Author’s Brooklyn Town House Gets a Price Trim

“It is almost Friday night. Outside, the dark is getting darker and the cold is getting colder. Inside, lights are coming on in houses and apartment buildings. And here and there, uptown and downtown and across the bridges of the city, one hundred and five people are getting dressed to go to work.”

Those are the opening lines of “The Philharmonic Gets Dressed,” (Harper & Row, 1982) a children’s book by Karla Kuskin that follows 105 members of the Philharmonic orchestra as they shower and shave, as they wrap themselves in dresses and bow ties, and as they haul their instruments to work. The book sets a New York scene that is the perfect size and tone for young people to digest.

Ms. Kuskin, who wrote more than 50 books for young people — and was a New Yorker herself — died last year at age 77. Her town house in Brooklyn Heights is now on the market for $3.4 million — $200,000 less than when it was first listed in February.

The mid-19th-century house has 4,630 square feet over five stories. It has been divided into three spaces. The top three floors are a five-bedroom triplex with a deck, which was occupied by Ms. Kuskin and her family. The parlor floor is configured as a two-bedroom rental apartment, and the garden level is being used as a doctor’s office.

Ms. Kuskin’s longtime home was first put on the market for $3.6 million. The listing agents, Kim Soule and Lucy Perry of the Corcoran Group, lowered the price this month.

“I know charm is a word that’s overused, but it really is a charming house,” Ms. Perry said, adding that she had read Ms. Kuskin’s book “James and the Rain” to her three children. “And it feels like it’s filled with memories.”

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