Brownstones, walk-ups, and the art of the narrow staircase.
Brooklyn's brownstones date back to the mid-1800s, when the soft brown sandstone became the fashionable face of New York row houses in neighborhoods like Brooklyn Heights — the city's first suburb, made possible by ferry service to Manhattan in the 1820s. After decades of decline, the "Brownstone Revival" of the 1950s and 60s brought young families back to Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens, restoring these century-old townhouses room by room. Many of those restored parlor floors became home to a piano — and those same narrow stairs and stoops that the brownstoners climbed with paint cans and furniture are exactly what our crews navigate today.
Classic Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope brownstones — built mostly in the Italianate style popular from the 1840s through the 1880s — require carrying a piano up a stone stoop, through a narrow vestibule, and around a tight turn into the parlor floor, often via a winding staircase original to the house. Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and Bedford-Stuyvesant share similar layouts. Queens' mix of attached homes, garden apartments, and pre-war buildings adds narrow interior hallways and low doorway clearances to the list of things we measure before move day.
Double-parked trucks, alternate-side parking rules, and walk-up buildings with four or five flights of stairs are simply part of doing business in Brooklyn and Queens. Many buildings also have specific move-in policies — certificates of insurance, elevator padding requirements, or restricted move hours — that we coordinate in advance so move day doesn't hit a surprise at the front desk.