1209 Dekalb Avenue: Review and Ratings

Review of 1209 Dekalb Avenue by Carter Horsley

This striking, 5-story rental apartment building at 1209 Dekalb Avenue between Bushwick and Evergreen Avenues in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn is known as Colony 1209. 

It was completed in 2013 by the Read Property Group of Borough Park and has 120 apartments.

It was designed by Kutnicki Bernstein whose other Brooklyn projects include 26 Broadway, 53 Broadway, 109 Gold Street and 432 Grand Street and in Manhattan 154 Attorney Street and 517 West 26^th Street.

Bottom Line

This very handsome and amenity-rich, low-rise apartment building is pretty hip and spiffy with a “speakeasy” lounge and rehearsal studios and a stunning website with photographs by Travis Dubreuil of neighborhood graffiti.

Description

The building has an interesting and complicated asymmetrical look on Dekalb Avenue with five-story ends and a five-story off-center middle section. Some sections of the façade are blue and slightly recessed or slightly protruding and these sections vary in height. The remainder of the façade is gray.

The overall façade design is quite intriguing and subtle and makes its impressive length along the avenue rather diverting.

While the front of the building is flush with the building line, its rear has two deep legs and several of the “inside” apartments have large balconies.

Amenities

The building has a 24-hour doorman, on-site parking, indoor bocce court, a laundry room, landscaped courtyard, a roof deck, a gym, a screening room with a pool table, and a “speakeasy” lounge that has rehearsal studios, a pinball arcade and shuffleboard courts.

Apartments

Most of the apartments have living rooms with open, pass-through kitchens.

Every apartment has stainless steel kitchen appliances, deep soaking tubs, hardwood flooring and washers and dryers.

An item at brownstoner.com in 2013 noted that “the most striking thing about the units…is the dark paint tones: Navy, gray, and emerald."

History

Location

The building is across the street from the Bushwick Leaders High School and a few blocks from the M and J subway lines.