Epidemic of Condo Clones Spreads in Brooklyn

"[Belvedere LXX] is part of a growing family of small apartment houses that have sprouted up in Brooklyn over the past 10 years, the majority of which share certain features — a reddish brick facade, about the color of diluted Manischewitz wine; a pair of white columns; and balconies — that make them appear, if not like clones, then certainly like cousins," says Harris. "Now, as their numbers approach three dozen, most of them concentrated in Greenpoint, there are so many that look so similar that it is starting to feel as if that neighborhood is having a mini, matchy, architectural movement all its own."

"These structures are not masterworks of form and function, executed with delicate precision in glass and stone. Nor are they reviled lumps of tortured steel, littering the streets out of context and out of scale. And so, despite their abundance, they manage to inspire in this opinionated city little more than a shrug."