By Trudy Whitman

A Corcoran Group real estate listing has lifted a veil — or at least caused the veil to flutter a bit — on the future of 110 Amity Street and its surrounding Henry Street and Amity Street lots. In March of this year, after development plans had finally been approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) many months before, neighbors noticed that “For Sale� signs had been posted on the building and on the fence surrounding the Henry Street lot. It is not the first time that developer Jonathan Wachtel of Lucky Boy Development, in partnership with Time Equities, Inc., had attempted to unload the property, but, perhaps, it is the most unpropitious time.

Wachtel and company purchased the building and lots from Long Island College Hospital in 2007 for $6.1 million. Constructed in 1902 as a nurses’ residence and most recently the home of the Lamm Institute, the three-story building is frequently described as Beaux-Arts, but the listing rather grandly dubs it French Renaissance of the Henry IV period. Six condo units were planned for the building. A design to create a mews behind the building on which five narrow five-story townhouses were envisioned was rejected by both the Cobble Hill community and the LPC. After an additional architect was added to the team and LPC changes were incorporated, a consensus was reached on four townhouses facing Henry Street and one on Amity. The project appeared shovel ready. And then the market crashed.

Corcoran is marketing the building as “your amazing single family house, or [it] can be converted into a residential building with apartments for sale or rent, or can also be the perfect setting for a school, medical offices or much more.� The listed selling price is $3.9 million. Approved floor plans for the apartments are available for an additional $400,000. The lots are also for sale separately.

A much quieter property sale, but one of interesting historical note, is taking place at 12 Dean Street, the former home of Fire Patrol # 3. Most passing its doors before it closed in 2006 believed the facility was a New York City Fire Department station, as did I before I dedicated a column to it when I first began writing for this publication. The Brooklyn firehouse was, in fact, one of three remaining fire fighting operations of what was once a large network belonging to the New York Board of Fire Underwriters. Fire Patrol members acted as an auxiliary force in the city for over 200 years, protecting property (including Andy Warhol paintings and the personal library of a top dog in the cosmetics business, according to the late New York Sun) and merchandise from flame and water damage.

But the force, many of whom were former NYC fire fighters, saved lives as well. It also lost lives — 32 in its 200-year history. All three units responded to the 9/11 attacks. One young patrolman at Ground Zero was killed there.

Despite its union’s claim that it saved $80 million worth of assets annually, the consortium of insurance companies that paid for its operation, decided it was too costly to maintain and voted to disband the last three units of the Fire Patrol in 2006. And three years after the ratchets rang for the last time, the three remaining Fire Patrol stations — one in the Village, one Midtown, and the Dean Street house — are on the market. A local developer told me that the Dean Street station has been sold. A call to Chris Gill, president of the New York Board of Fire Underwriters, revealed that the property is in contract but that there has been “no official closing.�

One can only hope that whoever buys and refits Fire Patrol # 3 will figure out a way of retaining at least one of the fire poles that the Dean Street fire crew were so fond of.

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