duuust, in the wiiiind....

Farewell, drunken stooper.

We also tip our bevs to stoopin' Steve, who has returned to Portland for his last year of school.

Crossing Guards Stoop Too

2006-08-21T19:09:00.000-04:00

They hang out there every day. And they were way too loud this morning for the way I was feeling walking to the subway after partying away the last week of my twenties. What are they guarding anyway? School's not in. There are no kids.

Anyway, I woke up feeling grumpy and irresponsible after curing a hangover with a bottle of prosecco yesterday. (Thank you Robert and Connie) And I had to go to a meeting, which turned into me getting bought a nice fancy lunch by my client. She began by telling me about her bridal shower on Saturday. About how she drank two bottles of wine before two in the afternoon, puked twice, and then drove home giving up the worry of her breath smelling like alcohol, since it was probably oozing from pores all over her body. Hmm. A little weird. And she's thirty five.
Then the other lady starts talking. About how she has been stalking Steve Tyler for twenty years...which hotels she has photographed him in, what he was wearing in each shot, how he has posed for her, etc. She became more and more animated, and began to pose herself acting out the photos. Apparently she has also been bringing all of these photgraphs into the building and showing them to all the secretaries.
Yeah, this guy.

I left the meeting, and got to sit next to some lady on the train who kept muttering "He can't really be criminally insane...no, not really...it's not OK.."

I am very normal. And sane. And I don't drink my first bottle till way after two.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

2006-08-16T22:55:00.000-04:00

It was the anniversary of the Great Blackout of Ought Three on Monday, which also marked the most charming state in which I've ever witnessed our neighborhood.

It's well-documented that all throughout New York City on that day, strangers actually talked to each other and some even helped each other, and this was true in our nabe. I didn't know Reilly yet, had no other local friends, and found myself, as the last light drained out of the day, alone in a hot darkening apartment with nothing to do. The pot o' pasta and six-pack on the fire escape idea had been entertaining for a bit as I watched the streams of pedestrians drain from Manhattan into Brooklyn, but that show was mostly over. So I ventured out to nearby bar Kili, where they were cooking up slabs of thawing meat people brought from their freezers. It was packed with excitedly chattering locals and gathering more patrons by the minute, the crowd spilling out onto the street. Without exhaust fans, the air was a bit too meaty there, so I headed to Smith Street.

I took Bergen from Hoyt to Smith, and the roof of branches over the street created a tunnel-like echo effect all up and down the street. Sight of the night: Spots of candlelight came from every stoop and you could hear voices and laughter in every directon. Neighbors were all chatting away and telling the stories of their day. I often think about that night when I walk that street to the symphony of air conditioners, knowing it'll never be that way again until you know, the next blackout, or the end of the world starts or whatever.

I stepped into the candle-lit Boat bar, which in addition to its usual stale-beer smell had the added attraction of sweat hanging in the air that you could cut with a knife. But they still had a few cold-ish Red Stripes to sell, so I pulled up a stool at the bar and met a few folks. Awhile later we went back to one couple's apartment to finish off some of their perishables before they went bad, so we had ourselves a nice fruit and cheese plate with wine. Then one of the fellows walked me back to my place. He gave me his card as we said goodbye, and when I didn't want to kiss him, he took his card back. Whatever, dude.

It was so hot that I thought about sleeping on the fire escape or sleeping in the pop-up of my camper, but then remembered it was still New York, even though people had been olde-tymey friendly to each other that night. I'm not sure if I ever saw any of those people from that night again, and hadn't gotten a great look at them anyway, since everything was only lit by candles. But it was the most stoopendous (sorry everybody) night I've experienced here, and there should be a lot more of those.

RIP My Favorite Star Deli

2006-08-12T17:32:00.000-04:00

Back from sabbatical to tell you that my favorite neighborhood deli has closed down. Gone are my days of flirting with the guy with the semi amputated hand and threatening to steal their cat.

Alas their rent was raised too high, and they found a cheaper spot in Park Slope. Seems like the rent might have been too high for anybody since the place has stood empty for a few months now.
Hmmm, I wonder which one word shoppe will open here?

The one bright spot in all of this is this sight of the morning

The boombox he is carrying is blasting "Eye of the Tiger".
i'm confused ....
wolf man or tiger man, or just all around animal lover?

Everybody's doing it

2006-08-11T15:21:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the anonymous reader who hepped us to this article about stooping in the Daily News that ran yesterday. What, three people contributed to this like 10-sentence-long article, and no one found Stoop to Our Level? Impossible. Actually I'm glad that they found real, live stoopers instead of looking on the Internets for something that requires 0 Internets.

Let freedom fry

2006-08-10T11:32:00.000-04:00

Saturday's stooping happened a few blocks away from the home stoop, though still in the nabe.
Some main events included:

The sampling of Men's Pocky (!)
I guess these oblong objects that you put in your mouth are normally for women, so apparently what makes this new kind OK for men to put in their mouths is that these ones have bitter chocolate on them.

The consumption of Freedom Fries Chicken.
Is this an attempt to ward off any accusations of terrorism-via-deep-fried-chicken? This reminds me of one local corner eatery whose possibly Middle-Eastern staff put up a flag out front after 9/11 aka "the shit" with what were probably the best of intentions-- only they'd put it up upside down!

Sight of the Day and Night: Dingdingdingdingdingdingding! It's the knife-sharpening truck! This relic of olde-tyme Brooklyn came trundling down the street with the driver hitting its metal bell with a tire iron, and a Beware of Dog sign.
"What's your deal?" I yelled. "I sharpen knives!" Guess I'd been hoping for him to yell a concise history of the mobile knife-sharpening unit in Brooklyn.

The stoop dogg came back

2006-08-09T15:31:00.000-04:00

Hey, remember this guy?

Just last night, our pal Therese spotted him, rescued from the curb and the dump, in someone's apartment building!

Yay.

Stoopin' 'Em to the Curb!

2006-08-08T11:46:00.000-04:00

We were excited that Stoop was featured on Set Speed and Curbed in the past few days, and not all that surprised when our blog was met with some vitriol on both Curbed and here on our own stoop.

I have been helming this blog for awhile while Reilly studies away for a series of tests that will possibly earn her a measly few thousand more a year. So you're stuck with me for now, but you will be hearing quite a relevant update from Reilly pretty soon. Now let's take a moment to address some of the comments, noting that all critical comments were anonymous:

whine, whine, whine! if you don't like it, do something about it!

Um...like...what? Lie down in front of a steamroller?

Like this spoiled child isn't part of "gentrification"? Who does she think she is? Plus, if she is so down on these "zillion dollar" townhouses, perhaps she would feel more comfortable if they just left she decrepit parking lots on that block. Maybe she could become a squatter in the parking lot, not pay rent and really make a difference. This is so behind the times and disappointing to be on Curbed.

Does living at or below the poverty line for much of the past 5-1/2 years in Brooklyn count as being spoiled? If so, then color me spoiled! Sorry that I am not ethnic enough and not oldschool Brooklyn enough to make any complaints about gentrification. Actually, not sorry. F U.

moron - theres multiple tree pit openings along the sidewalk that fronts these buildings. street trees are usualy the last things to make their way into a project

OK, you have called me a moron, fair enough. Never mind that sentences are begun with capital letters; some folks ignore that as a matter of style or laziness. But with contractions such as "there's," an apostrophe is used before the S. The word "usually" is spelled with two Ls. And sentences are concluded with periods. Moron.

Nothing like chic hipsters keeping it real drinking 40s. Its like this is ripped out of "The Burg".... but maybe it was. I only hope these girls are being ironic in that pic, if not god help them.

Dude, we are having fun on a budget. Although I'm glad you think that I am a chic hipster, in Payless shoes and a shirt from Conways. Do you know Conway? It's in the Fulton Mall, but you don't shop there because it doesn't serve your needs. It's true, our neighbs have forgotten how to rock. And yes, God please do help us, because once my decrepit building gets torn down for more condos, it's either move into a share with like 4 roommates, move further into deepest Brooklyn with like a 2-hour commute, or move out of the city altogether and start over somewhere new.

And yeah, there is definitely some goofiness and some tongues in cheeks here. We are two women who are in this city trying to make better lives for ourselves and are basically finding ourselves getting priced out because we aren't investment bankers and didn't marry them. So yeah, there is resentment. But we are also trying to create a bit of community in the neighborhood again while we are still here, and point out that no one is using their own bit of public space, everyone is sealed off into their homes or their backyards, and even when they are out, they aren't all that friendly. And so on.

Props to loyal Stoop reader Preworn, who actually has been here in Brooklyn probably longer than any of the commenters above.

The coldest stoop in the heatwave

2006-08-03T11:21:00.000-04:00

So I left my keys at work yesterday, and while waiting for one of my saviors to bring me spare car keys, I parked my arse on one of the new soulless cracker box zillion-dollar townhouses on State Street. And though it was 157 degrees out, and there were no trees for shade on this fancypants side of the street, I felt the cold, cold wind of "progress" in Brooklyn.

Time Out New York had a cover story about this last week called "The War for Brooklyn", which, while it tragically overlooked Stoop to Our Level in its list of Brooklyn Blogs, had some very relevant things to say.

The section on Downtown Brooklyn was especially close to this blog's heart, as it takes up the case of Fulton Mall. Check this quote out: "Other residential neighborhoods near downtown are increasingly white and high-income, and the folks there, by and large, don’t shop on Fulton Street. “With the exception of Macy’s, Fulton Mall is not really used by the people who live in walking distance,” says Sue Wolfe, president of the Boerum Hill Association. “It just doesn’t have the stores or restaurants that would attract us to come and shop. With some enlightened landlords, I think that could change.'"
ARRRRRGH!

In the section about the gentrification of Bed-Stuy, from resident Tammy Mitchell: "This is what we do every day. We sit out on the stoop after work and drink a beer. Nothing is going to change that. Not now and not ever." Yeah, you just keep on thinking that, Tammy. Good luck to you, and good luck to all of us who aren't in the multi-million-dollar home-buying bracket.

Watch out, Warriors!

2006-08-02T17:28:00.000-04:00

We have a gang, too: the Shockers.

Stalk O 'Clock: Heath Ledger

2006-07-26T00:05:00.000-04:00

I might have had my first Heath sighting coming back from the subway the other night. A nondescript blue sedan came out of one of the three garage spots in their house, angling its way out from behind the parked car blocking its exit. All I could tell about the driver was he was male.

Does Heath drive his own car, or was it an assistant? A manny, perhaps? We'll find out through further walk-n-stalks!

You win this one, gentrification!

2006-07-25T12:21:00.000-04:00

I have to admit, I really like the new Fairway set in an old Red Hook warehouse, even though it probably means Red Hook will be the next place for normals to get priced out of and pushed back to the far reaches of Brooklyn. There are food and beverage samps aplenty for us and the kids from the projects to get a free lunch, the space is roomy enough that you don't have to move out of the way every time someone needs to get by, and you can eat on a waterfront deck overlooking the harbor.

And when my crumbling building between Fulton Mall and Fancyland finally gets sold and torn down to make way for more co-ops and condos with single-word-titled shoppes on the first floor, and I become homeless, I'm going to squat in one of these amazing trolly cars by the deck.

Another reason to love Fulton Mall

2006-07-20T11:37:00.000-04:00

What do you think the equiv of this shirt would be over in "BoCoCa"?
My guess:

BKLYN MNSA

Wish everybody was kung-fu fighting the power

2006-07-19T10:27:00.000-04:00

I've learned in this nabe that one-word shoppe names that give no indication as to what they sell in the shoppe= "expensive stuff." What do you guess they sell at the following local shoppes?

bird
swallow
butter
rico
layla
soula
lily
sir

Two of the above deal in furnishings and home decor, the rest, including "sir," are boutiques for women. How do you suppose they decided on these names?

Now these are what I call some store names.

Black Facts Books? I know what they sell there. Kung-Fu Videos? Why, they sell kung-fu videos.

Hair 4 You? They sell hair...for you!

Thank you, Fulton Mall, for the continuing lack of pretense.

BBBBQ

2006-07-16T13:35:00.000-04:00

The extra Bs are for "Boerum babies."

Therese and I went to her friend's BBBBQ, where we were joined later by Reilly. On the way, we stopped at one of the few local spots we can afford to shop: the sidewalk sale on Hoyt by Atlantic. We immediately zeroed in on the Sight of the Day and Night: this amazing record.

It was quite a hit at the BBBBQ.

You know what tiny babies are good for? Pranking.

Bigger kids are good for this.

But the coolest kid there was the girl who was sneaking up on people and putting ice down their shirts and running away. We gave her suggestions of who to do it to next, and when we ran out of unsuspecting BBBBQ-goers in the room, she ran away, returned carrying her little sister, plunked her down, and put ice down her dress.

While this was going on inside, we somehow missed the guy jumping naked into the kiddie pool and flooding the patio. We stuffed our maws with food and wine, Therese and I DJ'd and rallied the crowd with Jersey pride during "Born to Run," and later Reilly made an Irish exit. All of this boils down to quite a successful BBBBQ. We could use more of such revelry in the 'hood.

Star maps, anyone? They're printed on recycled paper with soy ink.

2006-07-15T15:47:00.000-04:00

A friend forwarded this article (prob from the NY Times).

Brooklyn’s Film Colony

THE actress Emily Mortimer and her husband, the actor Alessandro
Nivola, paid $2.45 million last month for a 25-foot-wide
four-story town house on Dean Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.
The house is half a block from a town house that the actor Heath
Ledger bought for $3.6 million last September.

Jim M. Kerby, a broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman, said the
home was listed for $150,000 less than the couple paid for it.
He received offers from about a dozen interested buyers, he
said, and that drove up the price.

“I think we hit the right season,” Mr. Kerby said, describing
the reaction to the house when it came on the market in March.
“I guess it was just home-buying time. There was an incredible
frenzy. It’s a 25-foot-wide house, one of those things that
attract everybody who wants a big house. They want a wide one.”

He said the previous owners put on an unusual semi-circular
addition at the back of the house, on the second floor,
containing the kitchen and a breakfast area. Other than the
addition, which he compared to something from a spaceship, Mr.
Kerby described the home as “a classic old Greek Revival house.”

He said that at an open house in March, the proximity to Mr.
Ledger’s new home, which has a three-car garage, was a frequent
topic of conversation.

“I think everybody asked about the Heath Ledger house,” he said.
“They wanted to make sure the value was there. I pretty much let
them discover that for themselves.”

Ms. Mortimer, daughter of the British playwright and author John
Mortimer, has appeared in numerous films, including the recent
Woody Allen movie “Match Point” and in the remake of “The Pink
Panther.”

She and her husband met while filming “Love’s Labour’s Lost,”
which was released in 2000. They were married in 2003. Mr.
Nivola has also acted in “Laurel Canyon,” “The Clearing” and
several other movies.

A lawyer for the couple, Howard M. Brickner, said they planned
to move to Brooklyn from the West Coast.

***

What are the odds, I wonder, of Ms. Mortimer and Mr. Novola and Ms. Williams and Mr. Ledger hanging out with us.