I know that real estate transactions are public information. I also know that it's legal to write about such public information. I also know that it's legal to link from one thing to another on the world wide webs. I also know it's legal for the website Blockshopper to create hokey fake "news" stories with headlines like:
"Burger Flipper Tries Hand at Flipping Houses: Buys Foreclosed Farragut Tudor From Disgraced Crib Designer Elmo T. Higgins for 500,000 Clams"
I also know creepy when I see it. And Blockshopper.com is pretty doggone creepy folks.
If you haven't checked it out then you're in for a real treat. But be forewarned. It's really, really lame at things like, facts. A classic example is this line about our neighborhood, good ol' PLG/W: "100.00% (3,491) of the homes in Brooklyn-Prospect-Lefferts Garden/Wingate are located in Brooklyn County, New York."
Brooklyn county? Never heard of it. And they use Wingate and PLG interchangeably, like in this one:
"FILMMAKER BUYS WINGATE 4BD"
Rebecca Breckel bought a four-bedroom, three-bath home at 185 Fenimore St. in Brooklyn-Prospect-Lefferts Garden/Wingate from Wessell L. Anderson, Doris E. Anderson, and Frederick A. Anderson for $595,000 on June 23.
The 2,619 square-foot-house was built in 1910 in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens Historic District.
Breckel is a New York-based filmmaker and producer. Her work has been seen in around 200 commercials, which include Wendy's, Verizon, Viagra, Nescafe, McDonald's and Olay to name a few. She is also responsible for numerous feature films that have made it to Sundance including "Pretty Bird", "Adrift in Manhattan" and "Dedication."
Rebecca, welcome to Wingate. Sorry to re-post this intrusion of privacy. I take some comfort from the fact that your career is clearly very public, and maybe it's true that all publicity is good publicity. But sheesh, some of the people blown up into headlines on Blockshopper are folks whose business is, well, pretty much their own damn business.
It's a bit "pot calling kettle black" for me to be bitching about other people's google-happy fingers. Still, a creep's a creep.
What think y'all?.
4 comments:
Don't be so mean-spirited Mr. Q. There's SO much useful info on Blockshopper that I have a hard time picking out what's most valuable. For example, although I've lived in Brooklyn for over 40 years, I never before saw a list of all the cities in Brooklyn County, NY; I counted 59 on their invaluable list, and here I thought that Brooklyn County, which I always, in my ignorance, called "Kings," started with only five towns.
Think it was 6 towns: Breuckelen, Boswijk, Flatbush/Midwout, Flatlands/Niew Amersfoort, Gravesend (the only English town and the only one founded by a woman, and an Anabaptist at that), Niew Utrecht.
They should fix the county thing, I mean come on. But how else would I know about my new richy rich neighbors? Turns out they own the New York Times! A little googling goes a long way these days. Welcome Sam and Heidi Dolnicks. Hope you make it.
And they found out about their house in the PRINT edition of the Times, where it was a featured property one weekend. It is a gorgeous house, although for that amount of money I'd want to be in the historic district, if not the Manor itself. Hawthorne St's mix of apartment buildings and houses doesn't thrill me too much.
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