Friday, May 14, 2010

Brick Fireplaces

This all started with my husband coming across an ad somewhere for a city auction in Newburgh. We toyed with the idea of going, just to see how the whole property auction process works, and decided to give it a try. Prior to the auction, we drove around parts of the city, taking quick glances at properties we might be interested in. The day of the auction, we also brought a small sum of cash with us, just in case there was a bargain we couldn't pass up, and the auction list with our "potentials" marked. As bidding began at modest prices, they escalated quickly and were more than we were prepared to spend. It looked like this was all beyond our means.

As the auction was nearing the end and us not even coming close to the final bids for the properties we were interested in, I took another look at the offerings remaining. Towards the back of the booklet, there was a little black and white picture of a brick structure, which touted eight fireplaces. Those fireplaces and the brick caught my eye and I told my husband "This sounds cute". Itching to come home with something we put in a modest bid, and ended up winning the property for about the price of a mid class a new car. As we were waiting in line to hand over our down payment, people were making small talk and comparing who bought what. As we mentioned what we bought, someone questioned if that was the burnout (the remnants of a building that caught on fire), while someone else mentioned the area being the hooker district. We quickly contemplated bailing out and not submitting the down payment, but I can be impulsive at times and like taking chances. My rational was the down payment was enough of a sum for us to miss it, but it wasn't an amount where forfeiting would be a financial end. We went through with it.

We then left the Delano Hitch Stadium and head straight to our new purchase. The building is all boarded up, and the better part of the roof was missing. My husband pries the boards off of what was once the front door, and we cautiously creep inside. We take a quick look and wonder what we just got ourselves into. The place was filled with garbage, missing parts of the floors, was in fact the scene of a fire, and really had nothing besides the exterior brick walls and main support beams that could be salvaged. Oh wait- the fireplaces did look like they might be able to be saved, even though they were sealed and patched up.

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