terratogen wrote:

For the one-time gangster who built it, it is nothing less than "the eighth wonder of the world". The less charitably disposed dismiss it as a glorified barn, fire hazard and eyesore.

But on one thing everyone agrees: Nikolai Sutyagin's home is certainly different.

I am reminded of Dave Chappelle's Block Party. From the review in the Boston Globe:

Besides the priceless backstage moments are those when Gondry follows Chappelle as he makes his way around Bed-Stuy, talking, for instance, to the ancient owners of the amazing ruin that overlooks the block where the party is scheduled to be. (Chappelle calls the place a crack house. But it's the most Dickensian of crack houses.) He even visits the day-care center that the Notorious B.I.G. attended and that doubles as the concert's greenroom.

For pictures, see here. From the NYT coverage:

Brooklyn's skyline has only a few standouts. A building named Broken Angel is one of them.

... 10 stories high, behind a tract of starter homes ... it is a jumble of structures cobbled together seemingly without reason; some of its "stories" are no more than crow's-nest-size outcroppings perched on wooden beams.

"It's like a moonshine distillery gone crazy."

... In the "kitchen" (a dusty landing littered with tools), a piece of PVC pipe is built into the only wall. Peering through it, one's eye is guided to another pipe in an exterior wall 20 feet away. Through these pipes the viewer can read the clock on the Williamsburg Bank more than a mile away.

"My kitchen clock," Mr. Wood said.