Owning and living in a townhouse has long been a peak status symbol in New York City, an achievement that places one amongst Rockefellers, Carnegies, Fricks, Vanderbilts and the like.
But, amid growing concerns about crime — a recent poll from Citizens Budget Commission found that just 37% of New Yorkers rated public safety in their neighborhood as excellent or good, down from 50% six years ago — the migrant crisis and squatters, that’s changing.
Some wealthy Gothamites are now fearful of living in charming West Village brownstones or sprawling Upper East Side limestone mansions that cost tens of millions of dollars.
Marzena Wawrzaszek, a city real estate broker with SERHANT, told The Post that she saw contracts for townhouses fall 22% at the end of 2023 (the most current period for which data is available), compared to just 5% for new developments during the same time.
“During COVID everyone wanted to be in a townhouse because of the minimal contact and privacy,” she said. “After COVID, that shifted. Now, people prefer to be in doorman-buildings.”
Recently, she had a West Village couple sell their townhouse and move into a new development in the Financial District citing security concerns. And, last summer, a family of four backed out of a roughly $3 million townhouse deal she had negotiated in Williamsburg.
“They were so close,” she said. “We had done our due diligence; we had done the inspection. Then they decided to back out and buy in a new development on the Upper West Side with a doorman instead. They travel and their main concern was who was going to be watching the house while they were away.”
On the Moms of the Upper East Side Facebook group, questions about whether townhouses are safety have been a recurring topic in recent months.
“I would never live in a townhouse unless we had security,” huffed one mother in a post earlier this year.
Herman Weisberg, a former NYPD detective who is now the head of Sage Intelligence Group, a security consulting firm, said townhouse owners are a significant portion of his business. He was recently hired by an owner who was concerned about how his neighborhood had changed in recent years.
“[They] lived on one of the most beautiful and idyllic townhouse streets in the Village. But it’s not so beautiful and idyllic anymore when you’ve got 10 guys passing around a crack pipe in front of your house, or passed out with a needle in their arm, ” he said.
And, he doesn’t believe you can leave it to the authorities.
“The police department is becoming, I wouldn’t say lackadaisical, but more allowing of this because our society is saying, ‘No, cops can’t go in, and you know, take a nightstick to somebody’s leg and make them move,’” he said. Now, all of a sudden they have to dial 311 and get a social worker there.”
He has townhouse clients spending upwards of $50,000 of security upgrades, such as reinforced doors and windows, which can be especially pricey in historic homes and districts.
Some uber rich also pay $100 per hour for round-the-clock, plain clothes surveillance, or pool together with neighbors to feel safe.
“Let’s say there are 12 families on a block and each one of them has a driver. All they need to do is leave one of the drivers on around the clock for one night and rotate,” he said of an approach he came up with. “That way you split it up. The driver can call 911 in real time, instead of waiting for a security camera guy that’s probably got up to go get coffee when the guy dressed all in black snuck in through the basement window.”
For those with plenty to defend and much to lose, the last word in high-end security is a panic room.
“We’ve done a bunch of panic rooms in townhouses since COVID,” said Weisberg, noting that they start at about $30,000. “They don’t look like panic rooms, they look like offices complete with walls of books, beautiful desks and mahogany walls. We reinforce everything and add all the flashy things like secondary communication and battery packs that are almost like a Tesla battery. And it’s funny, half of my clients love to show off their panic room to their friends and the other half want it to be so that no one will ever know that it’s a panic room. Those are my smarter clients.”