Brooklyn neighborhoods [Archive] - Wired New York Forum

krulltime

June 8th, 2004, 02:10 AM

Flatbush, Brooklyn:

Flatbush: A Richer Mix of Stores for a Once-Rough Area

By JOHN HOLUSHA
Published: June 6, 2004

SOME neighborhoods, SoHo most notably, find that their mix of stores changes as wealthier residents replace old-timers and have more desire to buy designer clothes than 60-cent coffees.

Something similar is happening in the Flatbush Avenue section of central Brooklyn, although the shift is still subtle and the residents are not moving out. Rather, as young people move to the neighborhood from Manhattan and from other parts of Brooklyn, and as the immigrants from the Caribbean who live in the area become more affluent, the stores are becoming more vibrant and more varied to meet their needs.

Timothy Guillen, for instance, said he used to sell mainly athletic shoes in his Stride Rite shoe store on Flatbush Avenue. Today, he displays mostly boys' and girls' dress shoes. "We are more family oriented now because there is less crime," he said.

Not long ago, the street was a low-income shopping area with a number of boarded-up storefronts and merchants featuring products priced at less than a dollar. "These guys didn't invest anything in their stores, and they would disappear in the middle of the night, owing the landlord several months rent," said Jack Katz, executive director of the Flatbush Avenue business improvement district.

He said chain stores, including Lane Bryant, Radio Shack, Petland and Ashley Stewart, had moved in recent years into spaces formerly occupied by local retailers.

The growing economic strength of the neighborhood, which is bracketed by the Q subway line on one side and the 2 and 5 on the other, is not only encouraging local retailers to change their offerings, but also attracting national retailers. As a result, commercial rents are increasing, according to real estate executives.

"Eight years ago, I was involved in leasing some of these stores, and Flatbush Avenue had a 10 to 15 percent vacancy rate," said John G. J. Ritter, an executive vice president of Sholom & Zuckerbrot Realty, a brokerage firm active in Queens and Brooklyn. At that time, he said, "rental rates were in the high teens" in terms of dollars per square foot annually. "Now," he added, "the local rental rates match those of suburban malls, $30 to $40 a square foot."

It was those rising rents that persuaded Mr. Guillen, a native of the Dominican Republic, to acquire a building and move his store to its current location about four years ago after nearly a decade in the neighborhood. "The rent was getting very high, so I moved here and bought the building," he said. "Now I pay a mortgage, not rent."

Mr. Ritter, who recently brokered the sale of three retail properties in Flatbush totaling 30,000 square feet for $3.5 million, said the neighborhood is experiencing tremendous growth.

On Flatbush Avenue, a business improvement district on the stretch between Cortelyou Road and Parkside Avenue provides security, sanitation and promotion services, and changes are also evident on streets leading out of Flatbush Avenue.

Five blocks away, Nicholas Correra said he had been expanding the selection of wines in his liquor store facing the Newkirk Avenue subway station on the Q line. "I'm selling a lot more good wine than in the past," he said. He said residents who commute to Manhattan are increasingly stopping by to buy a bottle of wine for dinner.

Mr. Correra's store is in Newkirk Plaza, which opened in 1913. The shopping center has recently been improved, with new ironwork fences replacing crumbling concrete walls and new light fixtures and poles for promotional banners.

John Broderick, executive director of the Flatbush Development Corporation, an economic development agency, said the city-financed project involved "$1 million in amenities and $2 million to $3 million in construction underneath."

Mr. Broderick said that making shopping areas like Newkirk Plaza and Cortelyou Road more attractive was important to attract the younger people who are moving into the neighborhood.

"The people coming here from Manhattan and Williamsburg are in their 30's, and they are looking to buy," he said. He said that three-story Victorian houses in the area are priced in the $800,000 range and that condos in the six-story apartment buildings that house the majority of residents are rapidly appreciating in price.

"Stores in Flatbush are changing to tap into this new income," Mr. Broderick said. He said the Dunkin' Donuts chain recently invested $500,000 to refurbish a store in Newkirk Plaza. An old barbershop on Cortelyou Road is being converted into a white tablecloth restaurant, and a farmer's market now operates on Saturdays at the nearby Public School 139. "It's like a community meeting on Saturdays," he said.

But the gentrification has gone only so far. During the electrical blackout last summer, several stores on Flatbush Avenue were broken into and looted.

Mr. Katz said that when the business improvement district began organizing in 1986, there was a 30 percent vacancy rate along Flatbush Avenue. Now, he said, there are only three vacancies among the 270 storefronts in the 11-block district.

He said the densely populated area was a natural draw for national retail chains. He said these include Staples and Old Navy as well as fast food chains like McDonald's, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken. A 40,000-square-foot Modell's sporting goods opened recently on Church Avenue.

"This was a roughhouse neighborhood when I came here seven years ago," said Sol Velelis, the manager of a Cookie's Department Store on Flatbush Avenue. "We would get packs of kids who would take a lot of merchandise. But things have settled down since then."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

krulltime

July 10th, 2004, 01:48 PM

Kensington, Brooklyn:

BROOKLYN - FOR PENNIES

By JANET HUEGE
July 10, 2004

It's like Park Slope, except the bookstores aren't there yet. At least that's the argument of the boosters of Kensington, Brooklyn, a little area nestled between Borough Park, Windsor Terrace and Ditmas Park.

The range of housing is staggering in Kensington, and prices are around 30 percent to 40 percent lower than in Park Slope. Now only if it were more convenient.

"You can't walk out your front door and into shops and restaurants," says Betsy Andrews, senior editor at Zagat Surveys. Still, she purchased a 750-square-foot one-bedroom co-op three months ago, in what she calls "a transitional neighborhood," for $167,000. The reason? "Kensington is the nicest and most affordable neighborhood within close proximity to Prospect Park."

A lot of Brooklyn neighborhoods are trying to be "the next Park Slope" (see box), but Kensington's housing mix may actually encourage the income diversity that Slopers cherish. "It's the most eclectic neighborhood in Brooklyn," says John Reinhardt, president and CEO of Fillmore Real Estate. "Kensington is a great mix of properties and residents."

Developed in 1885 after the completion of Ocean Parkway, the neighborhood (originally colonized by Dutch farmers) was named after the west borough of London, at the turn of the century.

It runs from Fort Hamilton Parkway and Caton Avenue to the north, Coney Island Avenue to the east, Foster Avenue to the south and McDonald Avenue to the west.

Now many more New Yorkers are beginning to discover it. "It's a perfect neighborhood for Park Slope refugees and people being priced out of other parts of Brooklyn," says Shannon Reese, senior associate with the Corcoran Group.

Jewelry designer Linda Beigelmacher and her engineer-husband, Manny, purchased a three-story single-family detached home, in move-in condition with basement and finished attic, two and a half years ago for $360K. It is now worth almost $560K.

"We have skylights, stained-glass windows, a garden and a fireplace," says Beigelmacher, who lived in Windsor Terrace for nine years before moving to Kensington. "You can't find a house like this for this price anywhere else."

"The neighborhood is perfect for us," she adds. "There are a lot of kids, and it is lively but also quiet."

As far as rentals are concerned, apartments in Kensington are found in prewar and postwar buildings that are usually five to six stories high. There are rent-stabilized units, some lime- and brownstones, as well as units in private homes.

If you decide to rent, prices for a 400- to 500-square-foot studio range from $750 to $1,000 per month. You can find 600- to 900-square-foot one-bedrooms for $950 to $1,200.

Two-bedrooms range from $1,000 to $1,600 for 750 to 1,200 square feet of space, while 850- to 1,400-square-foot three-bedrooms run $1,500 to $2,100.

Hannah Sohn, who works for a conference company, and her husband, Noah Hidu, a jazz musician, are both owners and landlords. The couple, who lived in Park Slope for three years, bought a one-bedroom co-op in Kensington two years ago.

"It's a safe, cozy and green neighborhood," says Sohn. She and Hidu also own a 550-square-foot studio in Kensington that they rent for $900 a month.

Diane Stein, who works in health education, has lived in Kensington for two years with her boyfriend. "It is a comfortable neighborhood that is ethnically and economically mixed," she says. Stein, who owns a 1,100-square-foot two-bedroom co-op, purchased it two years ago for $135,000. It is now worth $230,000.

"I love living here," she says, "but there are no bookstores in the neighborhood, and the library has no Saturday hours."

Kensington also offers a wide variety of houses. "There are single-family, two-family, detached, attached, semidetached and everything in between," says Fillmore's Reinhardt. "Styles include frames, Victorians, Capes, Queen Annes and row houses, but the most predominant type is brick." Single-family homes can run from $475K to $800K. Two-families can begin as low as $575K and go as high as $875K.

Detached homes are usually on the higher end. And as with any property, condition, original details and uniqueness of style all factor into the price. "The houses range from those needing a lot of work to completely re-done resells," says Warren Lewis Realty associate broker Aaron Isquith. "Many of the properties have yards, driveways, garages and basements, which make them very attractive."

If you're buying in Kensington, studios range from $70K to $100K for 450 to 500 square feet. One-bedrooms begin around $115K and go as high as $180K for 550 to 1,000 square feet. You can find two-bedrooms for $160K to $225K for 850 to 1,400 square feet of space. Three-bedrooms range from $275K to $325K for 1,200 to 1,400 square feet.

The buildings are usually very large. With hardwood floors, plaster-cast moldings, high ceilings and other original details, all of the residences have laundry facilities, while some have doormen, courtyards, balconies and underground parking.

"Along Ocean Parkway you can find luxury apartments," says Marcia J. Miller, broker for Open Options Real Estate.

"We see young couples, singles, professionals, artists, young families and same-sex couples of all ethnicities moving to Kensington," she adds.

Still, the neighborhood hasn't quite developed as quickly as the new residents might like.

"There are a lot of ethnic family-owned restaurants and delis, but not a lot of coffee shops or bars," says Dan Twohig, who, along with his wife, Sheila, purchased a 900-square-foot one-bedroom co-op less than a month ago for $155K.

"It's an up-and-coming neighborhood," notes Sheila. "It will take time, but there will be a turnover in stores and restaurants. The same thing happened in Windsor Terrace five years ago."

"And," adds Dan, "in the meantime we go to Park Slope, which is only five minutes away, for things we can't get here in Kensington.

"It's the best of both worlds."

Copyright 2004 NYP Holdings, Inc.

Gulcrapek

July 10th, 2004, 02:05 PM

When I was younger my best friend lived in Kensington. His house was Victorian style with three floors (maybe four?) and four (maybe five?) bedrooms. The living room was gigantic. He lived on a quiet, tree-lined block with other beautiful homes.

krulltime

July 29th, 2004, 11:37 AM

Red Hook, Brooklyn:

SAFER STREET

July 29, 2004 -- In 1992, gunshots were a common sound in the Red Hook, Brooklyn, projects and as one neighborhood leader said, "There was no hope."

But when bullets claimed the life of popular school Principal Patrick Daly, residents knew they'd had enough.

Police stepped up their focus on Red Hook — and tenants in many instances worked with them — to save the neighborhood against all odds.

"I think the cops have a lot to be proud of," said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. "And they are proud of how neighborhoods have turned around."

Our fourth installment about communities transformed by the dramatic decrease in crime takes a closer look at how Red Hook went from a battleground to a neighborhood that is redefining itself.

Copyright 2004 NYP Holdings, Inc.

RED HOOK REBORN

By PATRICK GALLAHUE

July 29, 2004 -- Who could have predicted that this year, there would be more bodies pulled into Red Hook's art galleries and restaurants than out of its Buttermilk Channel?

But as the neighborhood's gory days fade into Brooklyn's history, the area — once notorious for its booming crack trade — is now more famous for its burgeoning culture.

And amid all the talk of Red Hook as one of New York's next "it" neighborhoods, some have even begun to forget its tawdry past.

"The neighborhood was drug-ridden, crime-ridden . . . There was really no hope," said Earl Hall, 36, a former resident of housing projects. "A lot has changed."

In the 1990s, Red Hook's gritty but picturesque streets were hidden behind sprawling public-housing projects, the second largest in the city, which suffered through daily shootouts and bore the full brunt of the crack epidemic.

"Everybody had an opportunity to get their hands on drugs," said Hall, a self-described former hustler. "Soon, it became territorial and brought an intense rivalry to the streets."

Officer Carlos Quintana, 40, a fifteen-year veteran of the 76th Precinct, put it more succinctly.

"You could hear gunfights every night," he said.

The neighborhood had its darkest hour — and its turning point — on Dec. 17, 1992, when popular school Principal Patrick Daly was killed in the crossfire between rival drug gangs.

"When that happened, Red Hook changed," Quintana said.

More than 100 calls were made to 911 reporting the gunman's location, Quintana said.

And from the next day on, people's attitudes toward law enforcement changed. The community demanded a stronger police presence — and the city delivered.

"When Mr. Daly got killed, the community said enough is enough," Hall said.

The area was flooded with cops; drug dens were raided; and wanted felons were tracked down.

"We just saturated Red Hook," Quintana said. "Manpower — that was the bottom line."

Daly's killers were ultimately brought to justice.

"A lot of the dealers went to jail," said Dorothy Shields, 72, a resident of the Red Hook houses for 50 years.

A multijurisdictional court — containing civil, family and criminal courts — handles cases only from the three surrounding precincts, giving the police closer contact with the justice system. They say it helps ensure harsher penalties for the worst offenders and appropriate community service for the smalltime crooks.

And it's worked.

Overall, crime in the community has declined 60 percent since 1993, and murders plummeted from 12 in 1995 to none in 2003. Robberies and rapes have plunged 64 percent and 33 percent, respectively. And burglaries have taken a 68 percent nosedive since 1993.

Unfortunately, with such lows, there was nowhere to go but up, and Red Hook saw its first murder in well over a year in May. The entire precinct has also seen a small increase in overall crime this year.

But even as Red Hook's crime drops —and richer people move in — the area still wrestles with crippling poverty. It has a 20 percent unemployment rate — twice the city's average — and the median family income in 2000 was less than half the city average, at $18,203.

But the promise of safety is slowly but surely creating some opportunities.

A gourmet Fairway Supermarket is scheduled to open next year, and other chain stores and businesses are eyeing the neighborhood.

Copyright 2004 NYP Holdings, Inc.

RESTAURATEUR EATS UP THE NEW, EASYGOING AMBIENCE

July 29, 2004 -- Until Arnaud Erhart opened the French restaurant 360 last year, the Statue of Liberty was the closest thing Red Hook had to France.
But now that the neighborhood's crime and drug problems have receded, things have changed.

"I am a longtime resident of the neighborhood and I realized there was a high demand for a simple place to eat," said Erhart, 34, a native of Strasbourg, France.

"If we did something good enough and original enough, Brooklynites would travel. And they do."

Erhart is one of the pioneering entrepreneurs of Red Hook, opening a relatively chic establishment in a neighborhood long ago considered one of Brooklyn's worst.

But as crime dropped, Van Brunt Street became a respectable commercial corridor with several well-known eateries, and more on the way.

"I've seen every single restaurant entrepreneur come to Red Hook in the last year," Erhart said. "Are they all ready to open something down here? I don't think so. A lot of people are still afraid — but of the [sparse] foot traffic."

Erhart came to New York in 1988 to work as a sommelier in Manhattan. But from the moment he first visited friends in Red Hook, he fell in love with its waterfront views and gritty industrial ambiance.

In order to come to Red Hook, though, he had to drop a rent-controlled apartment on the Upper East Side, so he'll be the first to say he didn't come to Brooklyn to save on rent.

"It actually cost me money to come to Red Hook," he said. "But I'm not in Red Hook for cheap real estate."

He moved to the area in 1994 so as crime plummeted and the early waves of "pioneers" began making their way to the neighborhood, Erhart didn't have to look far to read the writing on the wall.

"Would the business have been sustained back in the late '80s? No, it wouldn't have," he said.

"But neither would any other type of business that deals with the public . . . I'm sure that safety is one of the things [that bring people here]." Patrick Gallahue

Copyright 2004 NYP Holdings, Inc.

krulltime

January 14th, 2005, 11:21 AM

Flatbush, Brooklyn:

Rediscovering Flatbush
Attainable Victorian homes and a short commute to Manhattan are just two of the Brooklyn neighborhood’s charms

Catherine Curan is a freelance writer.
January 14, 2005

When Faith Justice told her daughter that their family planned to move to Brooklyn from Manhattan's Upper West Side, 13-year-old Hannah did not want to leave the only neighborhood she'd ever called home.

Then she saw the sprawling Victorian house in Flatbush, with a front porch, a garden and five bedrooms - including one for her to sleep in and one for her trampoline - and Hannah changed her mind.

"When we saw the house, I said, 'Well, I'm in love.' She said, 'Well, I am, too,'" Justice, a writer, recalls.

Last spring, Justice, 52, her husband, Gordon Rothman, 48 and a TV news producer, and Hannah left their cramped five-room apartment for the "mansion" on Stratford Road. At about $800,000, the 3,500-square-foot house was more affordable than six-room apartments the family looked at on the Upper West Side.

Since the move, the former Manhattanites have been adjusting to living the suburban life in the city. Last summer they enjoyed the pleasures of backyard gardening and swimming in their above-ground pool, knowing that when they craved the bustle of Manhattan, they could reach Union Square in half an hour on the Q train.

"We're really happy," Justice says. "It's a very diverse neighborhood, which I enjoy. That was one reason I didn't want to move to the suburbs."

Given the eye-popping prices in Manhattan and other Brooklyn neighborhoods such as Park Slope, an increasing number of families that want to own houses yet still live inside the city limits are turning to Victorian Flatbush. The neighborhood, which is just south of Prospect Park, includes three landmark historic districts - Prospect Park South, Ditmas Park and Albemarle-Kenmore Terrace - and is said to contain the largest concentration of Victorian homes in the United States. In the 1980s the area was drug-riddled, but a drop in crime and revitalization efforts by neighborhood associations have inspired new interest. Priced from about $650,000 to $1.5 million, these distinctive turn-of-the-century homes provide buyers with suburban amenities such as spacious yards and garages within a diverse urban community close to Manhattan.

"We've been discovered," says Mary Kay Gallagher, a local broker and a 45-year resident of Victorian Flatbush. "It's family-oriented, with lots of kids. People get what they don't have in Park Slope: parking, driveways, garages. There's space and breathing room."

Driveway, she said

For art director Elizabeth Blatchford, 41, the driveway is one of her favorite features of the $1.177-million home on East 17th Street that she and her husband, Peter, 42, an options trader, recently moved to from Park Slope. Sure, she likes the retro details, including a 7-foot-long claw-footed bathtub and 1902 tiles in one of the bathrooms. She's also happy to have the same commute to work but a quiet house to come home to at night. After paying high garage fees for two cars and dealing with Park Slope's congestion, though, she finds that simply having a place to park means a lot.

"We won't have to pay parking or find space on the street. All of that simple stuff you take for granted. I don't have to double-park to take groceries out of the car. I can just pull into my own driveway," she says. "You can't even believe you're in Brooklyn."

In the past year, demand has risen so much that attorney Jamal Jbara, 39, and his wife, Marlena, 32, a radiologist, thought they might not find a house in Victorian Flatbush. The couple lost several bidding wars for homes priced for more than $900,000. But persistence paid off when the Jbaras drove through Ditmas Park one weekend and saw a "for sale" sign on a house they liked.

This time, the Jbaras offered the winning bid, paying $750,000 for a six-bedroom home on a 50-by-100-foot lot. The couple expects to spend another $200,000 on renovations before moving in. Jbara says he will miss Park Slope's restaurants and schools. After checking out a public school near his new home and seeing average test scores, Jbara said he may send his children to private school instead. His new neighborhood does boast Andries Hudde Junior High School, which offers programs for gifted students, and Midwood High School, which sent 96 percent of the 2003 graduating class to college. And, he believes his family scored a good deal.

A renaissance in the works

"I think this is going to be the next up-and-coming Park Slope," he says. "The neighbors are telling us that younger families, kids who grew up here and left, are returning, or, like us, couldn't afford anything they liked in Park Slope."

New homeowners such as the Jbaras are helping inspire a retail renaissance along the Cortelyou Road shopping strip, setting a course for the Slope-style gentrification they crave. A couple of restaurants and a hip coffee shop have recently opened, and similar retailers are expected to follow suit.

"Cortelyou Road is being revitalized with classier types of stores," says Julie Kestyn, an area resident and a broker at Kestyn Real Estate. "We want it to look more like a little European Village."

Copyright © Newsday, Inc.

Is it worth $4 million?

Catherine Curan
January 14, 2005

"In Boston they ask, 'How much does he know?' In New York, 'How much is he worth?'"

If Mark Twain were making this observation now, he might well add another question often on New Yorkers' lips because of soaring real estate prices: How much is the house worth?

The owner of one Colonial in Victorian Flatbush hopes the answer will be $4 million. Mary Kay Gallagher of Mary Kay Gallagher Real Estate is marketing the 20- room mansion, on a 100-by -130-foot lot on tony Albemarle Road. The house looks like a Southern plantation home, with white two-story Ionic columns in front. Inside are two master bedroom suites, a ballroom and a mahogany-paneled library.

Gallagher sold the house to the current owner eight or nine years ago for $800,000. She recently closed her first sale of more than $1 million, but locals are skeptical of the $4-million price tag for 1305 Albemarle Rd. Whatever the price, like many of the homes in this century-old neighborhood, this one needs some work, including a new roof.

"It's a big house and it's a lot to think about," said Gallagher, adding that the buyer "has to be somebody who can handle it."

Copyright © Newsday, Inc.

alex ballard

January 14th, 2005, 05:53 PM

muscle1313

January 15th, 2005, 01:09 AM

billyblancoNYC

January 15th, 2005, 01:52 AM

Since Victorian flatbush has been found, what do you think the future for East Faltbush and the rest of Central brooklyn (Rugby, Prospect gardens, Wingate, Farrgut, Flatlands, and the area around Brooklyn College) holds in store?

I think it's a matter of time before many of the more suburban areas of NYC become more and more popular. It's good to see. This is why it's important to have a number of different neighborhoods and housing stock...to be all things to all people. I love to see this stuff.

alex ballard

January 15th, 2005, 09:46 AM

Alex, like everything else its going to take time. But all of Brooklyn is coming back strong and in my opinion a good amount of credit should go to BP Marty Markowitz and Bruce Ratner. Marty is Brooklyn's greatest promoter and Ratner has brought Brooklyn development to the front page. Every developer is taking notice. Its an unbelievable period for Brooklyn. In the 80s everybody was leaving. 20 years later everybody is coming back to Brooklyn (if they can afford it).

It can take it's time. But those are areas that really seem isolated from the city and in a way had fallen off the real-estate radar during the days of Urban renewal. It would be amazing to see the area around Holy cross Cem and Brooklyn College really come back strong.

muscle1313

January 15th, 2005, 11:58 AM

Hey Alex, One area I know about is the Flatlands /Georgetown/ Canarsie area. There has been a big buildup of condo development in that area. From Seaview Estates (right on the water) to Bergen Gardens to Scott Village. Very big Caribbean immigration in the area in the last decade and I have read that the Asian community is starting to buy there too now. The houses in Canarsie are really nice, I don't like the small houses in Flatlands but I love the new condo developments. Also right next to Starrett City a huge outdoor shopping center - Gateway is doing a ton of business since it was built. Home Depot, Target, Red Lobster, Olive Garden etc Its got it all. Also read Target is shooting for a site right near Brooklyn College. By the way Midwood near Brooklyn College on Bedford Avenue has homes going for 1-2 million dollars. The houses on Bedford from around Avenue U all the way to Brooklyn College are some of the biggest most luxurious homes in Brooklyn. A large and growing Orthodox Jewish community. Lots of good things happening in Brooklyn.

alex ballard

February 25th, 2005, 08:52 PM

alex ballard

April 3rd, 2005, 06:18 PM

Bump. Any new developments? Are the immigrants settling down anywhere? Where is the new middle-class haven?

BrooklynRider

April 4th, 2005, 09:54 AM

Don't waste our time with useless bumps.

alex ballard

April 4th, 2005, 03:51 PM

Don't waste our time with useless bumps.

You have an attitude becasue you lost on both the Jets and Nets. I'm sorry your so allergic to progress, may I suggest Detroit? You'll love it there, nothing gets done ;).

ryan

April 4th, 2005, 04:38 PM

You have an attitude becasue you lost on both the Jets and Nets. I'm sorry your so allergic to progress, may I suggest Detroit? You'll love it there, nothing gets done ;).

No, really, the bumping is annoying. Post something real to start a conversation - if someone had something to say or post they would.

billyblancoNYC

April 4th, 2005, 05:27 PM

What the hell is a bump?

ryan

April 4th, 2005, 05:29 PM

What the hell is a bump?

Posting "any new info on this?" etc... to raise the thread to the top of the forum, or bring it into "new posts"

NewYorkYankee

April 4th, 2005, 05:32 PM

Bumping is posting useless remarks. It wastes peoples time reading it.

billyblancoNYC

April 5th, 2005, 02:51 AM

Thanks. Logical, but needed to know for sure.

krulltime

May 3rd, 2005, 03:56 PM

Greenpoint, Brooklyn:

April 2005

Waterfront projects may put green in Greenpoint

By Dorn Townsend

On a recent sunny weekend afternoon, a small group of bed-headed twenty-somethings waited for a table outside the Greenpoint Coffee House on Franklin Avenue. New arrivals in what used to be the most overlooked and run-down section of the neighborhood, they pointed out some of the new bars and galleries and said they were comforted by the area's budding chic.

"The hardest thing about living in this neighborhood is getting to Manhattan for work," said Eric Marshall, a 29-year-old graphic artist. "But our remoteness works both ways; it means that it's also hard for people to get here, so maybe this area won't go crazy with development like other parts of Brooklyn."

But had this group heard about the proposed rezoning of the adjacent waterfront?

"I hear they're still fighting that one out in court, so it probably won't start for a few years," said Marshall.

Marshall and his friends are part of a continuing influx of new, young residents who have brought this Polish enclave a smattering of bright ethnic restaurants, bars playing alternative rock, and sharply rising rental costs. Last month, the city planning commission approved a plan to rezone a huge swath of the Williamsburg- Greenpoint waterfront, ushering in a transformative new era of development that will affect the neighborhood's last frontier. The plans have been sent to the City Council for review, the final step in the city's formal, seven-month public review process known as the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. The Council is expected to hold hearings this month.

Plans include a two-mile-long pedestrian esplanade to replace chain-link fences now blocking access to the waterfront. Studded along that landscaped ribbon, 20 condominiums of varying heights will be built. Plans also exist for several playgrounds, retail space at the base of those condos, and water taxi service linking Greenpoint with Midtown.

"The whole landscape of Greenpoint will change," said Tom Le, a Fillmore broker. "This is a very exciting time, and the waterfront development will impact the whole market."

No definitive plans exist, but brokers anticipate that over the next decade between 3,000 and 8,000 new units will be built along the waterfront in Greenpoint. All of this construction will occur in what is now the most desolate pocket of the neighborhood.

Brokers say that the waterfront construction will greatly accelerate developments already changing that no-man's land. In the last two years, several new cafes, bars, galleries, and yoga studios opened along Franklin Avenue, the main artery of that sliver of Greenpoint. Despite the lack of convenient public transit to Manhattan, brokers say that many of their young walk-in clients are looking to rent space in that area.

"The same thing that happened along Bedford 10 years ago is happening along Franklin Avenue right now," said Rosemarie Pawlikowski, a real estate agent for Albero Parkside Realty. "Young people and artists have begun turning those warehouses into loft spaces. That part of Greenpoint is becoming the new Williamsburg."

It is unclear just how much waterfront development will change Greenpoint's real estate market. According to Fillmore, the cost of one- and two-family houses has already risen by 25 percent to 38 percent, depending on whether the home is built with brick or wood.

Rental prices, however, have stabilized. Several years ago the average monthly cost of a one-bedroom apartment was about $1,400, but these days, brokers agree similar apartments are going for $1,200.

"Greenpoint is a very stable neighborhood and the biggest problem has always been the lack of transit directly to Manhattan," said Le. "But what's about to happen to this neighborhood is going to change the whole landscape."

Copyright © 2003-2005 The Real Deal.

krulltime

May 3rd, 2005, 04:20 PM

Prospect Park South , Brooklyn:

Near Prospect Park, a Touch of Greenwich

By CLAIRE WILSON
Published: May 1, 2005

WHAT do you get when you sell a three-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot Brooklyn Heights co-op for $1 million and buy a seven-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot house 10 minutes away in Prospect Park South for $1.025 million?

According to Felicia Kang, who, with her husband, Tom Rosenthal, just made that move, you get a terrific bargain with lots more room - and a serious furniture deficit that has only one short-term solution.

"We just let the kids ride their bikes and scooters around and around," said Ms. Kang, who has three children, Emma, 5, George, 3, and 7-week-old Julia, born right around moving day. "We don't have to worry about them knocking into the piano."

There's also plenty of green space for children outside the family's landmarked Dutch colonial house, which sits with other stately homes along a landscaped median in Prospect Park South, one of Brooklyn's prettiest neighborhoods. Just steps from the 526-acre Prospect Park and served at two stops by the Q and B subway lines, Church Avenue and Beverley Road, the neighborhood is part of what is known as Victorian Flatbush.

But that term doesn't do justice to the mixed bag of grand, sprawling, early 20th century architectural gems that range from Colonial Revival, Tudor, Italian Villa, Queen Anne, Arts and Crafts and Greek Revival to a whimsical Japanese-inspired house complete with pagoda-style curlicues along the roofline.

"It is like living under a Christmas tree, this village of neatly arranged houses under a green canopy with a mall going down the center," said Roslyn Huebener, who is a principal in Aguayo & Huebener, a Brooklyn real estate company, and the former owner of the house bought by Ms. Kang and Mr. Rosenthal. "It's hard to believe you are in the city."

The sense of a "Country in the City" was what the developer Dean Alvord set out to create when he purchased 40 acres from the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church in 1892. The streets were given British names, and houses went up on minimum lots of 50 by 100 feet, set back 30 feet from the curb. Early residents included chief executives of Gillette, Sperry Gyroscope and McAllister Brothers, the tugboat fleet.

Two of the streets, Buckingham Road and Albemarle Road, have medians. Lots along them are slightly larger than those of their neighbors; one house, with 21 rooms and a ballroom, is on the market for $4 million. But even with smaller yards and no median, houses on the other dozen or so blocks within this 0.08-square-mile garden spot are no less desirable. Price tags of $1 million have become the norm since breaking that seven-figure barrier in December and prices in what has long been considered a seriously undervalued area are going up at a faster rate than they ever did, according to Nicole Shaw, an associate broker with the Corcoran Group.

"Prices have gone up between 10 percent and 20 percent since January, but it is still a good value," said Ms. Shaw.

Reginald Middleton, an Argyle Road resident, calls his neighborhood the Gold Coast of Victorian Flatbush. He estimates the value of his 6,070-square-foot house, which includes a screening room and koi pond, at $2 million in the current market, up from the $780,000 he paid for it in 2002. But he says that at $380 a square foot, Prospect Park South is a bargain compared with $580 a square foot in downtown Brooklyn neighborhoods and $1,100 a square foot in Manhattan's Chelsea.

"We also have amenities that are unheard of in Brooklyn Heights and we're eight minutes away: large yards, private security and a community feel, and we also now have restaurants and a dry cleaner that delivers," said Mr. Middleton, a real estate investor with two sons. "Weigh everything, and net-net the property is undervalued."

Mary Kay Gallagher, a broker in the area for 35 years, draws another important distinction between Prospect Park South and gentrified row-house Brooklyn. "We have driveways and parking - parking is key," said Mrs. Gallagher, who has lived in the same house on Marlborough Road for almost four decades. "Park Slope has no driveways and no garages, and you have to negotiate to get a parking space."

The one co-op in the area, a red brick 28-unit prewar building at 1409 Albemarle Road, is 95 percent owner-occupied and units seldom come on the market, according to Hal Lehrman, principal broker for Brooklyn Properties.

"We sold a 900-square-foot two-bedroom, one-bath unit in 2002 for $127,000 and I would expect to sell that now for over $300,000," he said. "The views are spectacular."

There is only one rental building, and available apartments are rare. The going rate is $1,100 a month for a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment, according to Mrs. Gallagher.

There are 1,500 residents in Prospect Park South, and the median household income is $57,823. It is 35 minutes by subway from Midtown Manhattan. The community as a whole is often loosely referred to as "Ditmas," for the better-known nearby districts of Ditmas Park and Ditmas Park West, two of 10 adjoining enclaves within Victorian Flatbush, each with its own civic association.

Prospect Park South homeowners pay $500 a year for security guards although the crime rate is among the lowest in the 70th Precinct, according to Nathan Thompson, security chair for the Prospect Park South Association. "Most of our issues are on the fringes - around the subway stations," Mr. Thompson said. "We've had a great year, but the reality is you are still in New York."

Like the Kang-Rosenthal clan, most new residents come from other parts of Brooklyn and they are primarily young families drawn by an enthusiastically child-friendly atmosphere. Bruce Williams, a vice president with J. P. Morgan, and his wife, Bridget, owner of Hot Toddie Children's Clothier, a store selling children's clothes, toys and accessories in Fort Greene, moved from Clinton Hill and still can't believe the welcome for their two children, Jett, 4, and Lola, 2. "We hadn't even moved in yet and they were calling to invite us to the Halloween March," said Ms. Williams, who moved in December into a nine-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath Victorian house for which the couple paid $975,000. "The families with children are amazing in the way they reach out."

Ms. Williams also has high praise for the large number of ethnic groups living in the Flatbush community at large. "Stand on the Q train platform and you see everybody from every walk of life, every complexion and every religion," she said. "It's wonderful - you feel like you live in New York."

This year's Victorian Flatbush House Tour on June 12 will be held in tandem with a daylong arts and crafts fair. But children's activities dominate the local calendar, from play dates to pick-up games of volleyball or basketball organized in the Parade Ground a block away by Flatbush Athletics volunteers. There are children's events every Wednesday at Vox Pop, the new neighborhood bookstore/cafe, and an association called the Flatbush Family Network keeps everyone informed.

Schools in the area include Public School 139 on Rugby Road, with prekindergarten through grade 5. Of fourth grade students there, 65.4 percent scored at or above grade level in English while 74.7 percent scored at or above grade level in math. At Public School 217 on Newkirk Avenue, also with prekindergarten through grade 5, 60.7 percent of fourth graders scored at or above grade level in English and 75.6 percent performed at or above grade level in math.

Two middle schools serve the area. At Junior High School 62, the Ditmas School on Cortelyou Road, 21.4 percent of eighth grade students scored at or above grade level in English and 34.7 percent performed at or above grade level in math. At Intermediate School 240, the Andries Hudde School on Nostrand Avenue, 59.9 percent of eighth graders scored at or above grade level in English and 71.1 percent in math.

Most local students go on to Midwood High School on Bedford Avenue. Of students there taking the 2004 SAT reasoning test, the average score was 514 on the verbal test, compared with 444 statewide, and 544 on the math, compared with 472 statewide.

Church Avenue pulses with commercial activity, but the shopping street of choice for most is Cortelyou Road a block away. There is an Associated Supermarket, the Flatbush Food Co-op and a seasonal Greenmarket, which will have 12 to 15 vendors beginning in early June.

Cortelyou Road is getting spruced up with new street lamps and benches, and new businesses moving in might suggest an invitation for the hipster crowd to have second thoughts about Williamsburg. Sander Hicks and his wife, Holly Anderson, own Vox Pop (Motto: "Books, Coffee, Democracy"). There are lines to get a table at Picket Fence, owned by Graham Meyerson, who cooked at the Union Square Cafe.

Interested hipsters may have to wait for space in the neighborhood, just as they wait for tables at Picket Fence. "Nobody is moving," Mrs. Gallagher said. "Why would they?"

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

ryan

May 13th, 2005, 02:51 PM

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13 May 2005 | HOW TO (http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/how_to/index.php)
The Non-Expert: Gentrify! Gentrify!

Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week Andrew Womack shows how you can fight New York’s soaring real-estate costs when you invade an unfamiliar neighborhood. Making friends will never be so hard.

Have a question? Need some advice? Ignored by everyone else? Send your questions via email. The Non-Expert’s Desk handles all subjects and is updated every Friday, and is written by a member of The Morning News staff.

Question: Hi! I’m thinking about moving to New York but every time I look at rent prices I’m just blown away by how expensive everything is. I know there are parts of Brooklyn that are good to move to, but even those seem pretty pricey. Any suggestions on new places to live in New York?—Jill A.

Answer: Since 1621, when Dutch traders purchased Manhattan from Native Americans (and ever since which time many agree that it’s “really lost its edge”), patches of land in New York have been in a constant state of gentrification—of being rediscovered, remodeled, and resold as acceptable areas in which to live. In fact, only 30 years ago Soho was uncharted territory, the domain of artists and their drug dealers, and Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke could regularly be spotted having sex in a stairwell. Look at it now! These days, you can’t even afford that stairwell. So to move here on the cheap, you have to find someplace new to people like you but old to people like them, someplace that nobody at New York magazine knows anything about yet. Someplace you can gentrify on your own.

It’s true there are still such parts of New York, parts even real-estate brokers can’t with a straight face qualify as “up-and-coming neighborhoods.” And those areas are exactly the outskirts, the hinterlands, the ridiculously cheap-rent neighborhoods you’re looking for! You want to find a place that makes you, upon emerging from the subway and coming face to face with the locals, recoil in fear. But no worries! You are a pioneer, and everybody loves a pioneer, and you have health insurance.

Here’s how you do it.

Find a Neighborhood

First familiarize yourself with all of New York’s many wondrous neighborhoods. Now immediately scratch those off your list. Accept now that you won’t be living in a desirable area—that is, until you’re done gentrifying it! Also, knowing where the sought-after areas are located will make you privy to the ways New York real-estate brokers redraw neighborhood borders to spiff up their housing ads. For example, according to brokers right now “Williamsburg” reaches all the way north to Long Island City, everything is “ONLY 15 MINS TO MANHATTAN,” and Brooklyn’s “South Park Slope” is in fact the northern tip of Staten Island.

No, brokerages and housing ads won’t find you into the place you’re looking for, because the only places worth advertising are already well-gentrified or close enough. Thus, you’re going to have to go a step further—or rather, a stop further. Take a train, any train, to any desirable area, stay on for four more stops, get out there, and perform the following litmus test.

Do you see anyone between the ages of 18 and 34 with speckles of paint on their clothing?

No?

Do you see any bars, restaurants, or stores that look worth going into?

No?

Was that a tumbleweed that just blew by?

Welcome home.

Rent an Apartment

The best way to find somewhere to live in an ungentrified area is through word of mouth. Since you don’t speak the native language around here (Is it Dutch? Can’t tell), you’ll have to do the next best thing—look for rental signs taped up in windows. Lucky for you, every landlord the world around uses those pre-printed “ROOM FOR RENT” signs you can pick up at the hardware store, so just keep walking up and down the blocks until you spot one. Then knock on the door and play it by ear.

Landlord: [says something in Dutch]

You: Hi! I’m here about the apartment?

Landlord: [looks you over, says something else]

You: Is now a good time?

Landlord: [silent, steps back, folds arms across chest]

You: How does five hundred dollars a month sound?

Landlord: [lets you in, leads you up to your new apartment]

Blend in With the Locals

You may have bought your way into the area, but you won’t be able to buy your way into their hearts. In fact, being a New York gentrifier is a lot like being a nerd in middle school: Everybody around you thinks you’re dressed funny, you can’t even pay people to be your friends (you’ve tried), and you get beat up every time you walk home from the subway.

Thankfully, the area’s homeless aren’t as discriminating. Besides, the locals know to steer clear of them—so by befriending a bum, you get a bodyguard at the same time. But don’t offer your friendship through the expected ply of free alcohol and cigarettes. No, get a bum to be your roommate. But claim the top bunk now, and I cannot stress how important this is.

Then it’ll be just like the movie My Bodyguard, with the bum being the big, tough guy who protects you, and you being the other guy. Lucas or something. Rodney maybe.

Buy Property

Once you’re ready to plant permanent stakes, it’s time to say goodbye to your landlord and your roommate (leave no forwarding address to either, by the way) and consider purchasing your very own home. By now you will have learned your way around enough to know where those guys who stole your iPod usually hang out, so it’s best to not shop in that part of town.

While looking into residential dwellings may sound sweet to your domestic side, keep in mind that you’re not just here for the cheap housing—you’re here for the spoils. Look for empty warehouses and shut-down factories, the kinds of places you’ll eventually build into lofts that you’ll sell in 2025 for a billion dollars a pop to Busta Rhymes’s children.

Keep in mind, though, that there are some types of buildings that are especially well-suited to your dreams of a future—and marketable—loft empire that will attract young financial workers. Such buildings include:

—burned-out plastics factory

—abandoned experimental psych ward

—anything haunted or said to be haunted

—Men’s Wearhouse

Start a Real-Estate Craze

Now that you’re living rich, or at least not rich—yet—but you’re living cheap with lots of floor space, remember this: The neighborhood needs some high-profile attention or it’ll never become the kind of place other people would pay, beg, or provide their parents’ tax returns to live in. So take a grassroots approach, and tell everyone how great your new neighborhood is…whatever it’s called. Helpful tip: If the neighborhood’s old name has an unfortunate history or reputation to, simply add “Heights” or “Hill” to its original name.

Before you know it, your friends will move into the buildings around you, art galleries will open their doors, finally a decent place to get cilantro will show up around the corner, and people will be absolutely flooding over from Manhattan—which you can tell everyone is only 15 minutes away.

http://www.themorningnews.org/images/article_portrait_andrew.gif (http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/andrew_womack/)

Andrew Womack (http://www.andrewwomack.net/) is a co-publisher of The Morning News, and lives in Brooklyn. Click here to read his other stories on TMN (http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/andrew_womack/).

jennifer

July 7th, 2005, 05:15 PM

This whole thread makes me want to vomit. "HOW TO GENTRIFY?" WTF. Now I know why my neighborhood is going down the tubes. Thanks!

Schadenfrau

July 7th, 2005, 05:46 PM

Welcome to the boards! I have a feeling that you and I are going to get along just fine, Jennifer.

jennifer

July 7th, 2005, 06:10 PM

Err... are you messing with me? (I do fully expect that with what I posted).

I just hate seeing my neighborhood become a yuppie hellhole... it's rather depressing. And hoping I don't get kicked out to make room for a trustfunder who gets everything from Mommy and Daddy...

billyblancoNYC

July 7th, 2005, 06:33 PM

Indeed, crack viles and boarded up windows rule...

ryan

July 7th, 2005, 06:39 PM

Err... are you messing with me? (I do fully expect that with what I posted).

the morning news "how to" is a joke, but Schadenfrau's not. You'll find more posters that think gentrification is good than not on the board, but you're not alone.

Schadenfrau

July 7th, 2005, 06:48 PM

Thanks for clarifying, Ryan.

ryan

July 7th, 2005, 07:01 PM

Thanks for clarifying, Ryan.

not that you need it...

Schadenfrau

July 7th, 2005, 07:04 PM

I'll throw a blanket compliment right back at you.

jennifer

July 7th, 2005, 07:55 PM

Indeed, crack viles and boarded up windows rule...

See that's more along the lines of what I'd *expect* to hear... and of course obnoxiously WRONG.

I would, however, rather see crack vials than another wannabe Park Slope neighborhood with NO flavor.

Thanks to those who didn't judge my comment - I appreciate it.

BrooklynRider

July 8th, 2005, 01:56 AM

See that's more along the lines of what I'd *expect* to hear... and of course obnoxiously WRONG.

I would, however, rather see crack vials than another wannabe Park Slope neighborhood with NO flavor.

Thanks to those who didn't judge my comment - I appreciate it.

Park Slope checking in here, Jennifer. Why is it that Shadenfrau and I agree on so many issues and you have to pick on my neighborhood from the get go?

The Slope is no "Yuppie Hellhole" and if you'd read up on it you might find that in THIS neighborhood residents actually took action to maintain the socio-economic mix - including but not limited to passing new zoning rules along 4th Ave, creating and supporting a residential zone where long-time lower income residents would be protected from "gentrification" displacement, the creation of the Fifth Avenue Committee (one of the earliest proponents of inclusionary housing and inclusionary housing credits).

Park Slope is rated as the THE most liberal neighborhood in the city and is often called the Berkeley of the East. The neighnorhood voted 98% Democrat and or Working Families Parties in 2004 election with the other 2% going to Green Party and Socialist Candidates. We have managed to block nearly every major sweat labor retailer from our business district and Starbucks fought its way in with only ONE location about three years ago. We have two chain stores: Barnes & Noble and Rite Aid. That is it. We support Mom & Pop operations. This neighborhood has evolved slowly. I'm here for 8 years now and it is still evolving. Fifth Avenue has only tranformed in the last four years or so.

So, don't make me come up there and spank you Jennifer.

billyblancoNYC

July 8th, 2005, 12:15 PM

Schadenfrau

July 8th, 2005, 12:19 PM

ryan

July 8th, 2005, 01:57 PM

Contrary to my personal political beliefs, I think I fall somewhere in the middle when it comes to gentrification. The issue seems to have been polarized through overstated "fightin words" like much of our political discourse into an over-simplified issues. Starbucks vs. Crack House. Cities (and neighborhoods) are (and have always been) constantly evolving entities so a complete resistance to change seems a bit self-serving to me (as in, I don't want my neighborhood to change because I don't want my rent to increase). Beating the mindless drum of development at any cost seems no more appealing and is probably even more self-serving (profit, profit, profit).

It's a distraction from talking about what smart development could be in this city, which I think involves more questions than pat answers. How can we promote small, nyc-based businesses and provide mixed income housing? How can the poorest neighborhoods be improved without forcing out long-term populations? How can ethnic neighborhoods be preserved?

BrooklynRider

July 8th, 2005, 02:10 PM

If the Bronx follows the pattern similar to Brooklyn, you will see more local developers jumping into the mix - rather than the big Manhattan developers. It does make for a more natural feel to the evolution. Also, if there is such truly overwhelming concern for what might become of the area, attend community board meetings. But there a drug infested area can only benefit from improvement and socio-economic strata can be accommodated if they are willing to engage in the process rather than simply (1) giving up or (2) remaining silent.

billyblancoNYC

July 8th, 2005, 03:47 PM

A lack of gentrification doesn't necessarily mean "crime and decay", BillyBlanco. There is a balance between a Starbucks and a crack house.

Also, did someone invent a time tunnel back to 1987? That's probably the last time boarded-up crack houses were a pressing issue for the city.

Well, that is not 100% true. In fact, I'm sure there are still some areas that have some boarded up buildings today. They may not be a "pressing" issue, but it's not gone.

As far as crime and decay, show me a low income area, with only low income residents, that is very well maintained and low in crime. If you can, that would be great and I would stand corrected, to a point.

I'm not saying Starbucks is great. I personally hate Starbucks and chains, etc, and don't think there should be a sushi joint on each block, but people in this city love to romanticize the bad old days...like in Times Square for example. Well, the 70's and 80's and early 90s weren't all that great in a lot of ways.

Schadenfrau

July 8th, 2005, 04:23 PM

Port Morris has less crime than Williamsburg and is located in what's famously the poorest congressional district in the United States.

I think you're confusing the outward trappings of prosperity with actual progress.

czsz

July 8th, 2005, 04:42 PM

We have two chain stores: Barnes & Noble and Rite Aid. That is it.

There's no Duane Reade in Park Slope!?!?!? Unbelievable.

sfenn1117

July 8th, 2005, 04:45 PM

There's no Duane Reade in Park Slope!?!?!? Unbelievable.

Duane Reade JUST moved into Bay Ridge. There used to be an A&P there so we lost our grocery store which really sucks. But we already had RiteAid and Eckerd. Most of the neighborhood goes to Lowens, a family owned pharmacy that's been here a long time. And I like that.

There's a rite aid on 69th st and 4th ave, and 64th street and 4th ave. WHY???

ASchwarz

July 8th, 2005, 06:58 PM

There's no Duane Reade in Park Slope!?!?!? Unbelievable.

The claim that Park Slope is "Chain-Free" is ridiculous.

There's a Duane Reade right on Flatbush near Seventh Avenue. There's another chain drug store (CVS?) on Seventh Avenue near Methodist Hospital and a third (Rite Aid?) on Fifth Avenue and Ninth Streets. Other Park Slope chains are Citibank, Chase, Staples, NY Sports Club, Whole Foods (coming soon), Dunkin Donuts, Haagen Dazs, McDonalds (2 of them), etc.

BrooklynRider

July 11th, 2005, 11:55 AM

The claim that Park Slope is "Chain-Free" is ridiculous.

There's a Duane Reade right on Flatbush near Seventh Avenue. There's another chain drug store (CVS?) on Seventh Avenue near Methodist Hospital and a third (Rite Aid?) on Fifth Avenue and Ninth Streets. Other Park Slope chains are Citibank, Chase, Staples, NY Sports Club, Whole Foods (coming soon), Dunkin Donuts, Haagen Dazs, McDonalds (2 of them), etc.

Thank you for clarifying that. Yes, there is a Duane Read on FLATBUSH Avenue not in the middle of Park Slope. The Staples and McDonalds are on FOURTH AVE - an area full of car washes and auto shops - again an area not associated with "Park Slope" living. Whole Foods is actually being built in Gowanus - not Park Slope and I don't consider banks "chain stores".

And while this consistent pattern of simply being contrary has become transparent, let's acknowlegde those three BIGGIES you added to the list: Haagen Daaz, Dunkin Donuts and NYC Sports Club. Oh, yes, we are inundated with chain stores <shudder>.

Other Park Slope residents will understand where I'm coming from. We've been forunate to maintain a largely mom and pop shopping district on the two main commercial arteries: Seventh Ave and Sixth Ave.

Post Note: This is a response to yet another post by ASchwarz which he prefaces with the snide remark of "ridiculous". Keep an eye out for this grating, yet amusing tendency.

brianac

June 21st, 2008, 07:37 AM

Streetscapes | Albemarle Road

Brooklyn’s Stately Esplanade

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/22/realestate/22scap-600.jpg Office for Metropolitan History
NO FENCES Albemarle Road in 1909, 10 years after the sale of lots started for “people of intelligence.” More Photos > (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/06/22/realestate/0622-SCAP_index.html)

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=CHRISTOPHER GRAY&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=CHRISTOPHER GRAY&inline=nyt-per)
Published: June 22, 2008

GRANDEST of all the streets in Prospect Park South is Albemarle Road, a broad, esplanaded boulevard of stately neo-Classical, Queen Anne and Colonial style mansions. In fact, for the three blocks from Argyle to Buckingham Roads, Albemarle is one of the grandest residential streets in the whole city, even with some dings and dents.

Multimedia

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/22/realestate/0622-SCAP-B.JPGSlide Show (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/06/22/realestate/0622-SCAP_index.html)Boulevard Beautiful (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/06/22/realestate/0622-SCAP_index.html)

The visionary of the development was Dean Alvord. He came to Brooklyn (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/newyorkcity/brooklyn/?inline=nyt-geo) from Rochester in 1892, and in the late 1890s bought a large tract south of Prospect Park, laying out streets for what would become his Prospect Park South development, about 10 blocks. He began selling lots in 1899.
His goal was to create a suburb for “people of intelligence and good breeding,” according to his original prospectus, as quoted in the 1975 “History of Prospect Park South,” by Margery Nathanson, Gloria Fischer and Mary Kay Gallagher.

By carefully controlling the design of the houses and the arrangement of the streets, Mr. Alvord sought an environment “where a wife and children, in going to and fro, are not subjected to the annoyance of contact with the undesirable elements of society.”

Mr. Alvord created Albemarle Road as his main boulevard, with a planted strip down the middle and a dozen imposing houses east of Argyle Road, most built from 1899 to 1910. They created a most unusual place and were made grander by his main requirement — that no fences, hedges or plantings extend beyond the house lines, so the front yards combine into a unified majestic sweep.

The most unusual of these dwellings is the one built in 1905 for George E. Gale at 1305 Albemarle, at the northeast corner of Argyle Road, in white clapboard with a colossal two-story Ionic portico. Designed by an architect known only as H. B. Moore, the Gale house has a striking assortment of windows, among them roof dormers with a kind of webbed sash, topped by ebullient broken pediments. On the second floor, there are spider-web-type windows with Gothic-style sashes, and on the rear are leaded glass windows.

Mr. Moore ran copper cresting in the form of anthemion leaves around the top of a bay window on the side of the house, and he put low, curved eyebrow dormers on either side of the third-floor gable. The Gale house is worth a special trip.

Directly across the street in 1905, Mr. Alvord’s regular architect, John J. Petit, did a picturesque house with a corner turret for John S. Eakins, a dye manufacturer. It is less inventive but more expansive than its neighbor, surrounded by a porch the size of a small two-bedroom apartment. The outside has aluminum siding installed by the previous owners just before landmark designation came in 1979. “None of us could persuade them not to,” said Ms. Gallagher, a real estate broker and longtime Prospect Park South stalwart.

But the inside has a straight 50-foot run through the dining, music and sitting rooms — with the woodwork changing in each room from quartered oak to mahogany to painted. The dining room has the original inset tapestry panels, with cabinetwork fitted to the oval plan. Susan Cleary has owned the house for 13 years and moved there from Brooklyn Heights because “it seemed like Westchester (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/westchester/?inline=nyt-geo).” Now her three children are almost out of the house, but “we’ve still got eight bedrooms,” she said.

Mrs. Cleary has the property on the market for $2.35 million; there are interior photographs of the house posted at Ms. Gallagher’s Web site,
marykayg.com/html/0499.html (http://marykayg.com/html/0499.html).

As for the Colonial revival at 1440 Albemarle, at Marlborough Road, the owner, Mary Ballestros, says her family bought it in 1957. It has a huge temple front, along with Doric columns and unusual carving.

But it also has a layer of asphalt siding in gray, green and tan. Configured to look like random stones, the siding will offend the architectural purist, but there is a very human, vernacular charm to this addition. When Ms. Ballestros’s parents bought the house, the exterior had deteriorated and was leaking air; the asphalt siding, at a nominal cost, cured these problems very nicely. Now, she says, the asphalt is beginning to fail, and of course matching material is no longer available.

Ms. Ballestros says she has thought about restoring the original siding, but the cost would be great. Perhaps the asphalt will remain, a mote in the eye of current preservation sensibility.

The street ends with 1510 Albemarle, built in 1900 for Mr. Alvord, again by Mr. Petit, and later owned by Capt. James P. McAllister of the McAllister Brothers tugboat firm. Here Mr. Petit produced a chaste white box with a simple, impressive temple front. Its owner, Albert H. Garner, an investment banker who works in Midtown, said he was attracted to it a decade ago because “I grew up in Tennessee, and there’s no other place in New York so much like home.”

Things are far from perfect on Albemarle Road. The gem of the street, the Gale house, sorely needs paint, and several houses even in the best stretch are battered and decayed. But it is still an imposing streetscape, unlike any other you are likely to see in New York.

E-mail: streetscapes@nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/realestate/22scap.html?ref=realestate

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brianac

August 9th, 2008, 07:14 AM

Living In | Gravesend, Brooklyn

A Neighborhood Both Insular and Diverse

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/10/realestate/10livi.xlarge1.jpg Kate Glicksberg for The New York Times
WIDE RANGE Homes in the Sephardic area of Gravesend tend to be the largest, with elaborate hedges and porches. Outside of this zone, demand for homes is less intense and the neighborhood’s quiet hominess is more affordable. More Photos > (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/08/10/realestate/20080810LIVINGIN_index.html)

By JAKE MOONEY (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/jake_mooney/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: August 8, 2008

ITSIK ZEITOUNI, a young man with big ambitions, was living in the Homecrest section of southern Brooklyn (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/newyorkcity/brooklyn/?inline=nyt-geo) early last year, but his thoughts were elsewhere — just a little to the west, in fact, in the adjacent neighborhood of Gravesend. There, the Sephardic Jewish population was in the midst of a population boom that was ratcheting up prices for houses — and empty lots.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/10/realestate/20080810LIVINGIN-B.JPGSlide Show (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/08/10/realestate/20080810LIVINGIN_index.html)Living in Gravesend, Brooklyn (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/08/10/realestate/20080810LIVINGIN_index.html)

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Mr. Zeitouni, who just turned 30, is a Sephardic Jew and a real estate agent, and the growth was something he wanted a piece of. He even had a place in mind: a two-family house on East Second Street, its owner a “very nice Italian man” who was ready to move to Florida (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/florida/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) and spend his time fishing. The only obstacle was the price: a hefty $800,000, which reflected the same upward market forces that Mr. Zeitouni sought to capitalize on.

Enter an aunt, Frida Tarrab. Persuaded by her nephew’s predictions for the neighborhood, she dug into her savings and helped him buy the house. Mr. Zeitouni, who now lives there, has told Ms. Tarrab, who now lives in Israel, that one day she will thank him for the investment advice.

His confidence, he said recently, is based in part on the values of his religious community: People are willing to pay more to live near their relatives — children typically remain with their parents until they are married — and within walking distance of a synagogue. Such is the importance of community and location, he wrote in an e-mail message, that “Sephardic Jews would rather pay a million dollars for a 2,000-square-foot lot in Gravesend than pay $500,000 for a 4,000-square-foot lot elsewhere.”

The story of the Sephardic community, made up largely of people from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, is a familiar one in the history of Gravesend, an area more than a mile and a half square that is one of the oldest settlements in Brooklyn.

Howard Feuer, district manager of Community Board 11, which represents part of the area, says it has always been a place for middle-class immigrants to settle. In the past, most were Italians, and they still have a strong presence in the neighborhood. In recent years, according to Mr. Feuer, there have been growing populations of Chinese, Mexicans and especially Russians. The overall population is about 67,000, according to 2000 census figures.

The cycle continues, he said: “People move out, different people move in, and the housing stock is still pretty good.”

Joe DiFiore, an associate broker at Century 21 Calabrese who grew up in the area, takes a similar view. Only the nationalities have changed, he said. “We grew up, Jewish kids playing with Italian kids and Irish kids,” he recalled (revealing that “Crazy Eddie” Antar, a Syrian-American electronics merchant known for his series of frenetic television commercials, was once a tenant in his mother’s downstairs apartment). The neighborhood nowadays, Mr. DiFiore added, is a “minestrone soup” — a jumbled-up mix of ingredients that somehow fit together.

The insularity of the Sephardim, and the size of some of the houses they have built on the sites of more modest teardowns, have raised eyebrows elsewhere in the neighborhood. But outside the predominantly Sephardic area, in sections where demand is less intense, Gravesend’s quiet hominess is much more moderately priced.

“The beauty is that you can afford to get in at $600,000, and you also have beautiful mansion-type homes that go for $5 million or more,” said Vera Capozucca, a broker at Fillmore.com (http://fillmore.com/). “That’s how diverse this community is.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

The Sephardic area, with the largest houses and most elaborate hedges and porches, is centered on two thoroughfares: Avenue T and Ocean Parkway. The latter, lined with trees and benches, is a popular place for an evening stroll.

To the west, the area north of the main commercial district on Avenue U has row upon row of one- and two-family houses, many of them brick, with covered porches. There are also six- and seven-story brick co-op and condominium buildings, most generally closer to the southern avenues and Ocean Parkway.

Just north of the Coney Island subway train yard, the historic Old Gravesend Cemetery, on Village Road South by Van Sicklen Street, dates back to the 1600s, when the settlement was the only one in Kings County to be English rather than Dutch.

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

Prices east of McDonald Avenue and north of Avenue U can be unpredictable, Mr. DiFiore said, because of the strong demand among the Sephardim. He recently sold a small house on the east side of the neighborhood, between Avenues U and T, for $1.4 million, he said.
Outside of that area, the average one-family house might cost $500,000 to $700,000, a two-family $650,000 to $850,000.

According to Delton Cheng, Mr. Zeitouni’s boss at Century 21 Homefront, lots 40 or 50 feet wide are the most highly prized in the neighborhood, whether they have houses on them or not. Often, he said, people will buy only to “knock down a house to build a minimansion.”

Single-family houses on relatively rare large lots, being in greater demand, have sold recently for as much as $5.075 million, Mr. Cheng said.

Multifamilies are more common and not as sought-after; at the time of one recent search, he added, 55 two- and three-family houses were on the market, 12 with asking prices over $1 million. “Not too many people are paying right now, $2 million in this market,” Mr. Cheng said.

In the co-op buildings, he added, one-bedrooms are usually about $200,000, two-bedrooms $300,000. The neighborhood, he said, is one of the more expensive in southern Brooklyn.

Rentals are not as common. One-bedrooms typically rent for $1,000 to $1,200 a month (though there are units on the market for as low as $900). Two-bedrooms range from $1,400 to $2,000 or more, for a unit in a new building.

WHAT TO DO

Gravesend is a short bus or train ride from the beach at Coney Island. It has several small parks with handball courts and paved baseball diamonds; McDonald Park, on McDonald Avenue near Avenue T, has three tennis courts.

Avenue U has several Italian specialty stores, including the Bari Pork Store, which describes itself as “King of the Sausage,” and Joe’s of Avenue U, featuring Sicilian foods.

THE SCHOOLS

There are five public elementary schools, among them Public School 95 on Van Sicklen Street, which teaches kindergarten through eighth grade. Of fourth graders tested last year, 56 percent scored at or above grade level in English, 75.6 percent in math.

The area has three public middle schools. At Intermediate School 228, which scored a D on its most recent city report card, 55 percent of eighth graders met standards in English, 63.6 in math. At Intermediate School 303, which received an A on the report card, the scores were 60.3 in English and 76.2 in math. Intermediate School 281 got a B from the city; its proficiency scores were 54.1 percent in English and 69.7 percent in math.

At John Dewey High School on Avenue X, which also got a B rating, SAT averages in 2007 were 432 in reading, 482 in math and 426 in writing, versus 441, 462 and 433 citywide.

Among a variety of religious schools in the area are Our Lady of Grace School, on Avenue W, which teaches nursery school through eighth grade, and the Magen David Yeshivah, which includes Isaac Shalom Elementary School on McDonald Avenue and Celia Esses High School on Bay Parkway.

THE COMMUTE

For a neighborhood relatively distant from Manhattan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/newyorkcity/manhattan/?inline=nyt-geo), Gravesend has good public transportation options. The elevated F train bisects the area along McDonald Avenue; to the west are the N and D trains, both of which run express through much of Brooklyn on the way to Gravesend. Subway commuting time to Midtown is an hour or more.

The Belt Parkway runs along the southern edge of the neighborhood.

THE HISTORY

The town of Gravesend was founded in 1645 by Lady Deborah Moody, a religious dissenter who designed a street system still in place today near the center of the neighborhood. Brooklyn annexed the community in 1894.

According to the Encyclopedia of New York City (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/newyorkcity/manhattan/?inline=nyt-geo), the area was mostly farmland until the 1870s, when three race tracks and the Coney Island resort opened nearby. Around the same time, Ocean Parkway, a thoroughfare designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/frederick_law_olmsted/index.html?inline=nyt-per), was built along the neighborhood’s eastern edge.

Electric rail service arrived at the end of the 19th century, bringing residential development.

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brianac

October 5th, 2008, 03:39 PM

Brooklyn’s Home to the Gentry and the Not-So

By JOHN STRAUSBAUGH
Published: October 2, 2008

WITH its sedate, leafy streets, fine old homes and churches, lush gardens and lofty harbor views, Brooklyn Heights feels like a staid patrician neighborhood where time has stood still since the 1800s. But more has gone on there than its quiet streets and house-proud gentry let on. “The myth of the white-gloved ladies is that this was always a genteel neighborhood,” Jim Schmitt, an avid student of local history who has lived in Brooklyn Heights since 1976, said as we walked around there recently. “Absolutely not.”

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/03/arts/03explor.large4.jpgRuby Washington/The New York Times
Stone work on the exterior of the Brooklyn Historical Society.

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http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/03/arts/03explor.large2x.jpgRuby Washington/The New York Times
Truman Capote lived in the basement of 70 Willow Street, above. Arthur Miller also lived on Willow for a time.

The Heights, roughly from the Brooklyn Bridge down to Atlantic Avenue and from the riverfront over to Cadman Plaza West and Court Street, has been home to immigrant and itinerant workers, hookers and muggers, artists and eccentrics, a prominent Communist, a comic-book superhero and a famous burlesque queen.

Now, it’s a few minutes from Manhattan by subway, or a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, or by water taxi to Fulton Ferry Landing.

Brooklyn Heights was farmland before Robert Fulton’s regular steam ferry service at that landing made commuting to Manhattan easy in 1814. Soon after, enterprising Heights property owners (remembered today in street names like Pierrepont, Remsen, Hicks and Middagh) began to sell off plots for new homes, advertising the area to Manhattan’s wealthy as “the nearest country retreat.” The oldest houses still standing date from the 1820s, including 24 and 56 Middagh Street and 25 Cranberry Street. Over the following decades well-to-do businessmen and professionals lined the grid of new streets with homes and mansions of brick and stone in all the popular 19th-century styles.

The opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, and the advent of subway service in the 1900s, ended the neighborhood’s gilded age of exclusivity. With the docks below it and the Navy Yard to the north, a lot of streets, especially in the north Heights, were given over to rooming houses, storefronts, machine shops and factories. An El rumbled over Fulton Street (now Cadman Plaza West), where trolleys also ran past rows of tenements. Waves of working-class immigrants poured in, with a healthy sprinkling of bohemians.

Many of the old patrician families fled. Their large homes were subdivided into apartments, boarding houses or pocket hotels. The magnificent Herman Behr mansion at 82 Pierrepont Street, for example, has been the Palm Hotel, a bordello and housing for Franciscan monks. Bars and rowdy taverns crowded the streets, prowled by sailors and ruffians from down by the water.

Mr. Schmitt, the superintendent for several buildings in the Heights, has lived at 58 Middagh Street for 32 years. The plain brick structure, now apartments, was built in the 1890s as “a workingman’s boarding house, which is what today is called an S.R.O. hotel,” he explained, standing on the front steps. “It was itinerant dockworkers, ship workers, laborers, factory workers, mostly single men and a good deal of them with criminal records,” he said, which placed the house on the 84th Precinct’s list of troublesome addresses.

Frank Santos, a retired woodworker, has lived in the north Heights all of his 80 years. He was born and raised in a 16-family tenement at 8 Hicks Street, on a block later demolished to make way for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. His father was a cabinetmaker from Spain. Their neighbors were Italian, black, Greek, Jewish, Irish, Chinese. Many worked in nearby factories, including the large Squibb pharmaceutical plant (now with a Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Watchtower sign); the Brillo factory and Robert Gair box factory in Dumbo; and the Peaks Mason Mints factory at Middagh and Henry Streets.

“My mother used to get up on a chair to light the gas lights in the kitchen,” he recalled. “For the other rooms we used candles. Who the heck was going to go climbing over beds and all that to light the gas?”

The tenement had only cold running water. “In the wintertime you took a bath once a week on Saturday night to go to church on Sunday,” he said. “In the summertime the Fire Department used to bring out these sprinklers. You brought your soap and towel and took a shower right in the street.”

Mr. Santos attended the Assumption Roman Catholic elementary school, which was in the quaint redbrick schoolhouse (originally built as P.S. 8) next door to the Peaks Mason Mints factory. “My mother-in-law used to work at the factory,” he said. “At break time we used to go out in the yard, and they would throw candy down. Mason Mints, Dots, Black Crows.” Both buildings are now residential.

Starting in the first decade of the 20th century the neighborhood also became the world headquarters of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They bought numerous properties in the Heights in addition to the Squibb building, including the lavish Hotel Bossert at Montague and Hicks Streets; the Venetian-looking Leverich Towers at Clark and Willow Streets; and the Standish Arms (at 169 Columbia Heights), fictional home of Clark Kent (in Metropolis) and the setting for Willy Loman’s adulterous affair in Arthur Miller (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/arthur_miller/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s “Death of a Salesman.” (Miller lived in several places in the Heights, including 31 Grace Court, which he sold to W. E. B. Du Bois, and 155 Willow Street, with his second wife, Marilyn Monroe (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/marilyn_monroe/index.html?inline=nyt-per).) Recently, the Witnesses have begun to sell some holdings.

In midcentury Truman Capote (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/truman_capote/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who had a basement apartment in the big yellow house at 70 Willow Street, described the decrepit fringe of the neighborhood as an area where “seedy hangouts, beer-sour bars and bitter candy stores mingle among the eroding houses.” The city planner Robert Moses (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/robert_moses/index.html?inline=nyt-per) declared much of Brooklyn Heights a slum in the 1940s and proposed to obliterate it by laying his new Brooklyn- Queens Expressway straight through the middle of it. The Brooklyn Heights Association of homeowners, hanging onto the old elegance in the neighborhood’s core, fought for an ingenious compromise. The expressway was built in two tiers along the cliff facing the water, and its pedestrian esplanade, known as the promenade, opened in 1950 above it. Norman Mailer (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/norman_mailer/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who had a walkup at 142 Columbia Heights until his death in 2007, took in the sweeping views of New York harbor from the promenade.

Moses did lop off a large section of the neighborhood’s northwest corner for the expressway. Mr. Santos was a teenager when the city bought all the buildings on the last blocks of Hicks Street and demolished them. Where his family’s house stood is now a busy on-ramp.

“You just had to get out,” he said. “Everyone scattered. It ruined the neighborhood.”

The last block of Middagh Street was also razed, including No. 7, a house where W. H. Auden (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/wystan_hugh_auden/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Carson McCullers (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/carson_mccullers/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Benjamin Britten (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/benjamin_britten/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Paul and Jane Bowles and Gypsy Rose Lee lived together in various combinations in 1940-41. Among their guests were Salvador and Gala Dalí, Lotte Lenya, Aaron Copland (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/aaron_copland/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and Leonard Bernstein (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/leonard_bernstein/index.html?inline=nyt-per). They mingled with rough characters from down on the waterfront, including a pimp named Snaggle-Tooth and a barrelhouse piano player called Ginger-Ale. When the group moved out, the novelist Richard Wright (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/richard_wright/index.html?inline=nyt-per) moved in.

Other writers associated with the Heights include Walt Whitman (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/walt_whitman/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Hart Crane, the novelist James Purdy (http://movies.nytimes.com/person/314060/James-Purdy?inline=nyt-per) and horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, who described 169 Clinton Street, where he had an apartment in the 1920s, as “unwholesome” and “furtive.”

Shakespeare (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/william_shakespeare/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and Dante’s sculptured heads adorn one of the neighborhood’s most handsome buildings, the 1881 brick and terra cotta home of the Long Island Historical Society, now the Brooklyn Historical Society, at Pierrepont and Clinton Streets. Its architect, George B. Post, incorporated modern steel pillars and suspension techniques he saw being used on the Brooklyn Bridge. But bowing to Victorian tastes, he hid the pillars behind ornate wood veneer, which still adorns the society’s beautiful research library.

Now lined with stroller-mom cafes and lunch-crowd restaurants, nearby Montague Street gives no hint of its wilder side. Bertram D. Wolfe, a founder of the Communist Party of the United States of America, lived at 68 Montague Street in the 1930s. High up in No. 62, the painter and underground filmmaker Marie Menken and her husband, the poet Willard Maas, gave notoriously wild parties attended by Andy Warhol (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/andy_warhol/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and Edward Albee (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/edward_albee/index.html?inline=nyt-per). Kenneth Anger (http://movies.nytimes.com/person/79721/Kenneth-Anger?inline=nyt-per) stayed there while making his seminal underground film “Scorpio Rising.” Menken played the mother in Warhol and Paul Morrissey (http://movies.nytimes.com/person/103597/Paul-Morrissey?inline=nyt-per)’s 1966 film “Chelsea Girls.” Albee is said to have used Menken and Maas as his inspirations for the squabbling couple in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/virginia_woolf/index.html?inline=nyt-per)?”

Today Montague Street is home to Joe Coleman, an artist who moved there in 1994 after 20 years in the East Village. A painter known for his meticulously detailed portraits of serial killers and other nightmarish imagery, Mr. Coleman and his wife, Whitney Ward, live in an apartment that he calls the Odditorium. Wax figures of Charles Manson (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/charles_manson/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and the serial killer Richard Speck, John Dillinger’s death mask, a bullet from Jack Ruby’s pistol and a letter from the cannibal Albert Fish share the Ripleyesque space with some of Mr. Coleman’s paintings.

“The East Village that I came to know and love doesn’t exist anymore,” Mr. Coleman said. “I like it much better here. In the East Village they’re destroying all the beautiful old buildings. So escaping here seemed comforting.”

From Montague and Court Streets it’s a brief walk up to the broad expanse of Cadman Plaza Park. In the early 1960s, despite local opposition, Robert Moses destroyed several square blocks of old buildings to create the park and line its western edge with high-rises. One of the demolished buildings, which stood near the stop of the A and C subway lines, was the shop where Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” was first printed in 1855.

To ward off further destruction the neighborhood successfully lobbied to be designated the city’s first historic landmark district in 1965. Hundreds of old homes and other buildings were saved, and a process of regentrifying began.

It didn’t happen overnight. The Hotel St. George complex, which at its height dominated the square block between Henry and Hicks Streets and Clark and Pineapple Streets, was originally renowned for its grand ballrooms and a huge salt-water swimming pool. By the 1970s it housed a topless bar called Wild Fyre, and its elderly residents were preyed on by muggers.

“The crime was pretty bad back then,” Mr. Schmitt recalled. “For a long time it was kind of dicey walking around anywhere at night. Now you feel absolutely safe, but before the late ’80s you looked over your shoulder coming home from the subway.”

Mr. Schmitt noted that as far back as the mid-1800s Whitman went to Middagh Street to meet sailors. In the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Schmitt recalled, muggers attacked gay prostitutes who met clients every night at the corner of Middagh and Columbia Heights.

Now children play in the nearby Harry Chapin Playground, named for the songwriter who grew up in the Heights and died in 1981. There’s no brass plaque marking the spot where Auden, Snaggle-Tooth et al. once cavorted just across the street.

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brianac

October 11th, 2008, 05:36 AM

Streetscapes | Tower Buildings in Brooklyn

Architectural Wealth, Built for the Poor

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/10/realestate/12scapes-600.jpg Brooklyn Historical Society (left); Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
AIR OF COMMAND Alfred Tredway White was the developer of the Tower Buildings, which went up in 1879, at Hicks and Baltic Streets in Cobble Hill, to house workingclass tenants.

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=CHRISTOPHER GRAY&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=CHRISTOPHER GRAY&inline=nyt-per)
Published: October 10, 2008

BUILT in 1879 as a group of model tenements, the Tower Buildings, at Hicks and Baltic Streets in Cobble Hill, were rescued in the 1970s by Frank Farella, a local developer who for years kept the Brooklyn (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/newyorkcity/brooklyn/?inline=nyt-geo) complex as a low-rent paradise. Now Mr. Farella has taken on a partner, the Hudson Companies, and their collaboration may bring substantial changes.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/10/realestate/12scapes.1-650.jpgAndrea Mohin/The New York Times
The complex is known as a place with lower rents, but its owner has taken on a partner, and things may soon change.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/10/realestate/12scapes.2-190.jpg
Alfred Tredway White.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/10/realestate/12scapes.3-650.jpgAndrea Mohin/The New York Times
The developer of the Tower Buildings was Alfred Tredway White, who was born into wealth and who was asked by his Unitarian pastor to investigate the housing of the poor.

Moved by the awful conditions in working-class tenements, in 1877 he finished a nine-building complex, somewhat dour and barrackslike, called the Home Buildings. Two years later, just across the street, Mr. White built a more architecturally pleasing group of nine, fleshing out his ideas for model housing. This second, more imposing group became known as the Tower Buildings because of two picturesque ornamental peaks on either end.

To reduce interior corridors and fire hazards in the Tower project, Mr. White and his architect, William Field & Son, used a system of open stairways.

Compared with the typical sanitary accommodations, Mr. White’s were luxurious: a toilet in each apartment, instead of a bank of outhouses outside. There was also a chute on each floor, in which tenants were supposed to place garbage first burnt in the kitchen stove — although in 1887 The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that watermelon rinds were unburnable and had to be put out separately. Mr. White provided hoisting tackle, as the coal box in each living room could hold a quarter ton.

The 76 three- and four-room apartments in the Tower Buildings each rented for $1.50 to $2 a week, and the 1880 census lists tenant occupations like coppersmith, typesetter and tailoress.

There were usually four or five people to an apartment: Edward Monroe, 52, a laborer, lived in one with his three siblings, including George, 47, whose occupation was listed as “paralyzed — never earned a cent.”

Mr. White brought a missionary zeal to housing reform. Selling liquor was prohibited, and in 1876 The New York Times, describing the projects at the outset, said that success would be guaranteed by “a strict moral and police supervision under a faithful janitor.”

Mr. White and Mr. Field made a particular feature of the open iron galleries across the front, which are pierced with decorative designs. Although the rear is plain, it surrounds a broad courtyard.

Mr. White said the Tower enterprise returned 6 percent on his investment, and in 1880 The New York Times reported the Tower Buildings had demonstrated to commercial builders that model tenements could be made to pay. But the real estate industry resisted such reasoning — indeed many disputed its accuracy — and kept to established models.

Little change came to the Tower Buildings until the 1940s, when the White family sold the project, and the 1950s, when the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway cut a swath to the west.

In the 1970s. Mr. Farella was a real estate broker. “My fuel oil man told me they were for sale,” he said of the Tower and Home complexes, adding, “In 1975 no one wanted these buildings, with 11 burnt-out apartments.” In addition, one-third of the apartments were vacant. Mr. Farella paid about $450,000 for both projects, and the architects Maitland, Strauss & Behr began a gut renovation, which was not finished until 1986.

Mr. Farella has now taken a private developer, the Hudson Companies, as a partner. David Kramer, a principal, says rents are still low, citing a one-bedroom apartment with “killer views” of New York Harbor and the financial district that costs $1,335 per month. He says the owners are considering a co-op conversion for both complexes.

Unlike much of Cobble Hill, the Tower Buildings are not spiffed up. The exterior staircases give them a charming, but still Dickensian air, and there are broken panes of glass. The exterior brick has been long painted a flat red; you can see the original warm orangey-red, rich in natural variation, on the rear walls. The plantings are a bit ragged; the trash bins, though neat, are kept in the courtyard; and lines of bikes are chained to the railings.

Still, the garden is a welcome relief from the hurricane of the B.Q.E. on the other side, and it is outsize by normal courtyard standards. Anyone can walk in or out the unlocked gates on either side. This gives the complex a comfortable, old-time air. The Tower Buildings are simple, decent places to live, just as Mr. White intended 129 years ago.

E-mail: streetscapes@nytimes.com

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brianac

November 1st, 2008, 06:54 AM

Flatbush Journal

Beyond the Gate, an Oasis of Tennis Thrives Once Again

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/11/01/nyregion/01metjournal02-600.jpg Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
A view of the Knickerbocker Field Club in Flatbush from atop a neighboring building. Todd Snyder gave lessons recently.

By KAREEM FAHIM (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/kareem_fahim/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: October 31, 2008

Past the goat tacos sizzling on a food-stand grill, the man selling $3 watches to gypsy-cab passengers and the line of people waiting for salt fish at the Exquisite Restaurant and Bakery, the sign for the private tennis club is nearly out of sight atop a roll-down metal gate.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/11/01/nyregion/01metjournal01-650.jpgRobert Stolarik for The New York Times
Matches are often punctuated by the roar of the subway and a man in a nearby building who yells out his window.

Many people who live in this part of Flatbush, Brooklyn, have never seen the sign. The shoppers from Church Avenue walk right by, unaware that beyond the gate and around a corner are five green clay tennis courts at the Knickerbocker Field Club (http://www.knickerbockerfieldclub.com/), open on East 18th Street since before the turn of the last century.

It is an oasis in the city and an apparition. Behind apartment blocks, a verandah-like clubhouse for the players sits on a manicured lawn. Subway tracks cut through the property but are underground, meaning that thousands of people who take the Q train every day might never notice the courts.

The Knickerbocker sits between two worlds. On one side are the stately homes of Prospect Park South, where many of the club’s members once lived; on the other side is a thriving neighborhood of with many Caribbean immigrants.

“It’s like a mirage,” said Jimmy Devlin, 63, a furniture reupholsterer whose clients have included the Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant. In his three years as a member, Mr. Devlin has played with a judge, a doctor, a lawyer and a police officer. He took up tennis in his 50s, but learned fast, winning one of the club singles titles. Mr. Devlin is among the more devoted fans of the club, which is referred to fondly by members as the Knick.

“Sprinkle my ashes on the court,” Mr. Devlin said.

Generations ago, members mingled in the clapboard, Colonial-revival clubhouse with the long porch, a ballroom and a bowling alley.
On a 1909 postcard, the road leading to the club is a leafy cul-de-sac fronted by brick gateposts. After World War I, the mansions were replaced with apartment blocks. For a time, the Knick was a severed appendage, an exclusively white club in an increasingly diverse neighborhood. The club began to integrate in the 1970s, several members said.

By 1988, when the clubhouse was badly damaged by arson, there were only about 60 members. And beginning in 1990, Church Avenue, near the Knickerbocker, was a focal point of racial tension when black residents boycotted two Korean stores.

Today, the Knick is resurgent, said Ray Habib, the club president. Where the old mansion burned, a new open-air clubhouse sits, and there are 144 members and a waiting list for new ones.

While the club still feels like an enclave, the membership is more diverse, and a summer program for children from the surrounding neighborhood is in its fifth year.

On a Saturday morning in October, Dr. Jeremiah Gelles waited for Samir Debs to stretch before their game. Mr. Debs, who plays a few times a week, oversaw the rebuilding of the clubhouse. The men met through the Knick, and Mr. Debs became a patient of Dr. Gelles.

Oasis or not, this is city tennis, with matches punctuated by the intermittent roar of the subway, and the man in a nearby building who occasionally opens his window and starts yelling.

Mr. Debs’s wife, Adrienne, stood on the porch. She grew up nearby, on Caton Avenue, when it was more Irish and Jewish and the Knick was more of a social club, “with Champagne brunches,” she said. Now, the clubhouse has vending machines and a flat-screen television.

Francis Salinas, 66, the manager, had a room in the clubhouse that burned. He has worked at the Knick since 1985, when he moved here from Trinidad. He lives alone in a cramped trailer on the grounds, where the walls are lined with photographs of his family. A collection of horse-betting books sit in a stack near a couch.

In years past, Mr. Salinas cooked Trinidadian dishes for club members.

Every morning, he sweeps, rolls and lines the clay courts. He spends his spare time with his adult grandson, who often visits the club. Mr. Salinas said he planned to keep working, as long as he was “healthy and strong.”

“A lot of people don’t know this place exists,” Mr. Salinas said. His grandson, Clint Lopez, disagreed: They know it exists, he said, but they can’t afford it. But Mr. Habib pointed out that with annual dues of about $600, the club is cheaper than most gyms.

In small ways, a synergy seems to have developed between the club and its surroundings. Ed Haynes, 50, lives in a building next to the Knick. “It keeps the neighborhood lively,” he said. “You can hear the fellows
screaming when they hit a good shot.”

He said that the tennis balls that escape the club are sometimes used in cricket (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cricket_game/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) matches on the streets outside.

Other residents said they enjoyed the sound of tennis in the morning, the rhythmic thwacking in the backyard.

Amy Pimentel, 24, catches it from her fifth-floor window. On that Saturday morning, elsewhere in her building, someone blasted the Caribbean gospel song “My Jesus I Love You.”

Seen from the apartment buildings of Flatbush, the club was something like a clearing in the woods. “It’s kind of peaceful, actually,” Ms. Pimentel said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/01/nyregion/01metjournal.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

brianac

November 1st, 2008, 07:02 AM

Dispatches

Hiding in Plain Sight

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/30/nyregion/02dispatches600.jpg Christian Hansen for The New York Times
OperaOggiNY will move into a long overlooked 600 seat auditorium in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

By JAKE MOONEY (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/jake_mooney/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
Published: October 30, 2008

THOMAS LAWRENCE TOSCANO, artistic director of the fledgling OperaOggiNY, lived in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for 12 years starting in 1993, and has been in nearby Williamsburg since then. Over the years, he became well acquainted with the local churches; he stages performances in churches all the time.

“It’s much easier than trying to get into theaters,” Mr. Toscano, who has long gray hair and a bushy beard, said the other day. “Plus, we don’t have any budget.”

Over the summer, Mr. Toscano was casting around for a space for the company’s latest production, Franco Leoni’s “L’Oracolo,” when his inquiries led him to the Rev. Richard Beuther, the pastor at SS. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/roman_catholic_church/index.html?inline=nyt-org) on South Second Street.

“Father Rick said, ‘You have to come and look at what we have,’ ” Mr. Toscano recalled. The response struck him as strange; he had seen the church many times. What more was there?

When the two men finally met, the pastor led Mr. Toscano not inside the church but around the corner, to the parish’s dormant former school on Berry Street. Mr. Toscano, who had been walking past the building for years, knew that structure, too — at least he thought he did. But when Father Beuther took him up a flight of back stairs, past chipping paint and though a metal fire door, Mr. Toscano could scarcely believe what he saw.
•
At his feet was a 50-foot-wide stage, tilted forward in the Shakespearean style and topped by an intricately detailed proscenium arch. Stretching out before him was enough space to accommodate 600 people, including a rear balcony filled with hundred-year-old seats. The condition of the space was rough; there were cracks in the ornamental plaster, most of the seats had been removed, and an area under the balcony was walled off with red plywood. But all Mr. Toscano saw was potential.

“I said: ‘This is enormous! This is unbelievable!’ ” Mr. Toscano recalled. “You can’t build a theater like this these days. Who’s got a billion dollars?”

Since the school closed in 2002, the hall, which actually takes up most of the building, though it is practically invisible from the outside, had been used mostly for the church’s annual Christmas pageant.

But the space had a long history. Opened in 1898 and christened McCaddin Memorial Hall, it thrived as a space for political rallies and speeches, but was soon converted to house a school.

As for the hall itself, “I mostly remember playing basketball there,” said Esteban Duran, a local community board member who grew up in the neighborhood and who introduced Mr. Toscano to Father Beuther.

As it happened, the pastor had been thinking about doing something new with the space. After some quick talks with Mr. Toscano, it was settled: “L’Oracolo” would be staged there. As for the future, both sides would keep an open mind.
•
That was in September, and Mr. Toscano has been busy ever since, researching the hall’s history, patching holes in the stage, putting new bulbs into the chandelier and the footlight systems (both still work) and trying to persuade potential investors that the space can be restored.

The opera, meanwhile, is scheduled to begin its three-day run on Thursday.

Last Wednesday afternoon, as workmen were trundling a rented piano up the stairs, Mr. Toscano was still marveling that the hall, unknown to much of Williamsburg’s cultural community, had been hiding under his nose.

“There’s a phrase in Portuguese: ‘The saint that you live with doesn’t really make miracles,’ ” he said. “Basically, that’s what happened here. They don’t understand what they have. This is not something I’m saying in criticism; it’s human nature.”

What they have, he said, is a hall that is hungry for music.

“You want to hear something incredible?” Mr. Toscano said. He pounded out a chord on the piano and gazed up at the rafters, wide-eyed and grinning, as the sound echoed.

“This is an instrument,” he said later, gesturing to the space around him.

“And that’s what’s amazing about my experience in this theater the last two months. The instrument is coming back to life. Sitting here, the sun goes down, it starts to get dark, and you start to feel the theater. The walls begin to wake up, and it begins to remember what it’s here for.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/nyregion/thecity/02disp.html?ref=thecity

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

Merry

June 27th, 2009, 09:42 AM

Bay Ridge: Bridges, culture merge in fashion on Brooklyn's quiet coast

by Lynne Miller (http://www.nydailynews.com/authors/Lynne%20Miller)

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Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, is full of contradictions. Quiet and lively, urban yet suburban, all-American but international — it’s all of these things at once that attract residents and visitors from around the city and world to this out-of-the-way waterfront neighborhood.

Walking these streets, it’s easy to see what makes Bay Ridge appealing. The tree-lined residential blocks in this southwestern Brooklyn neighborhood are full of well-maintained one- and two-family homes in a mix of styles. The avenues bustle with commerce, ethnic restaurants and bakeries, live music venues and retail choices that line Third and Fifth Aves.

If you’ve never been to Bay Ridge, you may not know that it’s one of the city’s top shopping areas. Home to New York’s original Century 21 department store, 86th St. also has several specialty chain shops. A community theater, an art gallery, eight-screen movie theater and good public and private schools are all nearby.

But it’s outdoor space that makes the neighborhood special. In the northwest corner, you can see New York Harbor from Owl’s Head Park, a green oasis set on 27 hilly acres with lots of open space for picnics and a playground, skateboarding area and basketball court. Nearby, bike riders, sunbathers and fishermen hang out on a sunny afternoon at the American Veterans Memorial Pier where the Statue of Liberty and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge loom near. Sailboats and barges drift along the water.

Local couples go there to kiss, and it’s a famous spot for many scenes from “Saturday Night Fever,” the John Travolta film that immortalized the local disco scene and enshrined the Bay Ridge of the 1970s as quintessential Brooklyn.

Historically, the community was known centuries ago as Yellow Hook, named for the yellow clay that leached from the shore into the water. Local leaders decided the name sounded sickly — too close to yellow fever — so in 1853, the neighborhood was renamed.

Many Bay *Ridgers stay in the area as they grow up, and as a result it has a high percentage of elderly residents. While Bay Ridge still boasts a heavy concentration of Norwegians, Greeks, Italians and Irish-Americans, newer residents migrating from nearby Sunset Park have roots in Asian, Latin and Middle Eastern countries, as well as Eastern Europe. A large Muslim population calls Bay Ridge home.

“It makes dining interesting,” says Victoria Hofmo, a local preservationist who spent many happy days playing hopscotch and other games on the sidewalks and streets in the 1960s and ’70s. “In the past, you’d see one group come in, in large numbers. Today everybody’s coming in, and not just from other countries, but all over this country.”

At least 12 languages are spoken here, says Josephine Beckmann, district manager for Brooklyn Community Board 10, which includes Bay Ridge.

The different ethnic groups seem to get along. That’s what Manny Saviolakis sees behind the gleaming wood counter at Anopoli Ice Cream Parlor, an old-fashioned Third Ave. restaurant that’s been around for more than 100 years. Saviolakis and his father, Steve, bought it 13 years ago.
“It’s like 100,000 nationalities here,” says Saviolakis, who moved to Bay Ridge when he was 5 years old. “It’s nice seeing people in mixed groups.”

Saviolakis has noticed another group of newcomers moving in — young professionals from Park Slope, Williamsburg and even Manhattan. Coming for a unique housing stock that includes Victorian houses, brick apartment buildings and odd-shaped single-family homes near the water, the newcomers are good for business.

Jason Daniels and his family needed more space, so they left Park Slope and moved to Bay Ridge in 2003. Daniels, his wife, Renee, and their two kids live in a rented duplex. Daniels thinks he’s got the best of both worlds, since he gets to live in a peaceful neighborhood and work in Park Slope, where they both drive to jobs at a health club.

Bay Ridge is a friendly melting pot, says Daniels, who is African-American.

He points to one of his regular stops, a little grocery store on Third Ave. where he and his daughter Eve, 11, have learned a few Arabic phrases from the store clerk.

“It’s very community-oriented,” says Daniels. “Anything you need you can get in Bay Ridge.”

When Catherine Johnson and her family couldn’t afford to live in Park Slope almost three years ago, they sold their co-op and moved to Bay Ridge. Johnson didn’t know much about the area, but its diversity and friendliness took her by surprise. Norwegians, Middle Easteners and Koreans live on her block. Two weeks after moving in, Johnson recalls, a neighbor probably saved her from a parking ticket by reminding her of the alternate-side parking rule.

“It’s an amazing mix of people,” says Johnson, who was walking her dog in Owl’s Head Park one recent morning. “It’s been a good surprise.”
Compared to Park Slope and other trendy areas, housing in Bay Ridge is almost a bargain. One-bedroom apartments in rent-stabilized buildings can be had for $1,200 a month.

There are a handful of doormen buildings on Shore Road, and many people also rent apartments in private homes, though they tend to be larger than one-bedrooms. The rare one-bedroom in a house rents for about $1,300 while two- and three-bedrooms start at about $1,600, says Eva Valenti, a real estate salesperson with Velsor Realty.

You can find Park Slope-style brownstones and limestones on the market for well under $800,000.

It’s the million-dollar homes near the waterfront that make you forget you’re still in Brooklyn. Sprawling Victorians, Southern-style mansions, center-hall Colonials and other large detached homes with front porches, columns, driveways, generous frontage and manicured shrubs line the blocks west of Third Ave.

Built in 1916-17, an Arts and Crafts-style mansion known locally as the “Gingerbread House,” at Narrows Ave. and 83rd St., looks like something out of a fairy tale. Made of boulders and surrounded by a fencepost made from the same rock, the house is set on a huge shady lot full of trees and foliage. It’s a national landmark.

If there’s one thing that could make Bay Ridge better, it’s public transportation. The R train is the only subway line serving the neighborhood and it can take an hour to get from Bay Ridge to midtown Manhattan.

Beckmann from Brooklyn Community Board 10 hears complaints from many residents frustrated by the length of time they spend on the R train and the condition of local stations. Commuters can shave some time by taking the R train north to 59th St. in Sunset Park and transferring to the N, an express train that goes into Manhattan, says Beckmann.

“I love the N,” she says. “It’s a secret jewel.”

Furthermore, there are $5 express buses to the city. A community group is also working on restoring ferry service from 69th St. to lower Manhattan.

Bay Ridge’s neighborly feeling, its convenience and relative affordability will continue to entice New Yorkers from other neighborhoods as well as residents from other states. That’s what Kathleen McCall sees happening.

McCall, a broker at Velsor who lives in the area, is optimistic about the future based on recent sales activity and the number of calls she’s getting from people looking for a place to live.

“To me, Bay Ridge has small-town warmth,” says McCall, who moved from rural Pennsylvania to be near her grandparents who live in the neighborhood. “It’s always had a wonderful family feel.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2009/06/26/2009-06-26_bay_ridge_bridges_culture_meet_in_fashion_on_br ooklyns_.html

Merry

October 2nd, 2009, 10:28 PM

Living In | Boerum Hill, Brooklyn

Subway Lines Galore, but Who’s Leaving?

By JEFF VANDAM

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AFTER 37 years in their house on Dean Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, Norman and Roselyn Kopit decided last summer that it was finally time for a change of scene.

Their children had moved out, and work had just finished on their living-room ceiling, so the time seemed right. They had bought the house for $43,000; when their broker now priced it at $2.495 million, they smiled.
After the sale, they could have gone somewhere far from the sleepy, tree-canopied streets of their old neighborhood.

Instead they relocated five blocks away. On State Street, an easy distance from all their friends and favorite restaurants, they found a roomy duplex condominium with a kitchen bigger than their old one.

Leaving the area that they had helped bring back from the dead was never really considered.

“Why would I want to move?” asked Ms. Kopit, 65, who used to manage the office at BusinessWeek magazine. “I’ve invested a lot into this neighborhood.”
Their investment, part of the countless hours of community effort to transform Boerum Hill from a place of rooming houses, drugs and prostitution to an elegant, family-friendly enclave, has paid off.

The Kopits’ block of Dean Street was the one described in “The Fortress of Solitude,” Jonathan Lethem’s novel about the area in the 1970s, which described ruined row houses sheltering creepy boarders, and a pervasive feeling of decay.

That Boerum Hill is long gone; today it is clean slate sidewalks, self-conscious cafes and neighbors who do more than merely say hello.
“I love the fact that people just drop in,” said Stephen Antonson, an artist who lives with his wife, Kathleen Hackett, and their two young boys in a house on Pacific Street.

“When you have a life where people just come over and knock on your door, there’s something about that I really, really like.”

The improvements continue. On almost any block in Boerum Hill, you can find a stoop railing being replaced, a garden being dug up, a crew hauling in a new Viking range.

And at the edges of the neighborhood, where zoning allows, developers have put up buildings not always in sync with the local town house vibe.

The neighborhood’s boisterous thoroughfare is Atlantic Avenue; it carries a significant amount of traffic and is home to the Brooklyn House of Detention, whose future has been known to generate cacophonous debate. (Bail bondsmen still do business in the area.)

But save for that noisy artery, the renovation noises and the conversation of neighbors, the streets are largely quiet — a cool calm that has lately attracted a variety of independent boutiques and restaurants.

In the past, the Kopits would have packed the family into the car and driven to Manhattan to find stuff to do.

“Now, we don’t have to drive anywhere to find interesting places,” Ms. Kopit said. “We just start walking.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

Even by brownstone Brooklyn standards, Boerum Hill is small. It has roughly 20,000 people, according to a 2005 neighborhood association study. The exact street boundaries can be a subject of local disagreement, but the surrounding areas are Cobble Hill, downtown Brooklyn, Park Slope and Gowanus.

Nor is it uniformly full of brownstones. Many blocks have unbroken walls of tall red-brick houses with the occasional outlier, like the artist Susan Gardner’s bejeweled facade on Wyckoff Street. In 1973, a small historic district was created; some would like to see it expand.

As for the sometimes fast-paced Atlantic Avenue, it has become an unlikely haven for independent shops and boutiques. Hip retailers have helped create a quirky shopping district, like Jonathan Adler, the home store; Blue Marble, the Hudson Valley ice creamery; and Omala, an active-wear dealer that recently advertised an item called “Zen pants.” Between Third and Fourth Avenues, Atlantic is home to Middle Eastern commerce, at Fertile Crescent Middle Eastern Groceries and Makkah Islamic Books and Clothing.

There is shopping elsewhere, too. Boerum Hill claims a trendy stretch of Smith Street as its own, and small cafes and stores are dotted throughout the neighborhood’s interior, like the restaurant Building on Bond and the Brooklyn Circus boutique. On Fourth Avenue, bars like Cherry Tree and Pacific Standard have sprung up. There are also two Vietnamese sandwich shops.

Just outside the neighborhood are new developments — or at least they are promised, on handsome banners. Dean Street alone has at least five construction projects finished or under way. On State Street, a long row of unadorned new town houses has been occupied for a few years now; a project of six more called Ensemble, at prices reportedly ranging from $3.5 million to $4 million, is being considered. Taller projects have arrived north of Atlantic Avenue as well. On Smith, opposite the House of Detention, the Nu Hotel has opened within a new residential tower, with nightly rates starting above $300.

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

Those new condominiums don’t come cheap, but they are still inexpensive compared with similar properties in Manhattan. At the “eco-luxury” building Green on Dean, for example, two-bedroom two-bath units with private balconies and 1,150 square feet of space range from $695,000 to $799,000.

The meat and potatoes of Boerum Hill real estate will always be town houses, and while they are still selling, prices have come down.

“Whatever you could sell for $2.3 million at least two years ago, you’d be lucky to get $1.9 million for now,” said Allen Barcelon, a broker at Boerum Hill Realty. At the same time, down payment requirements have gone up, Mr. Barcelon said; 20 to 25 percent is now the norm, versus 10 percent in the boom years. Making purchases these days definitely has its challenges.

But houses are still changing hands. Sue Wolfe and James Crow, brokers at the Corcoran Group, have sold several town houses this year and have another in contract. A one-family house on Dean Street, which hadn’t had any improvements in 20 years and which sold as part of an estate, went for $1.725 million. A two-family house on Wyckoff Street that had been renovated and used by one family sold for $1.5 million.

Co-ops are not plentiful, but can still be found carved out of town houses or occasionally in apartment buildings. In the elevator building at 422 State Street, for example, Mr. Crow and Ms. Wolfe have listed a two-bedroom co-op with one and a half baths for $599,000.

Rental prices here have dipped as of late, but transactions still move quickly, Mr. Barcelon said; studios average $1,300 a month, one-bedrooms $1,900, and two-bedrooms $2,300.

WHAT TO DO

The 35th annual Atlantic Antic, a sort of supersize street fair, takes place Sunday along Atlantic, with 10 stages of free music, lots of food, pony rides, belly dancing and other amusements.

As for more permanent distractions beyond shopping and dining, there are two movie theaters just outside the area in Cobble Hill and Brooklyn Heights. Prospect and Fort Greene Parks are a short walk (or bike ride) away.

THE SCHOOLS

Of the 478 students at Public School 38 on Pacific Street, 67 percent of third-, fourth- and fifth-graders met city English standards last year; 86 percent were proficient in math. At the Math and Science Exploratory School, a middle school on Dean Street, scores have improved in recent years, with 97 percent of all students meeting standards on math tests and 90 percent in English.

SAT averages last year at the Brooklyn High School of the Arts, also on Dean Street, were 439 in reading, 438 in math and 435 in writing. Citywide averages were 435, 459 and 432.

THE COMMUTE

Given its size, Boerum Hill is spoiled with choices of public transit into Manhattan. Ten subway lines stop at the Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street station at the eastern end of the neighborhood; and six come into the Borough Hall/Court Street station, a few blocks north of State Street. The F and G trains stop at the Bergen Street station, providing another travel option into Midtown (or, via the G, into Queens).

THE HISTORY

There once was an actual hill called Boerum, used strategically during the Revolutionary War, but it was razed. As Brooklyn grew up, the neighborhood was part of an amalgam simply called South Brooklyn. The population grew after the Atlantic Avenue train tunnel was built in 1844. The area was developed by Charles Hoyt and Russell Nevins; two streets now bear their names. With the Brooklyn Bridge and trolleys came even more newcomers, many of them immigrants.

After World War II, disrepair and squalor seeped in, only to be shaken off by renovation-happy brownstoners — who persevere to this day.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/realestate/04living.html?_r=1

hbcat

November 12th, 2009, 05:54 AM

Can someone point me to a coded map of Brooklyn neighborhoods, if you happen to know of a good one? I am trying to create an imaginary geography since I haven't been to most of these places -- e.g. Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Greenpoint, Red Hook etc. -- like to know where one ends and the next begins, according to general consensus.

Cheers,
hb

Merry

November 12th, 2009, 06:08 AM

Is this (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/neighbor/neigh.shtml) any good, hbcat?

Or if you're prepared to buy a book, Neighborhoods of Brooklyn (http://www.amazon.com/Neighborhoods-Brooklyn-New-York-City/dp/0300103107/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258020707&sr=1-1) has very good maps of each neighborhood with details of boundaries.

Edit: This (http://www.brooklyn.com/map.php) map is great!

hbcat

November 12th, 2009, 09:45 AM

Thanks much, Merry. The first link is a good start. Unfortunately, I get a "403 Forbidden" message when I try to view the second map you recommend. I don't know if my server is blocking it (from www.brooklyn.com) or why this would be so). I'll give it another go from my office tomorrow.

The book looks like a fun read. I will put it on my list.

Cheers,
hb

Merry

November 13th, 2009, 09:49 PM

Living In | Ditmas Park, Brooklyn

Moved for the Space; Stayed for the Food

By JAKE MOONEY

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Victorian home on Stratford Road

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THE house that Michael and Lori Hiller planned to buy in South Park Slope, Brooklyn, was a good size for the neighborhood, and on a pleasant block. But then a problem developed with the building’s certificate of occupancy.

Since Mrs. Hiller had been the bigger fan of Park Slope, it was Mr. Hiller who had more zest for a new search. He found himself smitten by Ditmas Park, a leafy area of Victorian houses, south of Prospect Park. Eventually, he struck gold, with a 4,000-square-foot six-bedroom house with a finished basement, a backyard and a four-car driveway.

The Hillers saw it on a Sunday, made an offer on Tuesday, and were in contract by week’s end. They paid $1.26 million — $10,000 less than they had planned to pay for the house in Park Slope, which was about half the size.

A year and a half later, Mr. Hiller said, they are thrilled, partly for the reasons people have always liked Ditmas Park: the grand Victorians, the trees, the big yards and the suburban atmosphere. “It’s just such a great thing to come home and see your kids outside playing,” he said.

But some of what keeps the Hillers excited about the neighborhood is new. In recent years, a string of popular restaurants have opened on Cortelyou Road, the main business district. These places, among them the Farm on Adderley, Mimi’s Hummus and a pioneering cafe called Vox Pop, have drawn visitors to what Time Out New York calls one of the city’s best neighborhoods for food.

And not only prepared foods, it turns out: the Flatbush Food Co-op, a fixture on Cortelyou, is thriving after its 2008 move into a larger space, and a Sunday farmers’ market is also doing well.

Brokers say that word of mouth has made a difference. “They read about it and they say, ‘Well, where is that neighborhood?’ ” said Mary Kay Gallagher, a broker who specializes in the area’s Victorian houses, and who sold the Hillers their house. “And then they go on the Internet, and they find me.”

Web surfers also find a dedicated blog, ditmaspark.blogspot.com, and an Internet group, the Flatbush Family Network, for area parents.

One result of all the change has been a reinvigorated co-op market, according to Jan Rosenberg, a real estate broker at Brooklyn Hearth Realty.

Stefanie Zadravec, a playwright, moved with her husband, Michael McWatters, a freelance Web designer, to a large two-bedroom on Argyle Road days after giving birth to twins. The giant houses are out of their price range, she said, but are wonderful to look at.

She had lived in Chelsea, in Manhattan, since 1991, but says her family’s new place is bigger than they ever could have afforded there. Also, out on the street, she is constantly running into friends. “They’re the kind of people I had stopped meeting in Manhattan,” Ms. Zadravec said.

Through all the change, residents say, the vibes remain positive. “The older residents of the neighborhood are very excited about the young people who have moved into the neighborhood,” said Alvin M. Berk, the chairman of Community Board 14, which covers the area. “It brings the neighborhood vitality. Everybody loves looking at beautiful babies in a baby carriage.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

Ditmas Park is a relatively narrow landmark district bounded by Dorchester Road to the north, Ocean Avenue to the east, Newkirk Avenue to the south and East 16th Street to the west. Yet when most nonpurists refer to Ditmas Park, they are talking about a wider chunk of Victorian Flatbush — stretching north to Beverley Road, west to Coney Island Avenue and east to Ocean Avenue — that includes the subsections Ditmas Park West, Beverley Square East and Beverley Square West.

What these sections all have in common, besides the loosely applied Ditmas Park name, is Cortelyou Road.

“One of the exciting things for me about Cortelyou developing is that it holds together a lot,” said Ms. Rosenberg, also a founder of the civic group Friends of Cortelyou. “People think of it as the heart of the neighborhood.”

Many of the area’s co-op buildings are concentrated in the blocks immediately south of Cortelyou. The grander houses, mostly single-family, with five or six bedrooms, stretch to the north and south on streets with Anglophile names like Marlborough, Argyle and Westminster. Much of the area was rezoned this summer, Mr. Berk said, to curb out-of-scale construction that had begun to creep up on the area’s western edge near Coney Island Avenue.

In the interior are a few new buildings, but most of the co-op and rental buildings are decades old, some prewar. The blocks full of houses, with their front porches, large yards and driveways, could easily be mistaken for some other, less urban place. Ms. Rosenberg, who has shown the neighborhood to countless newcomers, has heard comparisons to Pittsburgh or Minneapolis.

“What they’re saying is, ‘Gee, it doesn’t really feel like New York,’ ” she said. “And it doesn’t. For a lot of people it feels like home.”

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

When Ms. Gallagher used to talk about Victorian house prices early this decade, she spoke of the approach to the million-dollar mark. That barrier has long since been leapfrogged, and prices for Victorians are now routinely $900,000 and up, she said.

Still, Aviva Sucher, a broker at Brooklyn Dwellings, says that in the softer economy, there are relative bargains.

“There are houses as low as $800,000,” she said. “We haven’t seen these kinds of numbers in, I’d say, well over 10 years. Right now, there are very well-priced homes for buyers who would not have been able to come into the area.”

For co-ops, Ms. Rosenberg said buyers should expect to pay $250,000 to $320,000 for a one-bedroom — occasionally less. Two-bedrooms, she said, range from around $300,000 to $450,000 for very large units like Ms. Zadravec’s, which also includes an office. There are almost no three-bedroom co-ops, Ms. Rosenberg said, and few condos of any size.

Rentals can be hard to come by. Units in detached houses are priced unpredictably, with some sprawling apartments over $2,000 a month, and tighter attic spaces well below that. In apartment buildings, one-bedrooms rent for around $1,400, while two-bedrooms are in the $1,700 range.

THE SCHOOLS

There are two public elementary schools. Public School 139, on Rugby Road just north of Cortelyou, has around 1,100 students in prekindergarten through fifth grade. It received an A on its most recent city progress report, with 68.1 percent of students meeting standards in English language arts and 88.8 percent in math. P.S. 217 on Newkirk Avenue also serves prekindergarten through fifth grade, and has around 1,200 students. It, too, got an A on its progress report, with 76.9 percent of students meeting standards in language arts and 94.1 percent in math.

Mr. Berk said both schools had so far been able to accommodate their swelling numbers, although P.S. 217 had to build an annex. Both, he said, have active parents’ associations.

The neighborhood’s middle-schoolers attend Junior High School 62, which has around 1,100 students, on Cortelyou Road in nearby Kensington. The school received an A on its city progress report, with 59.1 percent testing at or above grade level in language arts, and 70.3 percent in math.

A nearby high school, Midwood High, is a few blocks south of the neighborhood at Brooklyn College. The former Erasmus Hall High School, which was broken up into four smaller schools in 1994, is a few blocks north of the neighborhood on Flatbush Avenue.

WHAT TO DO

Neighborhood life is sedate and suburban. The Parade Grounds at the southern tip of Prospect Park are within walking distance, as is the park’s running and cycling loop. At night, the restaurants on Cortelyou — and off, in the case of Pomme de Terre, a newer place on Newkirk Avenue — are popular destinations. Residents trade gossip on just-opened and soon-to-open restaurants and bars, and on Sundays head to the farmers’ market and playground.

It gives Cortelyou Road a “village square feel on Sunday morning,” Mr. Berk said. “People get together and meet each other and buy rutabaga.”

THE COMMUTE

The Q train runs through the middle of the neighborhood, stopping at Beverley Road, Cortelyou Road and Newkirk Avenue. The B train, which runs express through Brooklyn, also stops at Newkirk. The Q becomes an express train once it enters Manhattan, making the trip into Midtown a relatively quick one, considering the distance. If you time the trains right, Mr. Hiller said, you can be there in half an hour.

THE HISTORY

Ditmas Park, like the rest of Victorian Flatbush, was developed early in the 20th century. In 1908, according to the Encyclopedia of New York City, the Ditmas Park Association was formed, and enacted zoning to preserve the neighborhood. The Ditmas Park Historic District was created in the 1980s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/realestate/15living.html?pagewanted=print

scumonkey

November 13th, 2009, 10:07 PM

But what are the taxes like...

Merry

November 14th, 2009, 04:12 AM

Did you have any luck with that map, hbcat?

Can you see this (http://www.brooklyn.com/map.php?nbhd=3) link, which is of Bedford-Stuyvesant?

The map includes boundaries of the neighborhoods, plus links to photos of various locations marked on the map, and has a basic axonometric view of buildings. A search function includes neighborhoods and specific addresses. There is also a link to display designated landmarks and historic districts (http://www.brooklyn.com/modules.php?name=Landmarks) (a "work in progress").

hbcat

November 14th, 2009, 07:53 AM

Thanks, yes, Merry. I tried it this morning while in the office and it does work through that connection, but now I am back home and for some reason my residential server isn't allowed to connect (or doesn't allow me to connect) to the Brooklyn.com site, so I cannot see this new feature you mean to show me. I'll look again tomorrow.

There's really a great wealth of info on NY (duh) in this forum. I am grateful for all the knowledge you and others bring here and share.

Cheers again,
hb

hbcat

November 15th, 2009, 02:30 AM

There is also a link to display designated landmarks and historic districts (http://www.brooklyn.com/modules.php?name=Landmarks) (a "work in progress").

Nice feature. Yes, I can view it easily from my office connection.

I found another Brooklyn neighborhood map (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_neighborhoods_map.png) on Wikipedia, although it doesn't have the interactive features of those at brooklyn.com.

hbcat

November 21st, 2009, 01:53 AM

Just found this collection of vids, with a variety of stories about Brooklyn and several "Neighborhood Beat" segments.

Have a look:

http://www.youtube.com/user/BKIndependentTV#p/u/19/sop4dF4AoxU

Merry

December 5th, 2009, 07:06 AM

Living In | Midwood, Brooklyn

Where Prosperity Breeds Proximity

By VIVIAN S. TOY

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A two-family house on Ocean Avenue between Avenues L and M is listed at $939,000 (:eek:)

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Avenue K between East 19th Street and Ocean Avenue

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Avenue L between East Seventh and East Eighth Streets

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Corner of East 15th Street

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Yeshiva of Flatbush

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Edward R. Murrow High School

More Photos > (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/12/02/realestate/20091206LIVING_index.html)

MANY blocks in Midwood, with its rows of orderly detached homes and private driveways, give the feeling of a carefully planned suburb — a serene surprise after turning off a thoroughfare like Coney Island Avenue or Ocean Parkway.

But closer inspection reveals that the landscape has, in fact, been altered: on virtually every block, at least one or two homes have been significantly expanded — built up, built out, even built down.

The larger homes blend in as best they can with their smaller neighbors, but their oversized shadows are hard to miss: they are evidence of the wealth and the larger families that a thriving Orthodox Jewish population has brought to Midwood in recent years.

“Midwood has always been Jewish, but it wasn’t always Orthodox,” said David Maryl, a broker at Jacob Gold Realty. “Now for every family that’s moving out, it’s an Orthodox family moving in.”

Brooklyn’s Community Board 14, which covers the eastern half of Midwood, fields several home expansion requests each month from the area, said Alvin M. Berk, the board’s chairman.

He said the board first noted the steady trickle of requests about eight years ago and now handles about 30 a year. “This seems to be a fairly high rate of building expansion,” he said. “But there’s generally no opposition — maybe just some concerns about a proposed enlargement reducing a neighbor’s light and air.” But applicants often make concessions to ease those concerns, he added.

Rather than building a larger home, Bill and Diana Spiegel bought one. They’ve moved about a mile east. “We love the area,” Mr. Spiegel said.

They walk more than a mile each way to attend the synagogue in their old area, because “we have a little separation anxiety,” he said. But on their way, they probably pass more than a dozen synagogues; they will probably switch to one nearby once the weather turns cold. “It seems like there’s a real sense of community here, and they welcome you,” Mr. Spiegel said.

Brokers say that Orthodox families first moved into Midwood about 25 years ago as they were priced out of Borough Park, a better established Orthodox neighborhood to the west. Nowadays, Midwood is “very sought after, because people want to be near family and friends, a yeshiva or a synagogue affiliation,” said Sora David, a broker with Eisberg Lenz Real Estate. Being within walking distance of a synagogue is critical for those who observe Orthodox Jewish laws forbidding driving and other activities on the Sabbath.

There are dozens of synagogues and many yeshivas scattered throughout Midwood. Some Hasidic synagogues, known as shtibls, are in single-family homes where the rabbi might live upstairs and the congregation might meet on the first floor.

Mr. Berk says synagogues are allowed as of right in any residential zone.

But many of them have growing congregations that eventually require more space. He said that the community board had fielded and helped approve many applications for variances to turn houses into larger synagogues.

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

Midwood lies south of Flatbush and Brooklyn College (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/b/brooklyn_college/index.html?inline=nyt-org), and north of Marine Park. Its eastern and western borders have expanded in recent years, pushing out to McDonald Avenue on the west and Flatbush Avenue on the east. “As people have moved in, they’ve expanded the boundaries,” said Raizy Brisman, the owner of Brisman Realty.

Between Nostrand and Flatbush Avenues, younger Orthodox families first moved into the East 30s about five years ago; prices were lower there than in the East 20s and East 10s, she said. That area used to be considered part of Flatbush or East Flatbush, she said, “but it’s all semantics. It’s called Midwood now, because if you called it East Flatbush, the value for it would be less.”

Most homes sit on 40-by-100-foot lots and were built in the early part of the 20th century. The vast majority are detached single-family homes, but there are some two-families, as well as some semiattached and attached houses. There are also some rental and co-op buildings along parts of Avenue K and Ocean Parkway.

Brokers refer to an exclusive pocket between East Seventh and East Ninth Streets, running from Avenue I to Avenue K, as Midwood Manor. Many of its homes are on larger lots, and “it’s more manicured and very sought after,” said Abraham Steinmetz, the owner of Steinmetz Real Estate. “But there’s very little available there. You’re lucky to see one or two houses available in a year.”

The neighborhoods known as Midwood Park, West Midwood and South Midwood are all actually north of Midwood proper and were developed as parts of Victorian Flatbush.

During the recent building boom, developers tore down some single-family homes along Ocean Avenue and off Ocean Parkway and replaced them with six-unit condominiums. But brokers say that because the condos are primarily made up of one- and two-bedroom apartments, they do not appeal to large Orthodox families and have not sold well, although some units have sold to Russian immigrants.

The area is mostly residential, with a few commercial streets. Yeshivas and synagogues often blend right in — in unassuming converted office buildings or on strictly residential streets.

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

Brokers say that prices in Midwood have dropped 10 to 15 percent in the last year. Homes tend to sell by word of mouth, and at any given time, there are only about 40 homes on the market.

An attached home on a busy street can sell for $400,000 to $500,000, but detached homes start at $600,000 and run over $2 million, depending on its size. Most houses in the East 20s, considered the oldest part of Midwood, are detached, with three to five bedrooms and private driveways, and sell for over $1 million.

The larger homes in Midwood Manor start at about $2 million and run above $5 million.

Along Ocean Parkway, one-bedroom co-ops sell for less then $200,000, two-bedrooms for about $250,000. On Ocean Avenue, one-bedroom condos sell for about $275,000, two-bedrooms $400,000.

THE SCHOOLS

Most Orthodox children attend local yeshivas. The Yeshiva of Flatbush (https://www.flatbush.org/Default.asp) is perhaps the best known, with classes from preschool through high school.

At Public School 193, on Avenue L, known as the Gil Hodges School, 86 percent of fifth-graders met state English standards in 2007-8, and 93 percent met math standards.

At Intermediate School 240, on Nostrand Avenue, 58 percent of eighth graders met English standards, 71 percent met math standards, and 79 percent met science standards.

Edward R. Murrow High School (http://ermurrowhs.schoolwires.com/ermurrowhs/site/default.asp), on Avenue L, emphasizes a college preparatory curriculum and has selective music, art and theater programs for which students must audition. SAT averages there last year were 476 in reading, 507 in math and 481 in writing, versus 435, 459 and 432 citywide.
Midwood High School (http://www.midwoodhighschool.org/home) is north of Midwood, opposite Brooklyn College.

WHAT TO DO

Midwood’s appeal is its quiet residential quality. On school days, yellow buses fill the streets, ferrying children to and from their different yeshivas. Traffic along the shopping strips on Avenues J and M can be downright dangerous, as drivers double-park to get their shopping done. But the streets grow quiet at sundown on Friday, with the start of the Sabbath, and most stores stay shuttered until Sunday.

Avenue J’s commercial strip, between Coney Island Avenue and East 16th Street, is filled with kosher restaurants, delis and bakeries. Di Fara Pizza, at East 15th Street, harks back to Midwood’s more Italian past. It’s known for its $5 slice, handmade with imported ingredients by the pizzeria’s septuagenarian founder, Domenico DeMarco.

Avenue M’s shops run from Ocean Avenue to Ocean Parkway. In addition to kosher pizzerias and kosher and Russian supermarkets, the street has discount stores and chains like Godiva.

Coney Island Avenue, a much wider thoroughfare, has a range from auto repair shops and carwashes to ladies’ wig shops, Judaica stores and kosher restaurants. Among these are Schnitzi, a schnitzel bar; and Carlos and Gabby’s, a Mexican grill. Food bloggers compare Pomegranate, a gleaming new kosher supermarket, to Whole Foods.

THE COMMUTE

The Q and B lines, both of them express, bisect Midwood along East 16th Street, providing a relatively easy 40-minute commute to Midtown.
The F train, which makes many more stops, runs along the western edge of Midwood on McDonald Avenue.

THE HISTORY

Settled in the mid-1600s, the area was forested and got its name from the Dutch for “middle woods.” Subways arrived in the early 1900s.

Famous residents include Woody Allen, who graduated from Midwood High School; Marisa Tomei, a Murrow High graduate; and Gil Hodges, a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1950s and a manager of the Mets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/realestate/06livi.html

Merry

March 5th, 2010, 10:01 PM

The Little Town That Prices (Almost) Forgot

By JEFF VANDAM

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slide show (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/07/realestate/20100307_livingin.html?ref=realestate#1)

THE Brooklyn waterfront, once upon a time, was seen as a place where artists and artisans lived and worked, basking in cheap rents, old architecture and a sweet sense of isolation. But lately that reality has changed. Market-rate condominium towers and luxury conversions dot the Kings County coastline, their presence telegraphing a need for a higher income bracket.

Yet in Vinegar Hill, a hamlet within New York City if there ever was one, the old ambience is mostly intact. Nudged into a corner of the waterfront that seems, at least in part, forgotten by time, the place is a few blocks long and a few wide. Despite its handful of new developments, it still feels as secluded and unpretentious as in decades past.

“The longer you stay in Vinegar Hill, the harder it is not to know your neighbors,” said Nicholas Evans-Cato, a longtime worker and renter in the area. “If you see someone who hasn’t moved their car for alternate-side-of-the-street parking, you generally know who it is and you ring their doorbell.”

Many locals are, in essence, living above the store. Mr. Evans-Cato, an artist, rents an apartment upstairs from his studio on Hudson Avenue, which he has operated since 1995, and a carpenter friend does the same. A friend who makes furniture lives a short walk from his own work space, as does Adam Meshberg, an architect and president of the local neighborhood association. People like to stick around, it seems, and others are noticing.
“Up to the mid-’90s,” Mr. Meshberg said, “rents were low, and it was very, very, very quiet. Now we’re in 2010, and it’s coming on the radar.”

For the most part, quiet still reigns along the cobblestone streets, save for trucks from the massive Con Edison plant on the waterfront or from the Damascus Bakery, which episodically infuses the area with the singular aroma of baking pita. These are reminders that industry still has a presence, as it did back when the neighborhood was a bedroom community for workers at the Navy Yard next door and in Dumbo’s factories and warehouses.

Of all the issues raised by the waterfront area’s increasing popularity, it is the truck traffic that takes precedence — especially its effects on the cobblestones, said Robert Perris, the district manager of the local Community Board 2. “It shows how much people are invested in the architectural character of the neighborhood,” he said, “as well as how sort of sleepy it is.”

In the last year or so, the Vinegar Hill House on Hudson Avenue, a restaurant that opened in late 2008, has focused a spotlight on the neighborhood. The last place to eat on the street was a diner that closed in the 1970s, Mr. Evans-Cato said. The restaurant’s fare is creative and seasonal — right now, braised wild boar shank and pumpkin ravioli are on offer — and the owners, Sam Buffa and Jean Adamson, are both locals. In addition to approving critics, the place has garnered its share of regulars, happy for a nearby place to dine well.

“We figured that we would be busy enough, but we didn’t expect this,” said Mr. Buffa, who also lives above his business, having vacated a carriage house on the property to make room for storage and office space. “We get people who drive from the Upper West Side. I can’t tell you how many times people just had no clue this was here.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

The neighborhood was named not for any unusual wellspring of vinegar but for a 1798 battle of the Irish Rebellion (one historical theory has it that the name was chosen to attract Irish immigrants). It takes up all of 9 or 10 blocks, and residents most likely number no more than a few hundred.

They have something of a love-hate relationship with their neighbors in Dumbo, appreciating the many services and stores now ensconced next door, but disturbed by increasing traffic, by the shadows of new condo towers and, it must be said, by unwelcome evidence that Dumboites are walking their dogs in Vinegar Hill.

“As Dumbo changes, we change,” said Mr. Meshberg, the neighborhood association head. “The more people moving into Dumbo, the more parking gets screwed up over here.”

Hudson Avenue is the area’s focal point, even with just the one public establishment in the Vinegar Hill House. The road is lined with pre-Civil War row houses. Around the corner on Evans Street, visitors encounter an even older structure: the Commandant’s Mansion, an 1806 estate overlooking the East River from behind an imposing gate. (It remains inhabited today, actually, though not by a commandant.)

Moving west from Hudson Avenue toward Dumbo, sturdy-looking old town houses, with fine examples on both Gold and Front Streets, are interspersed with the occasional warehouse or factory. Vinegar Hill’s new market-rate condo developments include one at 100 Gold Street, next door to the Dorje Ling Buddhist Center, with its bright yellow facade. And on York Street, across from the towers of a public project called the Farragut Houses, further housing construction is in its early stages.

Vinegar Hill may soon have stores to call its own, as the city is seeking a developer for a retail complex in the Navy Yard. The businesses would take the place of Admiral’s Row, a much-loved but decrepit group of row houses; many preservation groups have cried foul.

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

Buyers expecting Dumbo-like prices may be pleasantly surprised; values generally soften as one heads east from the Manhattan Bridge and south toward the Farragut Houses. A $445,000 studio in Vinegar Hill, for example, might go for $550,000 at the J Condominium a few blocks away in Dumbo, said M. Monica Novo, a senior vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman.

Prices have come down since 2006 and 2007, but percentages are hard to calculate because of the low inventory of properties. Town houses don’t often come on the market, but when they do they are significantly more affordable than comparable properties in nearby Brooklyn Heights or Fort Greene. Often, they also need work; prices start at about $1.1 million but can reach $2 million for a house in pristine shape, according to Steven Gerber, a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group.

“It’s not going to be a Brooklyn Heights number” in price, Mr. Gerber said, “but if it does have a view and it’s nicely done on the inside, that’s not uncommon.”

In terms of new and conversion properties that have sprung up, prices per square foot are staying in the $600 and $700 range, according to David Behin, a partner at the Developers Group. At 100 Gold Street, a 10-unit development, three units are now in contract, and prices for studios, one- and two-bedrooms range from $445,000 to $885,000.

Renters can opt for market-rate buildings like 99 Gold Street, where the Core Group Marketing is listing units from studios to two-bedrooms for $2,650 to $4,900 a month. Older units in town houses are seldom available. When they are, said Mr. Evans-Cato, a longtime renter, one-bedroom units start between $1,000 and $1,500.

THE SCHOOLS

Vinegar Hill is home to one school, Public School 307 on York Street. In 2009, 61.2 percent of third, fourth and fifth graders met standards in English, 78.3 percent in mathematics.

Junior high students can be zoned for the Dr. Susan S. McKinney Secondary School of the Arts, on Park Avenue in the upper part of Fort Greene near the Navy Yard. In 2009, 62.9 percent of students met standards in math, 54.4 percent in English.

One high school nearby is the Freedom Academy, on Nassau Street close to the Manhattan Bridge, where SAT averages last year were 413 in reading, 388 in math and 408 in writing, versus 480, 500 and 470 statewide.

WHAT TO DO

Outside of warm evenings at the Vinegar Hill House and community meetings of the neighborhood group, the neighborhood seems almost purposefully quiet. But busier areas aren’t far away. Dumbo, Brooklyn Heights and Fort Greene all offer plenty of shopping and dining. The growing green spaces of Brooklyn Bridge Park are nearby, and a stroll across one of the bridges is always an option.

THE COMMUTE

Most residences in the neighborhood are no more than a 10-minute walk from the York Street subway station, the first stop into Brooklyn on the F line. The trip to Midtown takes 15 to 20 minutes.

THE HISTORY

Part of the original Dutch town of Breuckelen, Vinegar Hill was farmland until its purchase in 1784 by the Sands brothers, merchants and traders for whom a local street is named. They called the area Olympia, hoping to attract summer visitors from Manhattan; it was later known as part of Irishtown. The present name wasn’t in the picture until the land was bought by John Jackson, a shipbuilder, who sold part of it to the federal government for use as a navy yard. Vinegar Hill soon grew into a small village of laborers and those who catered to them. (In 1822, nearly a quarter of all residents listed their occupations as tavern proprietors.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/realestate/07Living.html

meesalikeu

April 5th, 2010, 04:01 AM

i put together a four part walking tour of brooklyn's bedford-stuyvesant neighborhhod last week -- enjoy!

http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad179/meesalikeu4/bed%20stuy%20xlarge/P1220454.jpg

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bed-stuy threads --- parts 1-2-3-4:
http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,22790.0.html
http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,22792.0.html
http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,22793.0.html
http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,22794.0.html

Merry

April 5th, 2010, 06:44 AM

Superb, thanks for posting here Meesa :).

Merry

April 9th, 2010, 06:47 AM

Of Captains, Caulkers and Hoop Skirt Makers

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY

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Vanderbilt Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, about 1950. The view is from Myrtle Avenue to the location of the present Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
The peaked gables of 128-132 Vanderbilt are characteristic of this very unusual street. In the distance is the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

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Today, the same block of of Vanderbilt goes from glassy 21st century, like No. 122 at left, to front-porch simplicity, at right.

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The tiny houses at 141-143 Vanderbilt are from the 1830s

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No. 141 Vanderbilt

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Drip moldings around windows and pierced verge board detailing at the roofline
are typical of the neo-Gothic style, like that of the houses at Nos. 117 and 119, seen here in a 1940 photo.
Part of No. 121 Vanderbilt is also visible at right.

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119 Vanderbilt (center)

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Lots of front porches mean lots of columns and lots of capitals, like these Egyptoid ones at No. 102 Vanderbilt

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The striking, gable-ended houses at 92-94 Vanderbilt show the variety of later siding on the block, unpopular in the landmarks fraternity

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76 Vanderbilt

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Federal style detail at 73 Vanderbilt

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69 and 71 Vanderbilt

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No. 69 is battered by noise and vibrations from the adjacent Brooklyn-Queens Expressway

slide show (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/11/realestate/20100411scapes_ss.html?ref=realestate#1)

THE little 1830s house at the foot of Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn is beyond wrecked — it’s close to wreckage. It’s at the end of one of the most unusual blocks in Fort Greene, from Myrtle Avenue to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a wide downhill boulevard flanked by Greek, Gothic and Italianate houses, an amazing salmagundi of the constructive arts.

The gentle descent begins with the tiny pair of houses at Nos. 141 and 143, certainly from the 1830s or earlier. Their lumpy wooden porches and unruly front plantings, rivaling the houses themselves in size, give the two a piquant touch of New Orleans decay; Blanche DuBois may stumble out the door at any moment.

Jumping across to the even numbers on the west side of the street, a rare triplet of Gothic-style houses from the 1850s, at Nos. 128 to 132, confirms that this block of Vanderbilt is unusual. Although they are altered, early photographs indicate that they had delicate little brackets under the peaked gables.

The standout row-house group on the street, at least in masonry, is the Gothic-style pair at 117 and 119. Built in the 1850s, they have mellow, irregular red brick facades — indeed so irregular that they were probably at first covered with stucco. The drip moldings around the windows and the verge-board — pierced wooden trim — at the cornice line make these a particular pleasure to contemplate. The 1870 census lists the occupant of No. 119 as Thomas Sperry, “Hoop Skirt Manufacturer,” who gave the value of his house as $6,000.

Vanderbilt descends directly to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and census and directory listings are redolent of salt air, with Sandy Hook pilots, sea captains, caulkers and similar occupations; the 1888 Brooklyn city directory finds Henry A. Kloeppel, shipmaster, resident at No. 117.

Vanderbilt is a street of columns and capitals, and the yellowish houses at Nos. 98 and 100 have a joint porch with a Doric portico, probably of the 1850s. One house has fish-scale shingles, the other aluminum siding; it is likely that both were originally clapboarded. No. 102 has some fine capitals, tending toward the Egyptian more than any Classical order.

Two more gable-end houses of Gothic styling survive at 92 and 94 Vanderbilt. No. 92’s decay ventures beyond the charming into the alarming, with its falling-off siding and collapsing front stoop. Photographs from the 1940s indicate that it, too, had intricate verge-board trim, and show a delicate Gothic-style window at the top. It is a pity they are gone.

At the same time, the asbestos-like shingle siding, perhaps from the 1940s, is a tour de force, vertical stripes in maroon, gray and other colors, like a weird 1950s blazer. It would be a tragedy to lose that, too.

In 1854 an ad in The Eagle offered No. 92 for lease with seven rooms, an attic, a “woodhouse,” gas, speaking tubes and “water in kitchen,” all for $200 per year.

The low-stoop brownstones at Nos. 80 to 86 were built in 1878 as an investment by the Pratt family, whose mansions are not far away on Clinton Avenue. If you like the romance of decay, prepare to propose to No. 84. Not only is it delaminating and flaking, but in places its blocks themselves are heaving out of line. Some have been secured with blobs of roofing tar, an endearingly innocent repair.

The sizzling electric blue shingles of No. 76 contrast nicely with the demure Federal-style house across the street at No. 73, built in the 1830s. The sharp-edged floral carving on the wood panels over the doorway of No. 73 is impossibly intricate, and by rights should have rotted out decades ago, but looks sharp enough to open an oyster.

Next door, the little two-story house of around 1850 at 71 Vanderbilt was completely rebuilt in the 1980s and is now a brilliant white, although most of the facade, including the columns, is invented. But the owner who renovated it in the 1980s lovingly kept the worn wooden threshold at the front door, cupped like the marble steps on a Greek temple. Over it walked the guests at a 33rd birthday party for Willis Van Duyne, a ferry master, in 1889. The Eagle reported that the house was “ablaze with lights and gayety.”

The house at the foot of the block, No. 69, looks near collapse, with dingy asbestos-type siding, broken windows and a sagging porch. The house is well known to the Department of Buildings, which ordered it vacated in 2009. The owner’s listed telephone numbers are either disconnected or don’t answer.

The New York Landmarks Conservancy has had No. 69 on its endangered list for years. There are only two ways it could get off the list, and right now it’s more likely to go feet first.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/realestate/11streets.html

Merry

April 11th, 2010, 12:04 AM

She’s the One Holding the Keys

By ROBIN FINN

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By design, there is no “For Sale” sign staked outside the formidable 12-room colonial-style house at 225 Marlborough Road in Brooklyn’s historic Prospect Park South neighborhood. The pale stucco home, built for the long haul in 1922 but lately a bit under the weather, is in need of someone to coddle it. But Mary Kay Gallagher, the woman charged with finding that someone, is not interested in drive-by gentrifiers who might be seduced by its location and curb appeal.

Signs, Ms. Gallagher said, attract attention-wasting voyeurs, not serious buyers. She can discern the difference in a heartbeat. Psychology is a big part of the real estate game.

“A sign is a sign of desperation,” she said simply, definitively.

If Ms. Gallagher, who began referring to some sellers as greedy back in the Gordon Gekko-esque 1980s, cannot say it with authority, she does not say it. Every syllable is a declaration: “I’m honest, and not everybody in this business is.”

Mary Kay Gallagher got into real estate as a kind of civic duty, to help find responsible guardians for the shingled, gabled and columned behemoths in her own backyard. Forty years later, at 90, having become wealthy by selling — and reselling — these homes on what used to be seen as the wrong side of Prospect Park, Ms. Gallagher still envisions the business that way. If the lovely but too often unloved landmark homes of Victorian Flatbush outlive her intact, she can die a happy woman.

Not yet, though. She’s busy making up for last year’s comatose sales.

Despite her age and recent double knee-replacement surgery, Ms. Gallagher remains the heart, soul and boss of the boutique real estate firm that bears her name. She specializes in — detractors say monopolizes — the 2.5 square miles bordered by Prospect Park, Avenue H, Coney Island Avenue and Ocean Avenue, commonly called Ditmas Park (though it is actually 12 microneighborhoods, whose distinctive qualities she will happily expound upon). It is her turf, and she guards it with the bellicose vigilance of a junkyard dog. Julie Kestyn, a longtime competitor with her own eponymous firm, called her an icon.

“Mary Kay was the broker who, in the white-flight days when the neighborhoods all around Brooklyn were going down, helped keep this neighborhood good,” said Ms. Kestyn, who is 66 and lives in Midwood. “I get along with her, but there are people who don’t. She’s tough. I’ve been waiting for her to retire for the last 23 years, but why should she?”

Ms. Gallagher — grandmother of nine, great-grandmother of four — works out of the barn-red, seven-bedroom house at 196 Marlborough that she and her husband bought for $29,500 in 1959. It is a privilege granted decades ago by the state licensing board after she lectured officials on why that made perfect sense: houses like hers on blocks like hers are what she markets, so why waste anybody’s time in an anonymous office on some busy boulevard? She was instructed to post her broker’s plaque in a front window, which is where it remains. She is coy about her commission, but insists it is lower than the going rate of 5 or 6 percent, and she says she always reduces it on sales above $1 million because “enough is enough.”

Some say Ms. Gallagher saved this time capsule, composed of sprawling one-family homes, no two quite alike, from being chopped up into boarding houses or infiltrated by apartment buildings. Others say she unfairly steered minority buyers from the best properties. Ms. Gallagher, a nightly devotee of Bill O’Reilly, is no diplomat, and sure, her best friends (most of them dead) were white. And yes, she tends to grill prospective owners like a one-woman co-op board.

“But I sell to blacks, to Asians, to Republicans; I sell to Jewish people, even though I would make a bad Jew because they have too many rules,” Ms. Gallagher said. “I don’t think I’m racist. I don’t say I’m such a good Catholic, either, but I know I’m not a bad one.”

The stucco at 225 Marlborough was the first house she ever sold, in 1970, for $59,000, to a doctor who wanted to walk to work from his own Victorian-style home down the block. He ripped out the kitchen, turned the elegant first floor into an office suite and the second into an in-law apartment. Forty years later, after his death, his family — naturally — retained Mary Kay Gallagher. Asking price: $890,000 (reduced to $850,000).

“I want to sell it to someone who restores it back to a one-family home,” she said after an open house that failed to net an offer. “But what I want, I don’t always get. Buyers these days don’t want to do any renovating. Especially if both the husband and wife have jobs. Who has time to sit around waiting for the contractor? They want things to be perfect, even in an old house.”

Ms. Gallagher, who grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, one of five children of a leather salesman, got into real estate quite unintentionally at age 50. She was married with six children, that big house to keep up, and a hard-won tennis membership in the hitherto WASP-only Knickerbocker Club. But she was civic-minded. And the antithesis of a shrinking violet.

As suburbia beckoned many of the middle-class white families that had populated the Flatbush area, the minority population surged to 20 percent in 1970 from 2 percent in 1960 (today, it is 58 percent black, 21 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian), and blockbusting by brokers wanting to repurpose the area became a viable threat. Once the so-called Old Guard moved out, what mattered to her was replacing them with owners who cared enough and could afford to maintain their properties and preserve the neighborhood’s aesthetic. In 1970, Elliot Miller, then president of the Prospect Park South Civic Association, convinced Ms. Gallagher that she had the chops to recruit people like herself and her husband, Jack, who ran his family’s funeral home business on nearby Church Avenue. He told her to regard it as a community service. She did, and does.

“I don’t sell houses, I show them,” she said. “I push, but I’m not pushy. I push up the neighborhood. I don’t pull those real estate agent stunts. I live here. I care who moves in, because what happens to these houses matters to me.”
She never imagined it would make her a millionaire. In 2004 she became the first to sell a home in Victorian Flatbush for seven figures — a yellow palace on 17th Street that went for $1.17 million. Her most expensive listing ever was the Tara look-alike on Albemarle Road for $4.2 million in 2005 — she said she was relieved when it failed to sell. “It was a ridiculous price,” she admitted. “I knew people were saying, ‘What’s she been smoking?’ ”

In 2007, her best year, her company grossed more than $1 million.

Ms. Gallagher was one of the ringleaders pushing for Prospect Park South’s landmark designation, which it gained in 1979, the first of five of the area’s microneighborhoods to do so. Vinyl siding and bricked-over facades, along with the invasion of corporate real estate firms that delved deeper into Brooklyn in sync with rising property values, are the bane of her existence. When This Old House magazine ranked Ditmas Park among the top dozen places to buy an oldie in the United States, it seemed almost a tribute to her life’s work.

“Corcoran and those other ones who come over here from Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope are a thorn in my side, but I still have the best houses,” she said. “Most people who want to buy or sell a house in this neighborhood know enough to come see me. I am a resource. No one knows this neighborhood like I do.”

She is, as her granddaughter and heir apparent, Alexandra Reddish, observed, “essentially a brand.”

“This is her whole life,” noted Ms. Reddish, 30. “It’s not just one big transaction.”

A handful of young people eager to trade the convenience of brownstone Brooklyn for the space and grace of Victorian Flatbush were on the forlorn doorstep of 225 Marlborough by 1 p.m. on a recent Sunday for the open house. A few brought their checkbooks.

“Hello, I’m Mary Kay,” Ms. Gallagher hollered into the expansive foyer. She wore an ancient cardigan, baggy corduroys and sensible shoes. On bad-knee days like this one, she is the downstairs docent while grandchildren act as tour guides of the upper floors.

Though the original sale helped secure her a broker’s license, she was never totally happy about it. Undoing the changes made by the doctor and restoring the home’s original integrity will, she said, be daunting and expensive. “Here, take a brochure and a map,” she commanded all who walked in, generous with both handouts and opinions on the home’s untapped potential. “You’re going to have to use your imagination on this first floor, but take down these Sheetrock walls, put in a kitchen, and look at the space you’ve got. Oak parquet. Original moldings. A fireplace!”

Heads nodded, and a bunch of imaginations proceeded to engage in renovation pipe dreams, apparently undaunted by the asking price or a backyard that cozies up to subway tracks. “There is a little bit of noise from the back,” she acknowledged. Later, she explained, “I don’t want to kill the sale, but you have to be honest with people about what they’re getting into.”

It reminded Ms. Gallagher of the young man who showed up with a magnet and a marble to see a century-old house: “I don’t remember what the magnet was for, but he told me he brought the marble to test the floors: if it rolled at all, it meant the house was flawed.” Ms. Gallagher told the young man it was idiotic to think that houses don’t settle a bit in 100 years. Occasionally it can be worth losing a buyer.

In 2009, Ms. Gallagher’s firm sold seven homes, the fewest of any year since she began. She has sold two so far in 2010 — 694 East 17th Street, for $1.075 million; 1409 Glenwood Road for $925,000 — plus a co-op apartment, and has contracts signed on two more houses and another apartment. The market, she said, is “coming up.”

The first open house of the year, on Valentine’s Day, was at 722 Argyle Road, a vacant spring-green Victorian-style home listed for $995,000. Ms. Gallagher stood guard in blue baseball cap, vintage camel’s hair coat and beat-up leather gloves: the heat would not work, even for her.

But she plowed on, apologizing to visitors with an indignant shrug toward the balky boiler in the basement and extolling the virtues of the place: “So much breathing room! And a turret!” She got two offers that day and recently sent it into contract for $910,000.

Her listings are posted on her handsome, modest Web site — she says she created the first Brooklyn real estate site, in the late 1990s — and elsewhere online. But she said she relied as much on word of mouth, which is how she found her own house half a century ago: by chatting up a local homeowner after becoming disenchanted with the (male) real estate agent showing her around. She maintains that men make lousy real estate brokers because they do not pay attention to their clients’ wish lists, which in her case specified a driveway (she kept getting parking tickets in Prospect-Leffert Gardens), a serious front porch and closet space for a family of eight.

Ms. Gallagher faithfully backs her blue 2005 Mercedes E320 into that driveway, a maneuver that inspires equal parts awe and incredulity among her neighbors, many of whom bought their homes from her.

“We were wandering through the neighborhood checking out the houses and we ran into an elderly couple who asked if we were looking to buy a home,” said Amy Glosser, who with her husband, Janno Lieber, bought a seven-bedroom home three doors down from Ms. Gallagher’s in 2000. “When we told them we were, they said, ‘Then you must see Mary Kay Gallagher: she’s the mayor of the neighborhood.’

“Mary Kay is like old wine, full of contrasts; she’s wonderfully direct and charming at the same time,” added Ms. Glosser, a 44-year-old mother of three. “But she was the only one selling houses here in the ’70s and ’80s, when people couldn’t bail out fast enough. The old-timers all attribute the stability of this neighborhood to her.”

Inside Ms. Gallagher’s home are two computers and two land lines. There are phones in every room — yes, including the three and a half bathrooms. Ms. Gallagher gripes about being available 24/7 for “Nervous Nellie” buyers and sellers, but said that her only real regret about her career is that it forced her and her husband to give up Jets season tickets: she has always worked Sundays.

Her concession to the chronological reality of being 90 is a motorized chair that whisks her upstairs. Her children insisted she have it installed after her knee replacements last year. For Christmas, she bought herself a 50-inch plasma television to watch sports.

“The oldest thing in this house is me,” she said, settling into a recliner (the house itself was built in 1903). “I never used to tell people how old I was because I thought it might hurt the business. Nobody believes I’m 90, anyway.”

She has lived here alone since her husband died of a heart attack in 2001, and said she would leave feet-first: “You’d never get me into a condo, and anyway, my family would die if I ever sold this house.” She estimates it could sell for $1.2 million — the 1960s kitchen and baths could use some updating.

Ms. Gallagher’s first intended successor, her daughter Eileen Cullen, worked alongside her for 10 years before her death from breast cancer in 2005.

“We really worked well together, and after she died, I thought, ‘Oh, this is it for the business; I can’t handle it alone,’ ” she said. “But Alexandra picked it up right away; she’ll be Mary Kay Gallagher Real Estate someday. Or she can call it whatever she wants.”

Ms. Reddish said she did not plan a name change. “In the first place, my grandmother is going to live forever. And in the second place, they didn’t change the name Corcoran, did they?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/nyregion/11marykay.html?ref=nyregion

Merry

July 23rd, 2010, 10:02 PM

Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn

By JAKE MOONEY

slide show (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/07/25/realestate/20100725liv_ss.html?ref=realestate)

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Sterling Street

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Adjacent to Prospect Park

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Maple Street

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Rogers Avenue

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Sterling Street

KIMBERLEE AULETTA grew up in Midtown, and for a long time Manhattan was where she imagined she would stay. Despite family roots in Brooklyn, where her father had grown up, she had never really considered moving there.

But time brought a few epiphanies. The first came in a late 1990s winter, when friends who had moved to Brooklyn invited her to a Christmas party. It was at their house in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, on Maple Street, which has as many trees as the name implies. Ms. Auletta, now 40, was in her 20s. As she recalled recently, “I just couldn’t believe that they owned a house.”

She later moved to Park Slope, that quintessential first step from Manhattan, and got married. But she never quite forgot the house, where her friends still lived. Last year Ms. Auletta — having, apparently after another epiphany, left a job at her father’s public relations company and graduated from a theological seminary — gave birth to her first child. Soon after that, she and her family finally joined her friends in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, buying a single-family brick house on Rutland Street in the neighborhood’s historic district.

The advantages, she said, are obvious: a location adjacent to Prospect Park, attractive tree-lined blocks of houses and prewar apartment buildings, and the sense of community that comes from living in a place where the scale is small, turnover is low and neighbors greet one another on the sidewalk.

The neighborhood is not cheap. Ms. Auletta would not disclose what she paid, but real estate records show that similar houses in the historic district, generally the most expensive, sell for around $1 million. Still, residents say that for an area so close to the park, they own a lot for their money.

“We bought a whole brownstone for the price of a one-bedroom in Park Slope,” said Carrie McLaren, who has owned a two-family house on Hawthorne Street for almost five years, and blogs at hawthornestreet.com. “And,” she added, “we have rental income, because we have a tenant.”

Hakim Edwards, an associate broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman and a resident, says a long history of homeownership — some of the area’s African-American and Caribbean families have lived there since the 1960s — creates a pleasant sense of familiarity.
“You know most of your neighbors, you see them every day, you talk to them,” he said. “It’s been like that for years. It’s probably one of the friendlier neighborhoods that you’ll find.”

Ms. Auletta said residents’ tendency to stay put was a big part of the area’s appeal. Her family is no exception: She and her husband, Eric Landau, who works for the Prospect Park Alliance, are expecting their second child. Their son, Beckett, is 14 months old. And she likes the way residents respond to shared challenges.

“It’s a very, very strong community where there are active block associations, active neighborhood associations,” Ms. Auletta said. “Where you really feel that people’s involvement makes a real difference.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

Pearl R. Miles is district manager of Community Board 9, which covers the 11-block-long, 5-block-wide area. She describes it as predominantly residential, with most of the roughly 30,000 residents leaving to go to work. The largest nearby employers, she said, are in the complex of hospitals just east of the area, Kings County Hospital Center, SUNY Downstate Medical Center and Kingsboro Psychiatric Center among them.

The main commercial strip is Flatbush Avenue — a relatively leafy stretch of that thoroughfare, but one that many residents still wish had more to offer. Mr. Edwards said commercial rents there had climbed too high for most small businesses to afford. Ms. McLaren said the strip had been hurt by unresponsive absentee landlords, and by the lack of a business improvement district — a group that promotes the well-being of a commercial district in exchange for fees from business owners.

Apart from Flatbush, retail corridors are Nostrand Avenue, typically busy only around the subway stations, and Rogers Avenue, which can feel desolate even at midday.

The greenest blocks in the neighborhood are closer to Flatbush. Most of the historic district is in an enclave called Lefferts Manor, an early development between Flatbush and Rogers Avenues where restrictive covenants require most houses to remain single-family dwellings.

Even so, there are plenty of apartment and co-op buildings — many along Flatbush Avenue, but some sharing blocks with detached houses on streets like Lefferts Avenue and Lincoln Road. A number of the buildings along Ocean Avenue, facing the park, are prewar rentals and co-ops. New construction is rare in the area, but some condominiums have been built around its fringes recently, including a 30-unit building at 2114 Bedford Avenue, just over the southern boundary.

One project now going up is in a busy section. A company called Park Tower secured permits in June to build a 24-story, 88-unit building next to the Prospect Park subway stop at 510 Flatbush Avenue. Just downstairs, in a building surrounded by the project’s L-shaped site, is K-Dog & Dunebuggy, a coffee shop that is a hub for new residents.

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

Alyssa Morris, a vice president of the Corcoran Group who is Ms. Auletta’s neighbor on Rutland Street, says prices for single-family houses range widely, from around $700,000 up to $1.3 million. Two-family houses, she said, cost around $900,000 — more if they are in the historic district, and less if they are smaller or need more work.
Mr. Edwards says that because the neighborhood is small and stock is relatively limited, price ranges vary based on subtle factors.

“If you’re on Maple between Bedford and Rogers,” he said, “you’re paying a different amount than if you’re on Rutland between Bedford and Rogers. It all depends on the block, it depends on the architecture, and it also depends on the quality of the renovations you’ve done.”

For condos and co-ops, Ms. Morris said, two-bedrooms range from just over $300,000 to $450,000, depending on size. A check of Craigslist showed one-bedroom rentals between $1,200 and $1,400 a month, and two-bedrooms at $1,500 to $1,700.

WHAT TO DO

On the western border, Prospect Park — at 585 acres, according to the Park Alliance — is the largest attraction nearby, with its lake, ice-skating rink and zoo near three large entrances on Parkside Avenue, Lincoln Road and Empire Boulevard. The park’s Audubon Center, near the Lincoln Road entrance, features exhibits dedicated to wildlife preservation and nature education. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is just northwest of the neighborhood, adjacent to the park, with an Empire Boulevard entrance.

THE COMMUTE

The B and Q trains stop on Flatbush Avenue, both at the Prospect Park stop, in the northwestern corner, and at the Parkside Avenue stop, to the southwest. The Nos. 2 and 5 trains run under Nostrand Avenue, to the east, stopping at Sterling and Winthrop Streets. The Q, 2 and 5 trains all typically run express when they enter Manhattan. Finally, the Prospect Park stop is home to a shuttle line that connects to the 2 and 5, and to the C train at Franklin Avenue. The trip to Midtown takes roughly 40 minutes.

THE SCHOOLS

Elementary students are zoned to attend one of five public schools, all of which received A’s on their most recent city progress reports: Public Schools 91, 92, 161, 375 and 397.

Some middle school students are zoned for Ebbets Field Middle School, where 40.1 percent tested proficient in English last year, 70.8 percent in math. Others attend either Middle School 61, on Empire Boulevard, or No. 2 on Parkside Avenue. At No. 61, 70.4 percent were proficient in English and 69.4 percent in math. At No. 2 the numbers were 50.7 percent in English and 56.8 in math.

The nearest public high school is Medgar Evers College Preparatory School, on Carroll Street in Crown Heights. It scored an A on its most recent progress report, with SAT averages of 457 in reading, 474 in math and 449 in writing. State averages were 435, 432 and 439.

The Lefferts Gardens Charter School, which will teach kindergarten through fifth grade in an environmental science program, will begin operating at Public School 92 in September, admitting children from all over the city.

THE HISTORY

The land that is now Prospect-Lefferts Gardens was farmland before residential construction began there in the 1890s, continuing into the 1930s. The historic district, which includes Lefferts Manor and a few blocks to the northeast along Lefferts Avenue and Sterling Street, was designated in 1979.

As for Lefferts, the name originates with a 17th-century Dutch settler, Leffert Pietersen van Haughwout, whose family retained the land for centuries. One descendant, Peter Lefferts, was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Another, James Lefferts, sold the land to develop row houses. The name was officially conferred on the neighborhood in 1969.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/realestate/25living.html?_r=1

Merry

July 31st, 2010, 03:42 AM

It wasn't clear exactly where in Brooklyn is is (anyone?).

Not very good for the building probably, but it looks lovely.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4132/4835587444_8972d56385_b.jpg

http://brooklynanthropology.blogspot.com/

BrooklynLove

July 31st, 2010, 09:54 AM

Caption says Sunset Park waterfront. This is probably in the vicinity of the Bush Terminal warehouses. My pops worked there back in the day.

Merry

August 1st, 2010, 08:09 AM

Here 'tis (large image):

Brooklyn Army Terminal Warehouse, 58th Street (http://www.michaelminn.net/newyork/infrastructure/sunset_park_waterfront/2008-07-10_13-45-22.jpg)

Very handsome building.

Brooklyn Army Terminal

The Brooklyn Army Supply Base (also known as the Brooklyn Military Ocean Terminal) was built in 1917-1918. It one of seven such facilities created to handle increased overseas shipping demand during the first World War when the limitations of the existing commercial facilities quickly became obvious. Bush Terminal owner Irving T. Bush made initial studies for the base based on both his own experience with his facility and a municipal plan from 1906 that had never been realized. Quartermaster General George W. Goethals had overall responsibility for construction...Lots of pics of Sunset Park (http://www.michaelminn.net/newyork/infrastructure/sunset_park_waterfront/)

Merry

September 3rd, 2010, 11:36 PM

Sea Gate, Brooklyn

By C. J. HUGHES

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A view of the southern shore beaches. Sea Gate has a wide range of home styles,
though its numerous Mediterranean-type houses, with curvy roofs and red tile,
help to heighten the community’s seaside feel.

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FOR New Yorkers who don’t make it out to the far western edge of Coney Island too often, Sea Gate might be more familiar as the skinny thumb of land that appears below window seats during some takeoffs from Kennedy International Airport.

But getting into the neighborhood by land is another story. True to its name, Sea Gate is a gated community, surrounded by beaches. Although this type of secure enclave may be unusual in an urban setting like New York City, its 832 homes seem no less exclusive than their suburban counterparts. Drivers will have a hard time getting past the checkpoints at the 90-acre community’s only two entrances, on Surf and Neptune Avenues, without the sticker given to residents.

Mark Koganov, a builder, enjoyed a sneak peek in the mid-1990s when delivering lumber for a construction project. On jobs around the region, like in Connecticut, he had come across gated communities, “but it seemed kind of weird there was one here,” he said.

Surprise soon gave way to amazement as Mr. Koganov found 19th-century mansions nestled by modest brick midcentury styles on streets that seemed much calmer than Midwood, Brooklyn, where he was renting a two-bedroom. And a few years later, when it came time to buy, that first impression tipped the scales toward Sea Gate over Marine Park and Sheepshead Bay.

Today, Mr. Koganov, 46, and his family live in part of a two-family house, with five bedrooms and two full and two half baths, that cost $400,000 in 2002, though he put in an additional $70,000 for new windows, doors and a deck. The other unit belongs to Mr. Koganov’s mother, Sofia.

It is not uncommon for multiple generations to live under one roof in Sea Gate, where families stick around for decades. Renee Levinson, for instance, moved into an apartment in her parents’ house in 1963, after getting married, and has lived within a few blocks of that address ever since.

And today, Ms. Levinson, 68, plays host to her own son, David, in a red-brick 1920 house with 2,000 square feet of space. Like many properties it seems to have been constructed for a single family but was subsequently divided up, which means decades of renters have left rooms worse for wear.

Ms. Levinson even rented out the home for 17 years after buying it in 1983 for $80,000, so when it came time to relocate there herself, in 2000, she had to invest $100,000 to redo the bathrooms, replace all 32 windows and paint the walls. Recently, she said, it was appraised at $475,000.

While homes may be improving with age, what hasn’t changed is the serenity that comes, perhaps, with a carefully controlled environment. “I still don’t feel like I’m New York,” she said, “because if somebody talks outside, it’s like they’re disturbing us.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

With a nearly continuous ring of sand around Sea Gate’s perimeter, the beach is never far away, though it’s far wider in some places than others.

A jetty built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1995 at West 37th Street to replenish Coney Island’s shoreline actually pulled sand away from the southern edge of Sea Gate.

Yet some of that sand wound up on the neighborhood’s northern shore, creating a series of rippling dunes where waves once splashed against seawalls.

A popular place to view that shore is “Lindy Park,” named for Charles Lindbergh. Ships can also be seen hauling checkerboard stacks of containers under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Most beachgoers who want to swim, though, head to the end of Beach 42nd Street, where residents can pay for a pass to get access to a shore with a pair of concrete former gun mounts from World War II.

The seaside feel in Sea Gate is heightened by a number of Mediterranean-style homes, whose curvy roofs recall Spanish missions. One whose deep eaves are topped with bright red tiles stands at Lyme and Highland Avenues, while the rounded dormers a few steps away recall the profile of the Alamo.

Other exuberant historic styles include Queen Annes, like the one with a turret and ample shingles on the property of the 75-foot Coney Island Lighthouse. It was the former home of Frank Schubert, the country’s last civilian lighthouse keeper, who died in 2003.

While rentals abound, there’s just one true apartment building, at Sea Gate and Poplar Avenues. And condominiums were nonexistent until a few years ago.

Once a stopover for sailing aristocrats like Astors and Vanderbilts, Sea Gate has seen its ethnic makeup shift over the years.

Mr. Koganov, who emigrated from Azerbaijan in 1993, is part of a wave of ethnic Russians that has moved to the neighborhood, according to the Sea Gate Association, which owns the neighborhood’s public spaces. Other residents are from Belarus, Poland, Romania and Ukraine, according to the 2000 census.

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

In late August, there were 13 properties for sale, from a $349,000 two-bedroom condo to a $1.5 million two-family house. Brokers say the number is actually high, because turnover is so rare and inventory low.

Similarly, the first six months of 2010 were also busy, with four sales at an average of $580,000 and seven contracts pending, according to Rich Schulhoff, the chief executive of the Brooklyn Board of Realtors, using data from the Brooklyn New York Multiple Listing Service.

At that pace, 2010 will surpass 2009, when five homes sold for an average of $484,000, and even the boom year of 2007, when seven homes sold at an average of $528,085, according to the data.

What gives some buyers pause is that homeowners must pay annual dues to the Sea Gate Association to cover security, street maintenance and park upkeep, which are 13 percent of assessed home value and comparable to one’s property tax bill.

But that “double tax” should be weighed against prices, which are lower than in comparable areas like Mill Basin, said Natalia Tandler, a broker with Fillmore Real Estate. Indeed, from January through June, 21 homes sold there for an average of $761,047, the listing data shows, which makes Sea Gate about 25 percent cheaper.

Plus, “Sea Gate was never a commercial area like other places, so there was no garbage dumped that can lead to health problems,” Ms. Tandler said. “We’re ecologically clean.”

WHAT TO DO

There are no stores “in the gate,” as locals refer to it, just a few food vendor trucks, like the yellow-and-white one with ice cream on a recent morning near the beach entrance.

Another, with an American flag draped over its hood, sold sausage and pepper sandwiches ($6.50) from a parking lot behind the Nova Gymnastics Center, where young girls played foosball.

The Sea Gate Beach Club, whose striped beachside cabanas cost $4,995 a season if shared between two families, has 2,000 members, but most of them are from elsewhere. The club, whose members have use of special magnetized gate keys, closes for the summer season this weekend.

THE SCHOOLS

The closest elementary school is Public School 188, where 33 percent of fourth-graders this year met standards on the English state exams, while 53 percent did in math.
At top-performing Intermediate School 239, meanwhile, 84 percent of eighth-graders met standards in English and 95 percent did so in math.

At Abraham Lincoln High School, which enrolled 2,533 students last year, the graduation rate is about average, at 61 percent in 2009, which was up from 50 percent in 2005.

On last year’s SATs, students averaged 432 in math, 411 in reading and 401 in writing, versus 502, 485 and 478 statewide.

THE COMMUTE

The nearest subway stop, which offers D, F, Q and N trains, is about a mile and a half away, though the B36 and B74 buses deliver commuters there from the neighborhood’s gates.

There’s also the X28 express bus to Midtown Manhattan from Neptune. On weekday mornings, five buses leave from 6 to 8:01 a.m. for a 1-hour-and-20-minute trip, for $5.50.

THE HISTORY

Once known as Norton’s Point for the owner of a casino where the lighthouse stands today, the neighborhood was developed in 1892 by Alrick Man, according to Charles Denson, the author of “Coney Island: Lost and Found” (Ten Speed Press, 2004).
But a seedy image may have persisted, as a 1917 brochure to lure buyers promised that patrols kept out “peddlers, beggars, picnickers, hurdy-gurdies and other jarring factors,” the book says.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/realestate/05living.html

Merry

September 24th, 2010, 08:29 AM

The Williamsburg Special: From hipster haven to hotspot, this nabe is an NYC real estate draw

BY Jason Sheftell

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Forget the hipster stigma, housing crisis, lack of schools and stunted condominium projects. For style, culture, food, music and livability, Williamsburg might be the best neighborhood in the United States, surpassing the East Village, West Village and Silver Lake in Los Angeles as the place to build a young, creative life.

If Williamsburg plays its cards right, and local business, real estate and political leaders think strategically about growth, parts of it could exceed Melrose Ave. and South Beach in defining cool for the fashion, design and young celebrity set, who have slowly marked their territory with stealth rentals, new boutiques and condo purchases.

First, let's stop talking about it as one neighborhood. It's six, with areas as distinct from each other as the upper East Side is from Tribeca. Williamsburg is so huge that if you picked it up and placed it over lower Manhattan, it would stretch from Houston St. to the tip of the island.

Ethnically, it's as diverse as any place in the city, with 80-year-old Italians who have lived there all their lives, multiple Latino nationalities, trendy twentysomethings, growing families, high-tech gearheads and artists and musicians sticking it out as once-desolate streets radically change every six months. Around here, though, the old guard doesn't mind newcomers who bring vitality, youth, energy and style to wide streets that overflow with sunshine due to the mostly low-scale architecture.

WHY NOW?

Something worked here. It might have been a rezoning program that emphasized taller buildings on the waterfront and highly trafficked streets, while protecting the three-story residential neighborhoods inland. It could be the affordable rental prices that appealed to young adults moving to New York for the first time from cities as close as Philadelphia and as far as Sao Paulo, Brazil. It might have been cheap retail that drew new restaurants like Fette Sau to an old garage on Metropolitan Ave. or Brooklyn Bowl to an old warehouse on Wythe Ave.

It might have been all of the above, but developers and residents are as high on these streets as anywhere else in the city right now.

"There is no doubt that Williamsburg is and will continue to be the hottest neighborhood for the 25- to 35-year- old demographic for the next 10 years," says Jeff Levine, CEO of Douglaston Development, builder of the Edge, the 1,000-plus unit, mixed-use complex on the waterfront. "For fashion, arts, entertainment and now for home buying, there is no finer place in New York. It has it all and it can only get better."

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Merry

October 9th, 2010, 03:57 AM

Borough Park, Brooklyn

By GREGORY BEYER

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The view down New Utrecht Ave with the D train running overhead

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The neighborhood is home to one of the largest Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish populations in the United States

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IN late September, during the final days of the weeklong holiday of Sukkot, young boys in white shirts and black hats could often be seen lining the streets of Borough Park, a large neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn. Standing behind folding card tables arrayed with long, thin willow branches to be waved in synagogue, they called out in Yiddish, hoping to attract customers from among the crowds of shoppers who exited, bags in hand, the kosher markets of 13th Avenue.

The neighborhood is home to one of the largest Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish populations in the United States — “the Jewish capital of the United States” and a “kosher utopia,” according to David G. Greenfield, who lives and works in Borough Park, in addition to representing it in the City Council.

Religious tradition and ritual touch nearly every aspect of neighborhood life. During Sukkot, sidewalks and apartment balconies sprouted sukkahs, the traditional wooden booths commemorating the structures that ancient Israelites lived in after their exodus from Egypt.

Borough Park’s commercial strips, 13th and 16th Avenues, are lined with independently owned businesses, many of them religious-themed. The few chain stores — Rite Aid, Duane Reade, the Children’s Place — are closed on Saturdays in observance of the Jewish Sabbath.

Although Orthodox Jews make up the majority of Borough Park’s residents, other groups are represented. Residents like Amy Sicignano, who was brought up amid the neighborhood’s considerable Italian and Irish populations, have ended up acquiring an appreciation of Orthodox rituals.

Ms. Sicignano, 63, has a childhood memory of her parents’ being asked to turn on the lights in Orthodox neighbors’ houses on Saturdays. The reason for such requests — the Orthodox rule prohibiting the operation of anything mechanical or electrical on the Sabbath — remained a mystery to her until adulthood, when she gained familiarity with Orthodox traditions and holidays through a job in a neighborhood flower shop.
“Living in Borough Park is living in another world, really,” she said.

Borough Park (sometimes written Boro Park) is about 200 blocks in area, and has a population of more than 100,000, census figures show. The abundance of children, and strollers, is a striking feature of street life — a reflection of the Hasidic tradition of raising large families. And the 711-bed Maimonides Medical Center, which abuts Borough Park, is said to deliver more babies than any other hospital in New York State, according to Eileen Tynion, a spokeswoman. In 2009, 7,704 babies were delivered; Ms. Tynion said projections for 2010 exceeded 8,000.

In addition to its abundance of independent stores, Borough Park demonstrates its self-sufficiency through a variety of all-volunteer service groups. In September four members of Shomrim, a volunteer security patrol, were wounded by gunfire in a confrontation — an unsettling anomaly in this generally low-crime neighborhood, residents and officials say.

There is also Chaveirim, a free service much like AAA, for residents who find themselves with a flat tire or locked out of their houses. Aron Kohn, Chaveirim’s founder and director, said its hot line received about 150 calls a day.

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

Bounded by Fort Hamilton Parkway to the west, 60th Street to the south, McDonald Avenue and Bay Parkway to the east, and McDonald Avenue to the north, the neighborhood is home to more than 300 religious institutions, according to Councilman Greenfield. Most are Jewish: yeshivas and synagogues abound, some of them huge, their exteriors bearing Hebrew signage, others smaller and less noticeable.

But there are also exceptions, like St. Frances de Chantal, a Roman Catholic Church on 58th Street, delivering Masses in English and Polish; a statue of Pope John Paul II stands out front.

“There are four houses of worship on my block,” said Mendel Zilberberg, a lawyer who lives with his wife, Zissie, and children, 9 and 10, in a six-bedroom house on 55th Street. Mr. Zilberberg is involved with several area schools and social organizations, as well as his synagogue, across the street from his home.

“In a community like this, which is really set up to help its fellow man,” he said, “you cannot simply be on the receiving end.”

The typically large family size is reflected in the housing. Although there are some detached single-family homes, they are far outnumbered by large brick multifamilies. (In recent years, these have spread beyond the neighborhood’s southern boundary on 60th Street.) With space at a premium, three- and four-story homes are common, and many are built out nearly to the sidewalk. “Every square inch is being utilized here,” Mr. Greenfield said. In neighboring Bensonhurst, the contrast is evident: there is simply more space between houses, many of which have front yards and landscaping — rarities in Borough Park.

In 1968, after moving out of her childhood home on 51st Street, Ms. Sicignano moved five blocks away into her current house, a five-bedroom two-bath single-family previously occupied by relatives.

Ms. Sicignano, whose husband died eight years ago, put her house on the market in May, at $849,000. The thought of leaving Borough Park pains her, she said, but she would like to be closer to her son and his family on Long Island.

Jack Favaloro, who grew up in the area and owned an electronics repair store on 11th Avenue, remembered a street of detached and semidetached houses. “It’s like day and night,” he said. “Now it’s wall-to-wall brick houses, three and four stories high.”

Mr. Favaloro, who is in his late 50s, now lives in Staten Island. A few months ago he learned of the Facebook group “Old Boro Park Brooklyn,” and visits the site two or three times a week, to chat about the area and view photos posted by other former residents.

Karol Joswick, the assistant district manager of Community Board 12, described affordable housing as a perennial concern. In August, the City Planning Commission approved a proposal for the construction of about 68 units of affordable housing on the site of a former elevated subway line in the north of the neighborhood. The plan awaits the City Council’s review.

Other changes are afoot. An application has been filed with the Department of City Planning for the conversion of Maple Lanes, a bowling alley, into 116 residential units and a synagogue, a department spokeswoman said.

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

Brokers and residents say Borough Park prices are largely recession-proof. Since observant Jews must live within walking distance of their synagogues, demand is high. Detached single-family houses and semidetached multifamily houses routinely fetch more than $1 million, said Charles Fabbella, an agent with Ben Bay Realty Company of Bay Ridge, though smaller apartments in the $300,000 to $400,000 range can be found. The average list price in the neighborhood is $773,000, Mr. Fabbella said, adding that about 20 properties are currently listed. Homes average 30 to 45 days on the market; last year, he said, the selling process would often last more than six months.

In recent years, Asian-Americans have been buying homes in the neighborhood, brokers say. Still, the majority remain Orthodox Jews, in large part because children tend to settle close to their parents, said Joseph Devito, an agent for Fillmore Realty.

WHAT TO DO

There are dozens of shops and restaurants on the commercial thoroughfares of 13th and 16th Avenues: schnitzel bars; the fast-food restaurant Kosher Delight; hat and wig shops; men’s and ladies’ clothing stores; maternity shops. Eichler’s, a “Judaica superstore,” is stocked with music, children’s books, clothing, and framed photographs of prominent rabbis. Toys include the Jewish Viewer, a viewfinder with slides showing scenes from Jewish history.

The Living Torah Museum, on 41st Street, exhibits ancient artifacts.

The Brooklyn Public Library branch is on 43rd Street at 13th Avenue.

THE SCHOOLS

In addition to the wealth of yeshivas and religious schools, public elementary schools include Public School 164 Caesar Rodney, on 14th Avenue, serving prekindergarten through Grade 5. Last year 52.5 percent of fourth-graders met standards in English, 78.3 percent in math, versus 45.6 and 58.4 citywide.

Among the closest public middle schools is Junior High School 223 the Montauk, on 16th Avenue, serving Grades 6 through 8. Last year, 35.9 percent of eighth-graders met standards in English, 53 percent in math, versus 37.5 and 46.3 citywide.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, on 20th Avenue, serves Grades 9 through 12. SAT averages in 2009 were 390 in reading, 489 in math and 387 in writing, versus 434, 458 and 432 citywide.

THE COMMUTE

Borough Park is served by the F and D trains; it is about 30 minutes from Midtown Manhattan. Bus lines include the 16, which runs along 13th and 14th Avenues, and the 11, which runs along 49th and 50th Streets.

THE HISTORY

The neighborhood’s first synagogue was built in 1904, and the construction of the elevated New Utrecht Avenue train line — now the D — fueled the area’s growth after World War I.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/realestate/10living.html

Merry

October 29th, 2010, 11:04 PM

Red hot Red Hook: Out-of-the-way Brooklyn nabe is a draw all on its own

BY Jason Sheftell

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A look at a peaceful corner of Pioneer St in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

RED HOOK AT A GLANCE:

SEE: Van Brunt St., Fairway, art galleries and shops, the waterfront and old houses on Coffey St. and Pioneer St. Also: Red Hook Park & Atlantic Basin.
EAT: The Good Fork, 391 Van Brunt St. & Red Hook Lobster Pound, 284 Van Brunt St.
BUY: Erie Basin, Folk art and 19th-century jewelry, 388 Van Brunt St.
TRANSIT: A/C/F to Jay St. and transfer to the B61 bus or F/G to Smith St. and walk or transfer to the B61. Water Taxi runs from Wall St. Pier 19 to Ikea; free on weekends, $5 weekdays.

Conservative real estate speculators and house hunters used to think of Red Hook as too out of the way, too hard to get to and too raw for any serious cash commitment.
That's changing quickly, as this little hamlet jutting into the harbor like Brooklyn's big toe offers the closest thing to small-town, almost affordable, living anywhere in the five boroughs.

As the New York City waterfronts continue to explode and thrive as the best places to live in town, Red Hook can only get better.

Spending time here is like being in a Nantucket fishing village. It's on the water, close enough to almost touch Governors Island. People ride bikes all over normally empty streets, and four garden centers keep it more green than other combination industrial and residential areas.

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Baked is just one of the many shops along the ever-changing Van Brunt Street.

Small restaurants and boutiques selling hand-made jewelry and bizarre antiques, such as 17th-century elementary-school desks, pop up around corners. Painted signs on warehouse walls point to Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies, a local shop.

Cruise boats that dock nearby are in constant motion, and the ferry to Ikea from Wall St. maneuvers the seashore like a pesky bumblebee. The B61 bus ambles along quiet streets, running from downtown Brooklyn to Prospect Park with stops in Cobble Hill, Park Slope and Windsor Terrace.

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A look inside the Mercado, the outdoor food station where you can get authentic Mexican food.

Small city parks adjoin antique radio towers, giant satellite dishes and boat-repair shops. One house still has a wooden, thick-wired pulley above a second-floor window. It was once used to hoist bushels of produce to a storage space above the ground-floor office. All this makes for strange-but-true urban eye candy.

On the waterfront, the Fairway market is next door to one-story art galleries and workspaces. Lofts above Fairway have large windows opening on New York Harbor. Huge, with 18-foor ceilings, these spaces start at $3,500, available from the O'Connell Organization, a family-owned development group that brought Fairway to the area.

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The path behind the Fairway Supermarket is lined with benches for waterfront relaxing. (page 2)

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vanshnookenraggen

November 2nd, 2010, 01:42 PM

Red Hook might be the best neighborhood to live in if you want to be in NYC but never go into the city.

Merry

December 6th, 2010, 07:10 AM

Where Prices Are Practical, and Cuisines Colorful

By GREGORY BEYER

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IN August, Debra Kayman bought her first home, a two-family on Ashford Street in Cypress Hills, in the East New York section of Brooklyn. She came to the United States from Trinidad and Tobago in 1985, living in East Flatbush with family until her move to Cypress Hills in 1988. There she rented a succession of apartments, including one on Arlington Avenue near the stately Arlington branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, built a century ago by the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.

Ms. Kayman’s house, which consists of a four-bedroom owner unit and a two-bedroom rental, cost $424,831; she lives there with her fiancé and her 13-year-old daughter, and works in Fort Greene as an education assistant for the New York City Board of Education.

She has never considered leaving Cypress Hills, despite East New York’s reputation for crime — a reputation reinforced last month when the Police Department identified the precinct that includes East New York as one of three with the biggest increase in robberies.

Ms. Kayman says she has never felt unsafe. On the contrary, she enjoys browsing the specialty shops along Fulton Street, with their foods and merchandise evoking the richness of distant countries whose immigrants make up much of the community: Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana.

Over the years, various efforts and changes have helped Cypress Hills vanquish much of the blight and danger Ms. Kayman alluded to. But the specter of that past still lingers, especially among longtime residents and activists, who are only now beginning to see a return on their investment.

“When we go back two decades ago,” said Assemblyman Darryl C. Towns, a lifelong resident whose district includes Cypress Hills, “there were issues in regard to public safety, the infrastructure was crumbling. But we have solidly turned that around, and there is a vibrant new feeling out here in this area. It’s no longer a community of last resort. It’s a community of choice.”

Among the agents of change is the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, founded in 1983. It is responsible for more than 300 units of affordable housing, and has 200 more units now in progress, said Michelle Neugebauer, the corporation’s executive director.
Ms. Kayman is one who has benefited. Her home would have cost an additional $140,000 without subsidies from the city and the local group.

It also works with merchants to improve the retail corridor along Fulton Street, and collaborated with the city Department of Education to create a new school, Public School 89 Cypress Hills, which opened in September and serves students through Grade 8.

“It’s always been a first-homeownership kind of place,” said Bishop David Benke, an activist who since 1974 has been the pastor of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church on Highland Place. “A lot of people come here wanting to push their kids through school, people who want the best for their families. They’re first- or second-generation immigrants, and the young-adult crowd that follows is usually very dedicated to family.”

His more than 30 years in Cypress Hills have provided glimpses of this ethic from a previous era — German and Irish immigrants who once, he says, operated an abundance of ice cream shops in the neighborhood — as well as among the currently dominant Latinos.

Lance Wenceslao, 65, who was born and raised in the area in a Catholic family, said the Cypress Hills of his youth, “quiet and bare,” had become “a far more vibrant Hispanic neighborhood.” Mr. Wenceslao retired to Georgia in 2002, but only recently put his house on the market; his grown children lived in it after he moved. The colonial, on Barbey Street, is listed at $400,000.

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

Occupying a little more than a square mile, and wedged just south of the mass of cemeteries that separates Brooklyn and Queens, Cypress Hills is home to more than 40,000 people. Although neighborhood contours are often a subject of contention, its boundaries are described by the Encyclopedia of New York City and the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation as the Queens border to the north, Atlantic Avenue to the south, Pennsylvania Avenue to the west and Eldert Lane to the east.

From the vantage point of Jamaica Avenue, the expanse of cemeteries to the north, with Queens on its far side, offers views of mausoleums, headstones and markers, along with huge brick arches and abandoned buildings.

As Bishop Benke put it, “Our neighbors to the north are very quiet.”

Fulton Street is a mix of barber and beauty shops, bodegas and storefront churches beneath the rusted yellow elevated tracks of the J and Z trains. Latino restaurants proliferate as one moves eastward: takeout joints; sprawling seafood places advertising Saturday-night karaoke; Salvadoran pupuserías, where men gather over a lunchtime Presidente beer to the soundtrack of unwatched Univision soap operas. Eventually, the tracks diverge from Fulton Street and begin a northward curve, giving riders a close-up of the cornices of otherwise anonymous buildings.

“We’re starting to see a lot of redevelopment of our commercial strips, making it more exciting and viable for the next generation of homeowners,” said Assemblyman Towns, noting that Cypress Hills was not yet a “Starbucks community.” (While residents elsewhere might wish for fewer Starbucks outlets, Mr. Towns implied that if one arrived, it would be a key marker of progress; he noted with pride that the local Dunkin’ Donuts offers WiFi.)

The development corporation occupies several storefronts along Fulton Street, and has helped bring in businesses like a day care center and a sporting goods store.

In January, Javier N. Solis opened a new franchise of Los Taxes, a tax preparation company with a mostly Hispanic clientele, in one of the development corporation’s Fulton Street buildings. Mr. Solis, who lives in Queens and has worked in Cypress Hills for about 15 years, recalled more dangerous days.

“I had the cellphone number for a D.A. in the narcotics division,” he said, adding that in the 1990s he would alert the official to suspicious activity.

To speak to residents and business owners is to hear stories of progress made, work yet to be done and protectiveness of the community’s image.

“We had to work to better the neighborhood,” said Wilson Piña, who owns a travel agency, the Atlas Travel Group, as well as the Highland Driving School. He cited the variety of restaurants, affordable shopping and convenient transportation as reasons people are increasingly willing to stay. “This is not a bad neighborhood,” he said. “This is a good neighborhood.”

WHAT YOU’LL PAY
“It’s such a diverse area, in terms of housing types,” said Raymond Parasmo, a broker with Fillmore Real Estate. In the southern portion, blocks are lined with attached houses; as one travels north, the land inclines and detached houses become more common, including large ones near Highland Park, bordered by metal fences or brick walls.

Single-family houses are priced from $275,000 to $350,000, brokers say, and two-families start around $400,000. Houses tend to linger four to six months, as they did last year, said Cirilo Rodriguez, a broker with Charles Rutenberg Realty. Recent buyers have been from the Dominican Republic and Ecuador.

Rentals are scarce, said Lassaad Messai of Best Way Home Realty. Some can be found in multifamily homes, one-bedroom units for about $1,000 and two-bedrooms for about $1,250.

Mark Kerr, an agent with Fillmore Real Estate, said prices in Cypress Hills and surrounding areas were down 15 to 20 percent over the last year or so.

THE COMMUTE

The J and Z trains serve Cypress Hills; commuting to Midtown Manhattan takes about 50 minutes. Area buses include the 56, along Jamaica Avenue, and the 24, along Atlantic Avenue.

WHAT TO DO

The Arlington branch of the Brooklyn Public Library went up in 1907, one of the original libraries built by Carnegie. The split-level building has various wooden staircases leading to reading rooms, one of which has a nonfunctioning brick fireplace.

The 141-acre Highland Park has tennis courts and a synthetic turf field for football and soccer that opened in 2009.

THE SCHOOLS

Elementary schools in the general area include Public School 108 Sal Abbracciamento, through Grade 5. Last year 39.1 percent of fourth graders met standards in English and 66.4 percent in math, versus 45.6 and 58.4 citywide.

Junior High School 302 Rafael Cordero teaches Grades 6 through 8. Nineteen percent of eighth graders met standards in English, 18.5 percent in math, versus 37.5 and 46.3 citywide.

Franklin K. Lane High School, on Jamaica Avenue in Woodhaven, Queens, serves Grades 9 through 12. SAT averages last year were 353 in reading, 379 in math and 341 in writing, versus 439, 462 and 434 citywide.

THE HISTORY

About 380,000 people are interred in Cypress Hills Cemetery, according to “Cypress Hills Cemetery,” by Stephen C. Duer and Allan B. Smith, published in September. Among them are Mae West and Jackie Robinson.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/realestate/05Living.html

Merry

December 14th, 2010, 06:30 AM

How it's changed!

Park Slope Plane Crash | The Neighborhood in 1960

By EMILY S. RUEB

Park Slope Plane Crash | Were You There? (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/park-slope-plane-crash-were-you-there/) Emily S. Rueb

Park Slope Plane Crash | A Collision in the Clouds (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/park-slope-plane-crash-the-lede-all/) James Barron

The Boy Who Survived a 1960 Midair Crash (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/the-boy-who-survived-a-1960-midair-crash/) Libby Nelson

Park Slope Plane Crash | How it Happened (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/park-slope-plane-crash-how-it-happened/) Patrick McGeehan

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/12/10/nyregion/10cityroom-parkslope-crash/10cityroom-parkslope-crash-blog480.jpg
Meyer Liebowitz/The New York Times Sterling Place, just west of Seventh Avenue, in 1961.

Edwardianand Victorian row houses were scarred with peeling paint, broken windows and missing stoop stones. Scavengers pilfered abandoned or burned-out homes for radiators and brass pipes to sell as scrap metal. Residents called a group of rat-infested buildings on Prospect Park West a “serious blight” and a breeding place for “prostitution, crime, vice, narcotics and immorality.”

In 1960, The New York Times called Park Slope a neighborhood “in transition (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/cityroom/201012_CRASH_ARTICLES/transition.pdf).” (pdf) But residents who were there, or had grown up with the Tigers and the Garfield Boys, the roaming teen gangs described in Pete Hamill’s memoir “A Drinking Life,” might say that the newspaper’s description was generous.

“It was a neighborhood seriously in trouble,” said the former State Assemblyman Joe Ferris, who also served as the president of the Park Slope Civic Council. One of the worst areas, Mr. Ferris said, was a stretch of row houses on St. John’s Place that looked as if it had been bombed with heavy artillery.

That was the Park Slope where a mortally damaged jet came to rest on Dec. 16, 1960, after hitting another passenger plane over Staten Island. It was a place both similar to and remarkably different than today’s neighborhood of restored brownstones; indeed, to those who lived there 50 years ago, the Park Slope of today is nothing short of a miracle.

Back then, one wary store owner, a florist on Flatbush Avenue, kept a can of lye behind the counter to protect herself in the event of a robbery.

The predominantly Irish and Italian middle-class residents were feeling the squeeze of a countrywide economic downturn. Banks had red-lined the area, citing underground streams and a lack of off-street parking as reasons not to lend. The Federal Housing Administration was not backing mortgages in the whole borough, which meant that even middle-class couples looking to buy could not get financing. Lured by the promise of a cheap house with a yard for their children and a driveway for their car, many families migrated to Long Island. Many of the managers at Dime Bank, the Williamsburg Savings Bank and others lived out there, too.

“Brooklyn was, in their mind, the land of crime, gangs and arson,” Mr. Ferris said.

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Meyer Liebowitz/The New York Times Sterling Place near Seventh Avenue after the plane fell, 1961.

Speculators — also called “blockbusters” — were eager to buy up single-family homes and chop them into smaller units for rent. Some buildings were divided into as many as eight units, with parents and children packed into half a floor. Shaken residents who were afraid of changes in the neighborhood were coaxed, or even scared, into selling their homes by agents who ominously suggested they should get out before things got even worse.

“There was still a great deal of racism in our society and it was an easy card to play, particularly with some of the older people here who had never had any experience with integration,” said Bill Jesinkey, a former school teacher who was active in several neighborhood groups that worked closely with the civic council. “The idea that there wouldn’t be all white families on the block was a completely new idea.”

According to the Department of City Planning, 93.4 percent of the population was white. The median family income was $5,782 ($43,457 in 2010 dollars), which was slightly lower than the Brooklyn average. And only 18 percent of residents owned their homes, compared with about 33% in 2000.

Construction workers, teachers and secretaries worshiped beside the white-collar accountants, lawyers and judges who also lived there. Churches kept their doors open, even on weekdays, and Sunday services were so crowded that latecomers were relegated to the stoop. They organized dances and acted as facilitators for the neighborhood.

Tom Miskel, who grew up on Eighth Street near Seventh Avenue, recalled how priests at St. Francis Xavier engaged teenage troublemakers, in particular, ones that were setting fire to dry pine trees after their owners had thrown them out after Christmas, with activities like community service and fund-raisers for the church.

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Meyer Liebowitz/The New York Times. Seventh Avenue looking toward Sterling Place in 1961.

But there were perhaps even more bars than churches in the neighborhood, particularly along Seventh Avenue. Louis Poggioli, born in northern Italy, served a middle-aged clientele for 24 years at his tavern, James’s, on Seventh Avenue. He recalled pouring drinks for Hugh L. Carey, who was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1960 and later became governor, at 2 a.m. Mr. Poggioli did not allow babies in his bar. He did not even like serving the younger folk.

“They don’t spend money,” he explained.

When the plane came down, cartwheeling up Sterling Place, destroying a church and several buildings, it was a psychological blow to the community. “You shook your head,” Mr. Ferris said.

Residents of that Park Slope who are still alive today winced at a sub-headline that appeared in The New York Times on Dec. 17 (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/cityroom/201012_CRASH_ARTICLES/transition.pdf):

“Sterling Place, An Area of Run-Down Houses, Ripped Asunder by Crashing Plane.”

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/park-slope-plane-crash-the-neighborhood-in-1960/

Merry

January 14th, 2011, 08:02 PM

Clinton Hill: Brooklyn neighborhood blooms in a residential and retail awakening

It can be compared to the Harlem *Renaissance of the 1920s. Right now, before our very eyes, Clinton Hill is undergoing an explosion of culture, arts, retail, food and neighborhood improvement that in 50 years may be considered one of the most important community-inspired growth periods since legendary activist Jane Jacobs saved the West Village and SoHo in the 1960s.

Call it the Clinton Hill Revival, where a combination of factors — namely people and persistence — have come together to catapult this once-checkered area into one of the most attractive, affordable and interesting urban neighborhoods in the United States. For young families, historic house hunters, artists, foodies or people who just love the city (and not merely the clean streets of Park Ave., hipster heaven of Williamsburg or soccer-mom den of Park Slope), Clinton Hill delivers the top block-by-block living experience in New York.

Here's the how, who and why that make this Central Brooklyn enclave a magical, spiritual and affordable place to live.

The streets: Some resemble tiny corners of Paris. Others feel like Fifth Ave. circa 1910, or paintings of New Orleans in 1850. Some are pure Brooklyn, with brownstones built with cornices, stoops and window sills that repeat in architectural symmetry for what seem like miles. Others look almost Amish. You can turn the corner and run into an urban barn.

There are mews, mansions, townhouses, carriage houses, clapboard wooden homes with front porches set off by center stairwells and columns, warehouse loft buildings and Greek Revival apartment complexes in the middle of blocks. An old pharmacy with original fixtures is now a classic Italian restaurant named Vino e Olio, where the menu changes daily. Even decayed wrought iron gates, eroding with time, add a rustic, simple charm.
Brownstones, some rehabs, are on the market for $745,000. One-bedrooms in apartment houses built in the 1940s for the upper middle class can be had for $1,300.

Two-bedrooms cost less than $1,600, with three-bedrooms available below $3,000.
Then there are the mansions. Huge mansions, built by the Pratts, who founded and funded the country's leading art school, and industrial giants. They lend the feel of regal London or peaceful Vienna.

"The area always had a fancy feel," says Brian Merlis, a photo archivist who just came out with a book, "Brooklyn's Clinton Hill and Wallabout." "It was a getaway for the rich in the 1830s, who built villas through the 1870s, when it was discovered by the industrialists who built the mansions you see there today. One nice thing, after the African-American migration of the 1940s, the local population couldn't afford to make many changes to the homes, which is why the architectural integrity remains. The faces may have changed, but the structures never did."

2 (http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2011/01/14/2011-01-14_clinton_hill_brooklyn_neighborhood_blooms_in_a_ residential_and_retail_awakening.html?page=1)3 (http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2011/01/14/2011-01-14_clinton_hill_brooklyn_neighborhood_blooms_in_a_ residential_and_retail_awakening.html?page=2)4 (http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2011/01/14/2011-01-14_clinton_hill_brooklyn_neighborhood_blooms_in_a_ residential_and_retail_awakening.html?page=3) 5 (http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2011/01/14/2011-01-14_clinton_hill_brooklyn_neighborhood_blooms_in_a_ residential_and_retail_awakening.html?page=4)

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A mansion on Clinton Ave., 1922

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Rose and Sculpture Garden at Pratt Institute

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275 Clinton Ave

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Carriage houses, like this one at 266 Waverly Ave., are common in Clinton Hill also

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305 Washington Ave.

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81 Vanderbilt Ave

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http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2011/01/14/2011-01-14_clinton_hill_brooklyn_neighborhood_blooms_in_a_ residential_and_retail_awakening.html

edwardalmost

January 20th, 2011, 06:17 PM

Merry

January 21st, 2011, 07:44 PM

New Cityscape, in Search of Green Space

By JAKE MOONEY

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The entrance to Root Hill, a coffeehouses on Fourth Avenue

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THE bad news first: Walking down the northern stretch of Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, you will still have to squint very hard to see it as the borough’s version of Park Avenue in Manhattan. That comparison, which boosters have been making in recent years as the corridor has come to life, is still aspirational — especially so against the backdrop of taxi depots and gas stations that still make up much of the streetscape.

The good news: Fourth Avenue has better skyline views and easier-to-reach subway stations than the object of its envy in Manhattan, as well as a growing string of bars and cafes. In any case, supporters mainly invoke Park Avenue because of Fourth Avenue’s width and medians — though trees are scarce. In truth, the corridor is hard to compare even to the adjacent neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, Gowanus and Park Slope. The avenue has developed its own character — and that, some of its hundreds of new residents say, is just fine.

Its defining event, so far, was a rezoning that allowed construction of buildings up to 12 stories tall, in exchange for capping heights in the rest of Park Slope. Developers responded with a string of tall residential projects, roughly bounded by Atlantic Avenue to the north and the Prospect Expressway to the south. Some opened quickly; others were delayed by the economy. Now, people in the area say, enough new residents have arrived to make Fourth Avenue feel like a changed place.

Michael Cairl, the president of the Park Slope Civic Council, called the avenue his neighborhood’s next frontier, though it is generally considered Park Slope’s western border.

“Things are changing in small ways and in big ways,” Mr. Cairl said. “We’re looking at how we might introduce more trees to the street. We’re very encouraged at how many businesses, primarily restaurants and bars, are choosing to open on Fourth Avenue. Clearly there’s a demand, and a real Fourth Avenue community is emerging.”

Two new members of that community, as of August, are Charlotte Yan Whitney and her husband, Mark, who bought a one-bedroom condominium in the Argyle Park Slope, a 60-unit building at 251 Seventh Street, on the Gowanus side of the avenue.

The couple, who moved from the East Village, looked elsewhere in Brooklyn, Ms. Whitney, 32, said. What brought them to Fourth Avenue, she said, was convenience — to her husband’s computer-programming job in Gowanus, and to the subway that runs under Fourth Avenue and stops at Ninth Street, getting her to work in Lower Manhattan in just over 20 minutes.

The traffic outside their window, and the vibrations from the R train under the avenue, can be distracting, she said. But Park Slope’s restaurants, on Fifth Avenue, are a short walk away, and Prospect Park is easily reachable on warm weekends. The couple paid around $400,000, Ms. Whitney said, and they may soon be looking again, as she is expecting a baby in February.

“That would be the only thing to maybe have us move,” she said. “But as long as my husband’s job is in this area, and we’re along some good subways, we probably won’t move far.”

They are optimistic, too, she said, that new residents will further enliven the area. Besides established buildings like the Novo Park Slope, at Fifth Street, and the Crest, at Second Street, newcomers include 500 Fourth Avenue, with 156 units, and 560 Carroll Street, with 44.

Joseph DiFiore, a broker with Awaye Realty in Carroll Gardens, said that with each new building the avenue’s popularity had grown. “They’re hard to get started, it’s hard to sell to the first people,” he said. “But all of a sudden, once people see other people living there, it’s pop-pop-pop, like popcorn.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

The avenue, Mr. Cairl said, has several distinct sections. The part from Pacific to Union Street has the busiest nightlife; from Union to Third Street, there are larger old buildings and former industrial properties; and south of Third Street, the adjoining blocks form a quiet zone of row houses.

He said community groups were making progress. At Sackett Street, the city Department of Environmental Protection is in talks about setting aside part of a large empty lot it owns for community uses like a garden. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, with financial help from the borough president’s office, is moving toward reopening a long-shut second entrance to the subway station at Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street. That would save hundreds of commuters from having to cross the busy avenue each day.

Craig Hammerman, the district manager of Community Board 6, which represents the area, said the board had a longstanding budget request for improvements to the medians, including plantings and protective bollards.

Improvements to the drainage system will be slower in coming, he said. Being near the bottom of the hill that gives Park Slope its name, Fourth Avenue has tended to flood in heavy rains. At Carroll Street, the owners of the Root Hill Café installed concrete flood barriers after a storm brought water several feet deep. A new city drainage plan is in the works, Mr. Hammerman said; but it’s probably years away.

Finally, he cited efforts to overcome one failure of the avenue’s rezoning: At the time, developers were not required to build ground-floor retail space, which he said had left some new buildings with troublesome dead zones out front.

Difficulties aside, agents at newer buildings say they are seeing strong demand, in part because condos are rare in the overall area. Karen Smith of Prudential Douglas Elliman, the sales director at 500 Fourth Avenue, said the building was more than half sold, with Upper West Side buyers drawn by the proximity to Prospect Park. At 560 Carroll, which started selling in December, Deborah Rieders of the Corcoran Group said she had a long waiting list; many are drawn to the expansive view of Manhattan beyond low-rise Gowanus.

“It’s not like living right on top of the park, as far as your curb appeal is concerned,” Ms. Rieders said. But she added that even if “center Slope is more beautiful, in terms of its tree-lined-ness,” Fourth Avenue’s transportation “has always been a pretty big draw.”

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

At the two new buildings, and for the remaining units in the Argyle, prices for one-bedrooms range from just over $400,000 to more than $600,000. Two-bedrooms list for $700,000 to $900,000; three-bedrooms, depending on the building, approach or exceed $1 million.

Ms. Rieders says prices per square foot at 560 Carroll range from $550 to $950, depending on floor, size, layout and view. In any building, views west, toward Manhattan, cost more.

Rentals are available, too, both new and old. At 126 Fourth Avenue, a rental near Baltic Street, two-bedrooms have gone for $2,500 to $3,000 a month, one-bedrooms for closer to $2,000. Units on Craigslist can come a bit cheaper: a recent scan showed one-bedrooms on the avenue at $1,700 and up.

THE SCHOOLS

The northern stretch of Fourth Avenue passes through several school districts; the side of the street also dictates the school zone. Among primary schools on the avenue is Public School 124, between 13th and 14th Streets, where last year 48.1 percent met state standards in English, 57.9 percent in math. Middle schools include No. 447, on Dean Street between Third and Fourth, where 74.1 percent met standards in English, 83.8 percent in math. The Brooklyn High School of the Artsshares a building with the middle school. SAT averages last year were 416 in reading, 417 in math and 425 in writing, versus 439, 462 and 434 citywide.

WHAT TO DO

In addition to the dozens of nightlife options nearby on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, there are more attractions than ever in Gowanus. The Bell House, a concert site on Seventh Street between Second and Third Avenues, has a new neighbor, the nightclub Ultraviolet. On Fourth Avenue itself, destinations include Café 474 and Root Hill for coffee, the Rock Shop for live music, and the Fourth Avenue Pub and Mission Dolores — in a converted auto-repair shop — for drinks.

Green space is in short supply, though Washington Park, between Third and Fourth Streets, has handball courts and a new artificial turf field, and Prospect Park is not a bad walk uphill, for the motivated. One day a year in November, Fourth Avenue offers some of the liveliest viewing spots in town for the New York City Marathon.

THE COMMUTE

The R train runs locally. The N, the express train on the same line, stops at Pacific Street before continuing on to Sunset Park. The F and G trains also serve the area.
The avenue is wide and inviting for drivers, though rush-hour traffic can be slow. The Prospect Expressway offers quick access to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is not far to the west.

THE HISTORY

Fourth Avenue has been a street, in one form or another, since Brooklyn was founded. The area near the present-day Washington Park was pivotal in the aftermath of the Revolutionary Battle of Brooklyn; just over a century later, the Brooklyn Dodgers (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/b/brooklyn_dodgers/index.html?inline=nyt-org) played some of their earliest games on the same land.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/realestate/23living.html?_r=1&ref=realestate

Merry

March 11th, 2011, 10:55 PM

You’ll Notice There’s a Bridge

By C. J. HUGHES

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71st Street

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Shore Road

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Third Avenue, Verrazano Narrow Bridge in background

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Owls Head Park

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76th Street

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90th Street

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Colonial Road

THE Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is inescapable in Bay Ridge, its lofty silhouette a constant presence on block after block.

It would be understandable for someone like Susan Brown, a lifetime resident, to feel ambivalent about the bridge, since she recalls all the big changes that its construction in the 1950s occasioned for her family and friends.

Workers building the stretch of freeway leading up to it demolished a swath of homes near Seventh Avenue, which forced some of her grade-school classmates to move away for good. On top of that, construction on the Staten Island side of the Verrazano, which is still one of the world’s longest suspension bridges, resulted in the destruction of a beloved family vacation bungalow. She remembers the abrupt end of a ritual that used to take place regularly on the 69th Street Pier as her family waited for a ferry to take their car over: Her father would give her a box of Cracker Jack, with instructions not to open the box until the boat was under way.

Yet the girdling of Bay Ridge with that new road was one of several changes that ended up knitting the community closer together, she says, giving it a stronger sense of place. Not to mention the dazzle of the bridge on the horizon, added Ms. Brown, who lives in a three-bedroom limestone row house that cost $46,800 in 1969 but that she estimates might bring $850,000 today.

Indeed, when she drives home at night after taking in baseball games on Coney Island, she says, “you see the Verrazano all lit up like some kind of jeweled necklace.”

Tony Manero, the character played by John Travolta in the Bay Ridge-based 1970s hit “Saturday Night Fever,” may have dreamed of ditching his movie home for Manhattan. But Ms. Brown, who has more or less lived her life within a five-block area, has plenty of company in her devotion to Bay Ridge, according to brokers, local officials and residents themselves. Many maintain a fierce loyalty to their address.

Not that new faces never turn up. Many are from elsewhere in Brooklyn, longing for the types of tidy two-story row houses that are found in Park Slope but unwilling to pay its steep prices.

Among the newcomers is Tiffany Hamilton, who teaches American history at a public high school in Bensonhurst. Last January she and her husband, Loni Berman, who were renting a one-bedroom near Ms. Hamilton’s school, paid $620,000 for a two-story row house like Ms. Brown’s.

Ms. Hamilton’s house, which has three stained-glass windows, would have cost more than $1 million in Park Slope, she said. It had been in the same family for two generations, and its interiors were severely dated, with dropped ceilings and paneling. The couple spent $100,000 on renovations, she said.

Beyond the architecture, they are enamored of the nightlife. Before, in Ms. Hamilton’s corner of Bensonhurst, there was “only one bar; it was really scary.” Nor did Kensington, where she also looked, seem to have many sites for socializing. And she might have a point. Bay Ridge has 113 places to grab a drink, according to state figures for the 11209 ZIP code, which covers most of Bay Ridge, while Kensington, in 11218, has 34.

A favorite is a Welsh bar, the Longbow Pub and Pantry, which shows soccer matches.

Like the neighborhood, she says, it’s lively but never too much so. “It’s great because you can go out and have fun with your friends one night,” she said. “But you can also just go out with your husband and family for a walk, too.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

Shaped like a guitar pick, Bay Ridge covers three square miles next to New York Harbor, with a population of about 80,000, according to census figures. In the middle of the last century there were many Scandinavian immigrants in the mix; in 1969, the city renamed part of the Belt Parkway “Leif Ericson Drive” to honor Norse heritage.

Today the area has roughly equal numbers of residents with Italian and Irish ancestry, according to census surveys conducted from 2005 to 2009. Also, the surveys indicate, 9 percent describe their background as Arabic.

The neighborhood has mostly absorbed Fort Hamilton — the area around the Army base south of 86th Street, which is Bay Ridge’s busiest commercial strip — while at the same time becoming distinct from places like Sunset Park. Highways including the Belt have helped engender some of these changes.

The landscape of mostly single-family homes has a pleasing uniformity about it, enhanced especially by the row houses whose alternating round and squared-off bays, topped by colorful cornices, create an eye-catching tableau along 73rd Street.

Other row houses have mostly flat facades, as on a different block of 73rd (across from Flagg Court, a full-block complex that is now a co-op). Those patches of stylistic sameness have much to do with the way Bay Ridge was developed in the 1920s and 1930s.

Which is not to imply a lack of variety, exemplified in the standalone colonials on Ridge Boulevard, and in the homes at the end of a cul-de-sac on 76th Street, the site of a steeply gabled chateau. Other dead-end streets, including Bay Cliff and Wogan Terraces, are filled with Tudors, evoking suburbia.

Co-ops are numerous, many with courtly names and Art Deco flourishes, like the brown-brick-striped Grately Hall, on Fourth Avenue. There is also a scattering of condominiums.
A new one, the 22-unit Pier Pointe, crowns the corner of Shore Road and 69th Street, a vantage point for views of the Statue of Liberty. A one-bedroom there is listed for $349,000.

New condos would probably have been more plentiful if zoning hadn’t been tightened in the late 1970s, after the arrival of the Towers of Bay Ridge, two hulking Mitchell-Lama apartments.

And in 2005, again to battle development, Bay Ridge strictly limited the amount of square footage that builders could squeeze onto lots. As a result, many neighborhood sidewalks remain bathed in light.

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

A recent look found 28 single-family homes for sale, at an average of $1.06 million, ranging from a simple two-bedroom, with views of the Verrazano’s cables, to a six-bedroom 1910 colonial on an elegant block, for $3.5 million.

The 27 co-ops on the market range from $99,000 to $209,000; other properties for sale include a handful of condos and multifamily houses, brokers say.

Bay Ridge never really had a fallow period in the 1970s, like other parts of Brooklyn, brokers say, because there was never an exodus of families.

Similarly, they add, demand has remained strong through the slump of the last few years. Last year, 76 single-family homes sold, at an average of $812,000; at the peak, in 2007, 99 sold, at an average of $841,000, city data show.

Another factor in the area’s price stability is the buoyancy of the market next door in Sunset Park, said Michael J. Davis, an associate broker with RE/MAX Metro and a lifelong Bay Ridge resident. “I personally can’t ever see myself leaving,” he said.

WHAT TO DO

The wooden pier of Ms. Brown’s childhood is now made of concrete, but it still beckons at the end of 69th Street, to which a well-paved bike path also connects. From the pier, people fish and gawk at enormous anchored freighters.

Century 21, the predecessor of the popular Lower Manhattan discount store, still draws crowds on 86th. And Arabic restaurants, which acknowledge the area’s burgeoning Lebanese and Egyptian populations, are tucked along lower Fifth Avenue, in the 70s.

THE SCHOOLS

Public School 185, which runs through fifth grade, is an option. Of fourth graders last year, 83 percent met standards in math, 72 percent in reading.

Intermediate School 259 has 1,400 students. Of eighth graders last year, 73 percent met standards in math, 49 percent in reading.

Fort Hamilton High School has a 71 percent graduation rate, which tops the city average of 63 percent. SAT averages last year were 486 in math, 416 in reading and 409 in writing, versus 462, 439 and 434 citywide.

The area also has numerous parochial and private options.

THE COMMUTE

The R train underneath Fourth Avenue gets commuters to Midtown in about 45 minutes. A number of interborough bus lines serve Bay Ridge, including the B63, the B64 and the B70. The x27 express bus, which runs along Shore Road, takes about half an hour to reach Lower Manhattan.

For budgetary reasons, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority decided last summer to curtail weekend service on this line and altogether eliminate the x38, which went to the East Side of Manhattan. Since then a substitute line, the x27b, has been added, but many riders say their commute time is twice as long, because the x27b takes a more circuitous route.

THE HISTORY

The federal government, worried after the War of 1812 that European nations might invade, built Fort Hamilton at the mouth of New York Harbor in 1831. It remains the city’s only active military base, though the people buzzing around tend to be with the Army Corps of Engineers, or recruiters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/realestate/13Living-bay-ridge-brooklyn.html?_r=1

Merry

March 15th, 2011, 09:33 AM

Ditmas Park Keeps Getting Rediscovered

By JOSEPH DE AVILA

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Cortelyou Road

Brooklyn's Ditmas Park has seen a wave of new residents arrive in recent years, with newcomers drawn by the area's burgeoning food scene, picturesque homes and bucolic suburban qualities. Large free-standing homes with driveways, garages and even pools offer more space for a fraction of the price seen in Park Slope or other parts of Brownstone Brooklyn.

The new arrivals are just the latest generation to appreciate Ditmas Park, said Hal Lehrman, a broker and who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 20 years. "It's not a renaissance," Mr. Lehrman said. "People seem to keep rediscovering the neighborhood, but it's been there."

There are only a few retail and entertainment options in Ditmas Park since the area is still primarily residential. But Cortelyou Road, one of the main drags in the neighborhood, has basic necessities like grocery stories and pharmacies and a number of new restaurants.

Ditmas Part sits south of Prospect Park and just north of Midwood, Brooklyn. The neighborhood derives its name from the Van Ditmarsen family, one of the early Dutch farming families who settled in the area in the late 17th century.

Suburban development in the area began to take off at the start of the 20th century, thanks to transportation improvements connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan, the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge and the construction of Prospect Park.

Around that time, developers began building free-standing, two-story houses with attics.

The facades of the houses commonly used shingles and clapboard and some also use brick. While there are some co-ops in the area and a handful of new condos, the houses are still the most sought-after properties in the neighborhood.

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No two houses are quite alike, Mr. Lehrman said. On Westminster Road, there is a five-bedroom, 3½-bathroom home on the market for $1.299 million. The three-story Victorian home built in 1904 still has many original details, like the woodwork and stained-glass windows. It also has a free-standing garage and a pool.

In Ditmas Park's historic district, there is a five-bedroom, 2½-bathroom house for sale at $1.299 million. Some of the original details in the home include a wood-burning fireplace, window benches and coffered ceilings. There is also a covered driveway and a garage.

Of the 92 residences currently listed for sale on real-estate site StreetEasy.com, the median asking price is $452,500, or $373 a square foot. In neighboring Kensington, it is $297 a square foot, and in Park Slope, it is $667, according to StreetEasy. The big homes in Ditmas Park, however, often start at around $1 million.

The area's co-ops also offer inexpensive housing options. On Newkirk Avenue, there is a one-bedroom unit in a building constructed around the 1950s for sale at $275,000 and listed by Mr. Lehrman. The unit has a renovated kitchen, oak floors and a separate office. The building has laundry room, bike storage and a garden.

Near the boarder of Midwood and Ditmas park, there is a new condo development on Ocean Avenue called the Waterfalls on Ocean. About 40% of the 64 units in the building are sold and residents can move in beginning in about 60 days, said Andrew Booth of Corcoran Group.

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Westminster Road

The condos have been drawing a mix of people in search of starter apartments and other residents in the neighborhood looking to downsize, Mr. Booth said.

The facility has a private playground, a lounge area for hosting parties, a fitness center and parking. Each unit has private outdoor space, oak floors and granite and stainless steel in the kitchen. All the one-bedrooms are sold. Two-bedrooms start at $379,000 and three-bedrooms at $410,000.

Schools: Ditmas Park schools are in District 22. Schools in the area include P.S. 139 Alexine A. Fenty, P.S. 245 and P.S. 217 Colonel David Marcus School. Brooklyn College Academy, a middle and high school, and Brooklyn Dreams Charter School are also in the area.

In 2010, 60.1% of District 22 students in grades three through eight received a proficient score on the math exam, and 49.6 % of students received a proficient score on the English Language Arts exam. In 2006, the results were 66.4% for math and 60.5% for reading.

Private schools in the area include Brooklyn Seventh Day Adventist School (nursery school to eighth grade), Elemental Arts Montessori and Cortelyou Early Childhood Centers.

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A Manhattan-bound B train approaches Cortelyou Road station.

Parks: The nearest park is Prospect Park, the second largest in the city at 585 acres. In its early days, the area was the site of the Battle of Brooklyn, one of the first major skirmishes during the Revolutionary War.

Landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux of Central Park fame designed the diamond-shaped green space in 1866.

The neighborhood is close to the southern section of the park, which has a 60-acre lake with a big population of largemouth bass available for catch-and-release fishing. When it gets warm, there are also electric boat tours.

Prospect Park's Parade Ground is also close and features a football field, baseball fields, a soccer field and basketball and volleyball courts.

Entertainment: At nearby Brooklyn College there is the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, which features dance, music and theater. During the summer, Prospect Park also hosts the "Celebrate Brooklyn! Performing Arts Festival," which has concerts, films and dance performances.

Shopping: While primarily a residential neighborhood, basic retail options are available in Ditmas Park like hardware stores and pharmacies. For groceries, there is the Flatbush Food Coop. On Campus Road near Brooklyn College, there is the independent book store Shakespeare & Co. And at Sycamore, a bar and floral shop, you can both pick up a bouquet and have a drink.

Dining: In recent years, Ditmas Park has developed a reputation for food. The Farm on Adderley is a popular brunch destination.
Mimi's Hummus serves Mediterranean food, Café Madeline is coffee shop with breakfast and lunch options and Ox Cart Tavern serves new American fare. Try a glass of wine at the Castello Plan.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703597804576194454258465030.html?m od=WSJ_NY_RealEstate_LEFTTopStories

Merry

April 15th, 2011, 08:35 AM

Tucked Between Past and Future in Brooklyn

By JOSEPH PLAMBECK

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Sterling Place between Washington and Underhill Avenues

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On Prospect Park at 1 Grand Army Plaza, a Richard Meier-designed building finished in 2008

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535 Dean Street

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ON the north side of Prospect Heights in northwestern Brooklyn, construction workers are busy building the Barclays Center, the future home of the New Jersey Nets.

On the neighborhood’s south side sit several of the borough’s most venerable cultural institutions and attractions.

And in between is an evolving neighborhood that is also a blend of the old and the young, the established and the newcomers.

When Honey Moon Ubarde and her husband were moving to New York from San Francisco in 2007, they knew they needed space. They had lived in Manhattan before, but now with two young girls and several pets, they set their sights on Brooklyn. They ended up in Prospect Heights, buying a town house for about $1.3 million.

Some friends questioned the location, Ms. Ubarde, 34, said, but she had no doubts. “We were surprised that more people hadn’t moved here,” she said, “that more people didn’t see everything that’s around this location.”

Her home is just a few blocks from some of Brooklyn’s most heavily trafficked destinations, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Public Library, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Prospect Park.

Brokers and residents say that in the last decade there have been many families of new arrivals sharing Ms. Ubarde’s response to the area.

As Michael Ettelson, an agent for Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate, put it, Prospect Heights “went from a neighborhood many people hadn’t heard of to a place that a lot of people want to be.”

Stephen Shames, who runs L.E.A.D. Uganda, a nonprofit education program, arrived in 1997, having paid about $180,000 for a three-bedroom co-op. He has since made friends with his neighbors, many of whom have lived in the area for more than 30 years, he said. “It’s just the kind of place where you stop and chat with people,” he said, “where people on the street say hello.”

When Mr. Shames first arrived, he recalled, drug dealers could be seen roaming street corners. But those days, he said, “are long gone.”

Major crimes in the 77th Precinct, which includes Prospect Heights, have dropped more than 80 percent in the last 20 years, according to data from the police, and more than 40 percent in the last decade.

Another big change is the Atlantic Yards development, Bruce C. Ratner’s 22-acre residential and commercial project, which includes the Barclays Center and has many vocal critics. So far, several brokers said, the project has not substantially affected real estate prices. The arena is scheduled to open in September 2012.

Atlantic Yards, Mr. Ettelson said, was a bigger concern among prospective buyers four or five years ago, when all people had to go on about the development was drawings and the like. Now, he said, “they see a stadium going up, and people are not necessarily positive about it, but they feel more confident.”

Because of the project, the community decided to organize and formed the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council. In 2009, the residents and the group led a successful effort to designate a large section of the neighborhood, about 850 buildings in total, as a historic district.

But Gib Veconi, the council’s treasurer, says the group still has its focus on Atlantic Yards, including the development’s plans for affordable housing. “We’re just trying to ensure that we’re delivered all of the expected benefits,” Mr. Veconi said.

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

In New York a neighborhood’s boundaries often creep outward as it becomes a more desirable location. Prospect Heights’ boundaries are no exception, especially on its east side. Still, its traditional boundary line is Washington Avenue to the east, Eastern Parkway to the south, Flatbush Avenue to the west and Atlantic Avenue to the north.

The half-square-mile neighborhood has about 18,000 residents, with blacks and whites making up the vast majority, according to recent census figures. (Hispanics make up a much smaller part of the population.)

The housing is also quite mixed. Rows of brownstones can be found in the northwestern part of the neighborhood, among other spots, while larger apartment buildings line some streets on the southern border. Town houses and apartment buildings of different sizes are interspersed throughout the rest.

The most prominent new residential development is On Prospect Park, on the Heights’ southwestern corner, at 1 Grand Army Plaza, a Richard Meier-designed building finished in 2008. Its glass-covered facade stands in stark contrast to many of the neighboring prewar buildings. For buyers who can afford the $1 million-plus price tags, the building offers amenities more commonly found in a Manhattan luxury building, including a lounge and a children’s playroom.

Cheryl Nielsen-Saaf, who is in charge of sales for the building, said they had been sluggish at first because the opening took place just as the real estate market cooled. But business has picked up in recent months, she said, adding that the building was now about 70 percent sold.

The primary commercial strips, on Vanderbilt and Washington Avenues, have experienced an infusion of business in recent years. Among the new shops is 1 of a Find, a vintage clothing store owned by Ms. Ubarde.

“Even just a few years ago not much business happened here,” she said. “But now everyone is out on the streets.”

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

The price of housing varies quite widely, in large part because of the many housing options. One-bedroom condos, for example, can be found for $325,000, while brownstones easily eclipse $1.5 million. A recent search found eight single-family homes for sale and about 80 two-bedroom condominiums; the range was $430,000 to $2 million.

Brokers say that the area did not suffer as much as other parts of the city during the recent downturn. That was especially true for single-family brownstones, which are consistently in demand because there is a small supply.

Mr. Ettelson of Elliman said that although prices in Prospect Heights had dropped slightly on condos and co-ops, the biggest difference during the downturn had been fewer homes on the market and fewer prospective buyers. Traffic has picked up considerably in the last six months, he said.

One-bedroom apartments command as much as $1,800 in rent, said Mia Bize Bailey, the owner of Space Realty, an agency in the neighborhood. Rent for a two-bedroom can run as high as $2,500.

WHAT TO DO

There are, of course, the big-name cultural spots. But the neighborhood also has less-well-known options, including the half-acre Underhill Playground, an appealing meeting place for children and their parents.

New restaurants and cuisines have popped up in recent years, including Cheryl’s Global Soul, on Underhill Avenue. But the lines for brunch on Saturday are still longest at Tom’s Restaurant.

THE SCHOOLS

Public School 9 serves students in prekindergarten through fifth grade. Last year, 54 percent of fourth graders met standards in math, 53 percent in reading.
Intermediate School 340 has about 275 students; last year 65 percent of its eighth graders met standards in math, and 56 percent in reading. The city’s Department of Education has proposed phasing out Middle School 571 by June 2013 because of poor performance.

Brooklyn High School of the Arts, the first academic arts school in Brooklyn, is just to the west of the neighborhood. It has an 81 percent graduation rate, which compares favorably with the 63 percent average citywide. SAT averages were 417 in math, 416 in reading and 425 in writing, versus 462, 439 and 434 citywide.

THE COMMUTE

The area has subway stops leading in practically every direction. At its northwest corner the Atlantic Avenue station offers access to the 2, 3, 4, 5, B, D, N, R and Q subway lines, as well as the Atlantic Terminal of the Long Island Rail Road. Getting to Midtown Manhattan from there takes roughly half an hour.

The A and C lines are slightly north of the neighborhood, and the S line is a couple of blocks east. Some stops for the 2, 3, 4, B and Q trains are found along the western and southern borders. Several buses serve the area as well.

THE HISTORY

The composer Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn in 1900 and grew up at 630 Washington Avenue, near Atlantic Avenue, according to “Aaron Copland: a Reader: Selected Writings, 1923-1972” (Routledge). He and his family lived above a dry-goods store that they ran, and he attended what is now Brooklyn Academy High School.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/realestate/17living.html?_r=1

Merry

May 21st, 2011, 03:18 AM

Calm and Clamor, in Equal Measure

By JAKE MOONEY

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Sheepshead Bay Road

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ON a sunny day, with a cool breeze blowing off the water and people sitting at sidewalk tables sipping tea from small glasses, Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, could almost be in Istanbul — or even in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa. Which may explain why so many Turkish and Ukrainian immigrants have made themselves at home among the swirl of ethnicities in this rambling neighborhood at the city’s southern edge.

A few blocks inland, though, the atmosphere is strictly Brooklyn: blocks of low-rise brick row houses, interspersed with six- and seven-story apartment buildings and larger houses on larger lots. It is, people who live there say, a hospitable place to raise a family and stay for decades, though it is both livelier and more crowded than it used to be.

Tom Scalese, the corresponding secretary of the Sheepshead Bay-Plumb Beach Civic Association and a resident for most of his 74 years, raised four children in a Queen Anne house on East 21st Street. Today, he said, parking is sometimes a problem, and he lamented that there were fewer fishing boats docked in the bay that gives the neighborhood its name. But there are still several vessels offering morning-trippers the chance to catch fluke, blackfish, striped bass, porgies and more.

Now, Mr. Scalese said of the waterfront, “it’s a party-time place,” with as many boats dedicated to scenic New York Harbor cruises or offering their services for weddings, parties and corporate events.

Either way, he added, “this is a water town. The breeze from the ocean is a real winner, it’s great. It’s always warmer here in the winter, cooler in the summer.”

Ned Berke, the editor of the local news blog Sheepshead Bites, saw the neighborhood as appealing for being quieter and less dense than areas closer to Manhattan — but with more varied housing, and more shopping and dining options — than nearby residential neighborhoods like Mill Basin and Bergen Beach.

“In sum,” Mr. Berke wrote in an e-mail, “it’s one of the best places families can choose to live in NYCwithout the hectic vibe of dense neighborhoods, or the sluggish disconnect of solely residential pockets.”

The housing balance, some residents say, began to tip a little in the middle of the last decade with the arrival of higher-rise condominium development, especially near Emmons Avenue, along the water. Complaints about the condos, Mr. Berke said, tend to focus on the strain that they put on parking, and on city services like trash pickup.

Another issue, said Theresa Scavo, the chairwoman of Community Board 15, which represents the area, is that as a result of the economic downturn, many of the buildings have had trouble attracting residents, others have failed to deliver on promised amenities like pools or even a marina, and still others never got off the ground.

In some cases, Ms. Scavo said, developers are stuck: having paid a premium for their lots, they can’t lower prices sufficiently on unsold units.

“The buildings look beautiful, really beautiful,” she said. “Except when you look at them at night, you realize there are no lights on in them.”

Even worse is the fate of sites like the one at Avenue Z and East 15th Street. There, Ms. Scavo said, a developer paid millions for a lot to build a condo tower, and plans fizzled.
“Since 2004 it’s sitting as an empty piece of property with a chain-link fence around it,” she said. “It’s a chain-link fence, weeds and garbage.”

In most of the neighborhood, though, life is untroubled and residents’ complaints are mild, Ms. Scavo said.

Summarizing what she described as the local disposition, she added: “ ‘As long as I go out to dinner, I can find a parking spot, that’s fine.’ That’s it. Their wish list is very limited.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

The busiest commercial strip — livelier than Emmons Avenue — is Sheepshead Bay Road near the subway.

In all, according to census figures, roughly 80,000 people live in the two-square-mile area bounded by Ocean Parkway to the west, Knapp Street to the east, Avenue U to the north and the bay to the south. About three-quarters are white; a large minority are Asian.

One- and two-family houses predominate at the western end, toward Ocean Parkway, and there are more co-op and condominium buildings near the middle, near Ocean Avenue. To the east of Ocean Avenue is a lower-density area of attached and semidetached houses.

Delton Cheng, an agent at Century 21 Homefront, says members of various ethnic groups cluster in different parts of the neighborhood. For example, he said, Chinese immigrants in general prefer to be close to the subway, while Russian immigrants look for properties within walking distance of the water.

In general, residents said, the varied ethnic and religious populations coexist peacefully, though a vocal subset has been protesting the construction of a mosque on Voorhies Avenue, and someone recently vandalized a fence there with references to Osama Bin Laden. The lot has been the site of protests, and this month a judge denied a local group’s efforts to stop the mosque.

An element more reflective of the neighborhood’s attitude toward newcomers, some residents say, is Emmons Avenue’s row of restaurants — among them Masal, for Turkish fare; Yiasou Estiatorio for Greek food; and Randazzo’s Clam Bar, a venerable Italian-American seafood house.

One of those newcomers, Stephanie Walker, who moved into a cottage near the water in 2010, cited the restaurants and ethnic grocery stores as one of the area’s main draws, along with the easy commute it provides to her job as chief librarian at Brooklyn College.
She said she and her husband, John, “thought we were going to have to move out to Long Island or Staten Island, and we didn’t have to.”

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

Josephine Liascas, an associate broker and a vice president of Fillmore Real Estate, says one-family houses in good condition can sell for $500,000 to $575,000, and two-family houses start around $600,000. Mr. Cheng, of Century 21, says two-families can reach $900,000.

Realtor.com tallies 180 single- and multifamily houses for sale, as well as 274 condo, co-op and town-house units. In the real estate boom, Mr. Cheng said, condos sold for over $500 a square foot. Now prices are $400 to $450 a foot, which translates to $350,000 for a typical one-bedroom, $450,000 for a two-bedroom and $600,000 for a three-bedroom. Ms. Walker said she and her husband, who had been living in Midwood, had benefited from the weakened market. They paid $339,000 for their house, which neighbors said would have cost $500,000 a few years earlier.

Rentals are generally around $1,200 a month for one-bedrooms and around $1,600 for two-bedrooms.

WHAT TO DO

Wealthy Manhattan Beach, with its small beach of the same name, is across a footbridge from Emmons Avenue, and the beaches at Coney Island and Brighton Beach are just to the west. A small park along East 24th Street has a busy playground and handball courts. And, of course, there is the bay.

“You can walk,” Ms. Liascas said. “There’s something to look at. There are beautiful swans in that water, and people just like to see that — peace and tranquillity.”

THE COMMUTE

The B and Q stop at Gravesend Neck and Sheepshead Bay Roads, and Avenue U. In good times, the B runs express through Brooklyn, with half-hour rides to Midtown. But station repairs elsewhere on the line have rendered it local until at least fall.

The Belt Parkway runs parallel to Emmons Avenue near the southern edge of the area. Bus routes to the middle of Brooklyn and beyond run along Nostrand and Coney Island Avenues, and an express bus runs to Manhattan.

THE SCHOOLS

Public School 52, which serves more than 700 students through Grade 5, earned a B on its most recent progress report, with 46.1 percent of tested students proficient in English, 66.6 percent in math. Public School 254, on Avenue Y, got an A, with 72.6 percent proficient in English and 90.6 percent in math.

Public School 209 serves more than 600 students through eighth grade. It got a C on its progress report, with 49.5 percent proficient in English, 68.4 percent in math. Public School 206, also through eighth grade, got an A, with 71.8 percent proficient in English, 85.2 percent in math.

One middle school, Junior High School 14 on Batchelder Street, got a C on its report, with 24.5 percent proficient in English, 31.4 percent in math. Sheepshead Bay High School has more than 2,000 students, and got a C. SAT averages last year were 380 in reading, 416 in math and 380 in writing, versus 439, 462 and 434 citywide.

THE HISTORY

The area was once the site of a Canarsee Indian village, according to the Encyclopedia of New York City. It first drew seaside visitors in the years after the Civil War, and in the early 20th century was home to a horse racing track.

In the 1930s, the city made efforts to revitalize the area around the bay, widening Emmons Avenue and restoring buildings. The Brooklyn Eagle described the results, at the time, as “clean, tidy and practically odorless.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/realestate/calm-and-clamor-in-equal-measure-living-insheepshead-bay-brooklyn.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Gulcrapek

May 23rd, 2011, 07:31 PM

Those might be the most unflattering photos of Sheepshead Bay I've ever seen.

Merry

October 26th, 2011, 07:59 AM

In Brooklyn, a Quaint Block and a Symbol of Blight

By DIANE CARDWELL
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Values of properties on Warren Street in Boerum Hill seem to maintain value even though
they share the block with two housing projects.

Warren Street between Bond and Nevins offers many of the things well-off buyers seek in Brownstone Brooklyn: a pastoral, leafy feel; long rows of 19th-century town houses; proximity to transportation and charming little restaurants; young families on the block.

But the block also has something that those buyers have traditionally seemed to avoid: two large public housing projects that stand tall at either end, to many New Yorkers enduring symbols of danger, social dysfunction and blight. The map showing the neighborhood on the Web site of the Boerum Hill Association — a group dedicated to preserving and enhancing “the unique qualities of our neighborhood” — includes Warren Street but runs up and around to Wyckoff at points to cut the projects out.

And as one commenter on the blog Brownstoner, responding to an item about price cuts at a condominium development on the block, wrote in 2008: “This might as well be part of the projects. Worst possible location. I would not move my family there.”

Yet, this being Brooklyn — which GQ recently named the “coolest city on the planet,” despite its being a borough — the presence of the Gowanus Houses, a 1,134-unit development on the west end of the block, and Wyckoff Gardens, 528 apartments on the east end, does not seem to put much of a damper on values. Properties on the block, which do not turn over frequently, may sit awhile before selling, but on a per-square-foot basis, buyers no longer seem to be getting deep discounts.

At the condo development, for instance, sales fell from a high of $588 per square foot in 2008 to a low of $305 per square foot in 2009, but rose to $639 per square foot last year for a four-bedroom apartment that went into contract at $1.15 million, according to Streeteasy.com. On a stretch of Bergen Street two blocks away, farther from the projects, sales prices for single- and multifamily homes generally ranged from a low of $374 per square foot in 2007 to $694 this year, having reached a high of $1,079 at the end of last year, for a fully renovated single-family town house that retained many of its original details, according to available data from Streeteasy.

Now, a local property owner, John Grant, who developed the Grant Mews, an 18-unit condo complex completed in 1990, is looking to take advantage of the rise in values and retire. He has listed a four-family town house at 486 Warren with exposed brick, wood-burning fireplaces and an annual rent roll of $87,600 for $2.5 million, or $658 per square foot — about $35 less than two multifamily houses that sold this year on Bergen Street. There is also a 2,400-square-foot duplex at the Grant Mews on the market for $1.7 million, or $708 per square foot.

Joan Joseph-Alexander, who is marketing the town house through her company Ambassador Realty, said she arrived at the price after looking at sales in the ZIP code and factoring in the appeal of living within walking distance of the Barclays Center, the arena under construction at Atlantic Yards, but shielded from the traffic and noise it is expected to bring.

“We were down; now we are up,” Ms. Joseph-Alexander said of the Brooklyn market as she waited on Sunday for prospective buyers at an open house. (They never showed up.)

She added that the influx of a professional class had increased the police presence in the area. “When the market is down, the projects are a factor,” she said. “When it is up, the projects aren’t a factor.”

A recent study from the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University suggests this is true, finding that higher-income households, particularly renters and first-time homebuyers, are more likely to move into relatively low-income neighborhoods in cities where house values are climbing rapidly. Another study from the center found that federally subsidized housing in New York did not typically depress values within a roughly four-block radius.

“In New York City I think we’ve seen upward pressure on property values in a much broader variety of neighborhoods than we had 20 years ago, including many neighborhoods that are abutting and surrounding public housing,” said Ingrid Gould Ellen, co-director of the center and a co-author of both papers. She named Chelsea, Boerum Hill and Red Hook as among the many neighborhoods with large public housing developments and “very, very high property values.”

On Warren Street, that juxtaposition has some of the longtime residents concerned.

“I bought this house for $17,000 in 1972,” said Charlie Soule, a retired administrator with the Education Department, shaking her head in disbelief at the $2.5 million asking price for 486 Warren. Back then, she said, the block felt safer because she knew all her neighbors — something that is no longer true. “I feel like I’ve sort of outlived my time on the block,” she said.

Mike Rodriguez, who grew up in the house a few doors down and still lives there with his family, had a similar take.

“You got too much ‘ippity’ folks around here,” he said. “They’re uppity, but I call them ‘ippity,’ ” he added, laughing and brushing his hand under his chin. “They look at you like you don’t belong here.”

Residents say that they do not worry so much about the presence of public housing as about what they see as a lack of police enforcement in driving away drug traffic. Dealers hang out at the corner of Bond, where a 16-year-old girl was shot to death last year, said Steven Turner Hart, a writer who has lived on the block since 1998. At Nevins, an abandoned building plays frequent host to crack addicts, he said.

Still, he loves it there. “I have learned a lot from my neighbors about the ebb and flow and invisible current of this neighborhood,” he said, referring to how it has evolved over the years.

Then too, he added, there was the sense of connection he found when his first wife died in 2009 after a long bout with cancer. They barely left the house, he said, and he thought the block had forgotten about them.

“But that wasn’t true at all: they were quite cognizant” of his situation, he said. “People are not nosy but they are friendly and very helpful and good hearted.”
He paused, and laughed, adding, “Except for when they’re shooting at you.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/nyregion/brownstone-brooklyn-between-2-housing-projects.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

Merry

November 19th, 2011, 11:19 PM

Accessible, From All 4 Corners of the World

By JAKE MOONEY

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Houses facing the Seth Low Playground, on the southeastern border, typify Bensonhurst's
residential stock: built of brick, and for more than one family.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/11/20/realestate/20liv-gazz/20liv-gazz-articleInline.jpg

THERE are still places where 18th Avenue, as it runs through Bensonhurst, looks like the Italian-American stronghold that it once was. Spaced at intervals along the street, also known as Cristoforo Colombo Boulevard, are businesses like Gino’s Focacceria, the Bari Pork Store, S.A.S. Italian Records and the Villabate Alba bakery.

But just as in Little Italy across the East River, Italian-Americans are now in the minority. Even the Feast of Santa Rosalia, a summertime tradition honoring the patron saint of Sicily, which has been held on the avenue for decades, was canceled this year, for the first time in memory. Destination restaurants in today’s Bensonhurst include Spicy Bampa, a Szechuan restaurant two blocks from Gino’s where the Chinese-Americans who have come to dominate the area flock to a fiery hot pot buffet.

On a recent afternoon Larry Cricchio, the sales manager at Re/Max Metro, a real estate office on 18th Avenue, flipped through a box of files for his recent residential sales in the neighborhood. Nearly every buyer, he said, was a family of Asian origin.

Not that other ethnicities don’t have a presence in this sprawling neighborhood in the southwestern part of Brooklyn, covering roughly one and a half square miles from 14th Avenue to Bay Parkway and 65th to 86th Street, said Marnee Elias-Pavia, the district manager of Community Board 11, which represents the area. The population today, she said, also includes Russians, Poles, and immigrants from Latin America and the Middle East. And notably, in a spot known in the 1980s for racial tension, Ms. Elias-Pavia says the changes haven’t really made waves.

“We all live together peacefully and respecting one another,” she said, “and we’ve come a long way.”

Broadly speaking, according to Mr. Cricchio, the 18th Avenue area is popular with Asians, while the neighborhood’s northern blocks, adjacent to Borough Park, are prized by Orthodox Jews, and the southern blocks, closer to the ocean and the Bath Beach area, are a draw for Russians.

Devon Palmer, who rents an apartment on 65th Street between 16th and 17th Avenues with his wife, Agnes, sees the area’s appeal as universal: ample public transportation, low crime, solid schools and enough businesses to make shopping and going out convenient. The Palmers pay $1,000 a month for their one-bedroom apartment, but they are looking for a house nearby and hoping to pay $600,000 to $650,000.

Mr. Palmer, a personal trainer who travels to meet clients, values the accessibility of the D and N trains, the Belt Parkway and the Gowanus Expressway. And when he is at home, he said, he feels a sense of security.

“I can leave my doors open, or leave my laundry in the dryer, and come back and it’s there,” he said. “The trust within the neighborhood is there.”

Mr. Palmer, who is originally from the Caribbean, said he appreciated the area’s increasing diversity, and also timeless pleasures like driving to a park on Gravesend Bay, going for a walk and enjoying the sea breeze.

John Intoci, an associate broker at Fillmore Real Estate who has lived in Bensonhurst for about 30 years, says that a tranquil pace of life — along with wide streets and low buildings with ample space for light to pour in — has always been the big draw to Bensonhurst.

Beyond that, he said, the area’s new residents have added something of their own. “There’s more flair, more flavors,” he said, adding, “It’s really getting cosmopolitan, I believe.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

Housing stock in Bensonhurst is eclectic, but relatively consistent in scale. Though most buildings are two or three stories tall, some are detached and others are not. Many are brick; some have driveways.

City government changed the zoning on about 120 blocks at the neighborhood’s eastern edge in 2005, and on a swath of Dyker Heights, adjacent to Bensonhurst on 14th Avenue, in 2007. In both cases, the intent was to control new development that many residents found to be out of context.

“What we were seeing was developers buying parcels of one- and two-family homes, knocking them down and building larger buildings,” Ms. Elias-Pavia said. The new zoning did stem overdevelopment, she said, though the Department of City Planning has resisted calls for even greater changes in other parts of the district.

Mr. Cricchio of Re/Max said the slower economy of recent years had played a big part in stopping new development.

“When the market changed,” he said, “a lot of the builders were stuck with units that they built and were priced too high, and that they couldn’t sell. Everything was going crazy around here from 2004 and 2005 all the way up to 2008.”

The buildings remain and units are now selling, he added, but at sharply reduced prices. In general, though, Mr. Cricchio said the neighborhood had not been hit as hard by the downturn as other parts of the city, in part because of steady demand from the area’s newer ethnic populations.

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

Joe Azar, a vice president of Citi Habitats, says that two- and three-family houses predominate, and that even a one-family house will often include a small rental unit with a separate entrance. Multifamily houses with parking typically cost $650,000 to $900,000, he said, though a handful do sell for more than $1 million.

As of mid-November, according to data from Brooklyn’s Multiple Listing Service, there were around 50 one-, two- and three-family houses for sale.

One-family houses, Mr. Azar said, average $550,000 to $600,000 — more if they come with parking. Detached houses also typically have higher asking prices than attached ones, brokers said, and houses on larger lots, of 40 by 100 feet, also sell for a premium.

One-bedroom rentals found on Craigslist run $1,000 to $1,200 a month, two-bedrooms as much as $1,400.

WHAT TO DO

Besides 18th Avenue, the other strip with stores and restaurants is 86th Street, the southern boundary.

Seth Low Playground (http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/sethlowplayground/highlights/12584), at the corner of Bay Parkway and Avenue P, has swings and basketball and handball courts. Bensonhurst Park (http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/bensonhurstpark) — actually just outside the neighborhood’s traditional boundaries — is on 17.5 acres straddling the Belt Parkway next to Gravesend Bay. It has sports fields, a senior center and a promenade with a view of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The Dyker Beach Golf Course, where city residents can play at a reduced rate, is just outside the neighborhood at 14th Avenue and 86th Street.

THE COMMUTE

The N train runs east and west across the area just above 64th Street, stopping at 62nd Street, 18th Avenue, 20th Avenue and Bay Parkway. The elevated D train, which follows New Utrecht Avenue and then 86th Street, cuts diagonally from the northwest corner of the neighborhood to the southeast.

Residents say the train ride to Manhattan generally takes 50 minutes or less using express trains, but track work can increase that time considerably. Ms. Elias-Pavia says major work on the D line — a total rehabilitation of the Bay Parkway station and improvements at seven other stations — has slowed service for well over a year. It is expected to be finished in the spring.

“It’s problematic now and we complain about it,” she said, “and we’re undergoing a terrible amount of inconveniences. But at the end of the day there’s going to be improvements in the line.”

THE SCHOOLS

Public elementary schools include No. 204 on 15th Avenue, where 70.9 percent tested at or above grade level in English, and 80.3 percent in math. At No. 186, on 19th Avenue, 56.4 percent met standards in English, 71.1 percent in math. The percentages at No. 128, on 84th Street, were 40.6 in English and 67.3 in math. At No. 205, on 20th Avenue, they were 53.5 and 73.6. And at No. 247, on 21st Avenue, they were 77.7 and 91.6.

Public middle schools include Junior High School 227, on 16th Avenue, where 29.3 percent met standards in English on recent tests, 66.6 percent in math.

At the Brooklyn Studio Secondary School, which serves students in Grades 6 through 12, 47.8 percent of tested middle-school students were proficient in English, 76.5 percent in math. In 2010, SAT averages were 426 in reading, 419 in math and 418 in writing, versus 437, 460 and 432 citywide.

At New Utrecht High School, on 80th Street, averages were 409 in reading, 471 in math and 407 in writing, and at Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, just north of the neighborhood on 20th Avenue, they were 387, 492 and 377.

THE HISTORY

The area was developed beginning in the 1880s by James Lynch, who bought land from the Benson family. According to the Encyclopedia of New York City, the population grew sharply after 1915, with the Fourth Avenue subway. Italians and Jews leaving the Lower East Side came to dominate the area in the early 20th century, and waves of immigrants from Naples and Sicily arrived after World War II, Chinese and Russians in the 1980s.

Racial tensions between black and white residents came to a head in 1989 when Yusef Hawkins, a black teenager, was killed by a gang of white youths.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/realestate/bensonhurst-brooklyn-living-in-accessible-from-all-4-corners-of-the-world.html

Merry

December 24th, 2011, 05:25 AM

A Low-Slung District With a Very High Perch

By JAKE MOONEY

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slide show (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/12/20/realestate/20111225livinginsunsetpar.html?ref=realestate)

JON PAUL LUPO grew up not far away in Marine Park, but thinking back, he figures the most interaction he had with Sunset Park in those days was driving past it on the Gowanus Expressway. For his wife, Melanie, the area was even less familiar — she is from South Dakota.

Early this year, though, after more than a decade away from New York, Mr. Lupo took a job as the communications director for Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn borough president. Seeking a place to live, the couple toured Brooklyn’s talked-about neighborhoods — there are more than there were in Mr. Lupo’s youth — and, on a summer afternoon, found themselves atop the hill in Sunset Park (the park itself, that is). They were on one of the highest points in Brooklyn, with a view across New York Harbor that captures the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty.
“It was something that I had never seen before in my years in Brooklyn,” Mr. Lupo, 33, said. “It sounds a little cheesy, but we fell in love with that spot.”

Beyond the park, they found thriving retails strips on Fifth and Eighth Avenues, with Fifth dominated by Latin American businesses and restaurants and Eighth at the heart of Brooklyn’s version of Chinatown. They found friendly neighbors, young families and express subway service. And, though Sunset Park has become known for brick, brownstone and limestone town houses, they also found many affordable co-ops near the park. Mr. Lupo would not say how much the couple paid for their three-bedroom apartment, but similar places typically sell for less than $350,000.

Exact boundaries are a matter for debate, but the Department of Housing Preservation and Development says the neighborhood lies between Eighth Avenue and New York Harbor, covering 1.5 square miles and stretching from 64th Street to 24th Street past Green-Wood Cemetery. Census data indicate that the 126,000 or so residents, on average, are less affluent than in surrounding Park Slope, Bay Ridge and Borough Park.

Jeremy Laufer, the district manager of Community Board 7, which represents the area, said Sunset Park had had to fight for attention from local government, and for its share of improvements. Lately, some have begun to arrive — for instance, a long-promised high school, which opened in 2009; streetscape improvements on a 10-block stretch of Fifth Avenue, which was recently completed; and a waterfront park, which is still under construction.

The waterfront, where the Bush Terminal and the Brooklyn Army Terminal fueled early population growth a century ago, remains an important source of jobs in what is still a working-class neighborhood, Mr. Laufer said. Those facilities have been revitalized in recent years by offices, and biotechnology and light manufacturing businesses. An automobile importing business is scheduled to arrive within months, bringing about 350 more jobs, he said.

Housing remains relatively inexpensive. Marcin Wolynski, a 27-year-old finance worker who moved here in October after years in nonprofit jobs across the Northeast, paid $129,000 for a one-bedroom co-op near the park. He was drawn, he said, by Sunset Park’s convenience and affordability, as well as its Chinese food. Mr. Wolynski, whose parents immigrated from Poland before he was born, called the area “a pretty serious melting pot.”

His agent, Peter Bracichowicz of the Corcoran Group, who also sold the Lupos their place, says he considers Sunset Park the most affordable neighborhood, per square foot, in Brooklyn.
“Even though,” he added, “the prices tripled from 12 years ago.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

The park that caught the Lupos’ attention is bounded by 41st and 44th Streets, and Fifth and Seventh Avenues. About 30 co-op buildings, many built in the early 20th century by Finnish immigrants, surround the park between 39th and 47th Streets.

But town houses are the dominant element of the housing stock. On many of the blocks between Fourth and Sixth Avenues, that means solid rows of well-preserved brownstones. Elsewhere, the buildings have brick or limestone facades, or vinyl or aluminum siding.

One thing they all have in common is that they are low to the ground: three-story houses far outnumber taller ones. Almost all of the neighborhood has been rezoned with the intention of keeping them that way, Mr. Laufer said.

A 2009 rezoning of 128 blocks limited height on side streets and allowed larger buildings on Fourth Avenue. Mr. Laufer says Community Board 7, with neighboring Community Board 12, is lobbying for limitations on Eighth Avenue, too. And the board and the borough president have convened task forces to ensure that construction on Fourth Avenue is pedestrian-friendly.

One subsection where relatively tall new condo buildings did take root, to an extent, is Greenwood Heights, an imprecisely defined stretch at Sunset Park’s northern end, between Fourth Avenue and Green-Wood Cemetery. The area, a generally low-rise stretch of frame houses and industrial buildings, was rezoned in 2005. That, Mr. Laufer said, resulted in part from the fact that taller buildings had begun to appear there, and around Sunset Park, after similar height restrictions were placed on Bay Ridge and Park Slope.

Since then, he added, “whether it was the rezoning or the downturn in the economy, we haven’t seen that kind of development since.”

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

Lara Nangle, an associate broker at Citi Habitats who lives in the area, says town houses in decent condition sell for $700,000 to $800,000. They tend to be set up as two-family buildings — either as duplexes or with rental garden apartments on the ground floor, she said.

There are some condominiums in the middle of the neighborhood, mostly near Eighth Avenue, but she said new construction was rare, adding, “Here, there are no vacant lots, just row after row of town houses, pretty much.”

The Finnish co-op buildings, one of which the Encyclopedia of New York City cites as the first nonprofit cooperative in the United States, are still relatively inexpensive, Mr. Bracichowicz said. One-bedrooms of 550 square feet cost less than $200,000; two-bedrooms of 750 square feet run under $300,000. Maintenance tends to be low, in part because the managing boards carry little debt, and also because many buildings don’t have amenities like elevators.

A few, Mr. Bracichowicz said, maintain century-old rules against buying units with bank financing. Their prices are 10 percent to 20 percent lower.

Rentals posted on Craigslist tend to cost $1,000 to $1,200 a month for one-bedroom units, and $1,200 to $1,500 for two-bedrooms.

THE COMMUTE

The N and R trains run under Fourth Avenue, with the R, a local train, stopping at 25th, 36th, 45th, 53rd and 59th Streets. The N, an express, stops at 36th and 59th Streets. Eastern stretches of the neighborhood are closer to the D, which parallels New Utrecht Avenue.

Mr. Lupo, whose mother lives in New Jersey, says the Gowanus Expressway, which runs above Third Avenue, is a handy link to area highways.

WHAT TO DO

The recreation center in Sunset Park has an outdoor Olympic-size pool, built in 1936 under the Works Progress Administration; lap swimming and children’s swim classes are available in warm weather. The center also has yoga classes and table tennis. Even on a recent overcast afternoon, the area around the pool was busy with people playing volleyball, handball and dominoes, and practicing ballroom dancing.

Restaurants draw food tourists: to Eighth Avenue for dim sum, Vietnamese sandwiches and Asian groceries; to Fifth for tacos and tortas.

Melody Lanes, a bowling alley on 37th Street, has leagues, tournaments and birthday party packages.

THE SCHOOLS

Primary schools near the middle of the neighborhood include Public School 169, on Seventh Avenue, which received a C on its most recent city report card, with 39.2 percent of tested students demonstrating proficiency in English, 61.9 percent in math. At Public School 1, on 47th Street, 45.4 percent were proficient in English, 63.8 in math. At No. 94, on Sixth Avenue, the percentages were 43.1 in English and 64.4 in math.

Sunset Park’s middle schools include Intermediate School 136, on Fourth Avenue, where 15.2 percent were proficient in English and 22 percent in math; at Sunset Park Prep, also on Fourth, percentages were 38.3 and 72.3.

Lillian L. Rashkis High School, on 37th Street, has about 350 students in Grades 9 through 12. Sunset Park High School, which opened in 2009 on 35th Street, was planned since the 1960s and repeatedly delayed because of financing problems, Mr. Laufer said.

“There was a chance we were going to lose this one, but the community fought back and we got it,” he said.

THE HISTORY

The Bush Terminal, founded by the industrialist Irving T. Bush in the 1890s, eventually grew to cover 200 acres. The nearby Brooklyn Army Terminal, designed by Cass Gilbert and opened in 1918, employed more than 56,000 during World War II, according to its Web site. It handled transportation for more than 3 million troops and shipment of 37 million tons of military supplies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/realestate/sunset-park-brooklyn-living-in-low-slung-but-with-a-high-perch.html

Merry

December 24th, 2011, 05:43 AM

Bergen Beach: Connected, but Still Remote

By MELANIE LEFKOWITZ

Bergen Beach, a small, residential enclave along the shoreline of Jamaica Bay in southeast Brooklyn, was once an island off the coast of Canarsie, a larger neighborhood now across the narrow Paerdegat Basin.

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Tree-lined Royce Street in Bergen Beach, Brooklyn.

Though Bergen Beach was connected to the mainland with landfill around a century ago, it still retains some of its isolated feel. Its tree-lined streets and semi-attached houses on relatively large lots seem a long way from Manhattan; and in fact, the neighborhood's lack of subway service makes for a long trip for those who do commute.

"It's just away from the commotion of everything. If you want a quiet lifestyle, this is the neighborhood," says Jason Sciulara of Bergen Basin Realty. "It's a suburban lifestyle for Brooklyn homeowners, which is tough to find."

Mr. Sciulara says nearly everyone drives in Bergen Beach, where many houses have driveways or garages, parking is plentiful, there are no alternate-side regulations and the Belt Parkway runs beside the neighborhood. To reach Manhattan, commuters may take the BM1 express bus from nearby Mill Basin, which travels to Midtown in just under an hour, or drive or ride a local bus to the B or Q train.

Brokers say many of the area's residents are local business owners or professionals who work in Brooklyn, and many buyers either grew up in the neighborhood or nearby.

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For single-family homes, prices range from around $400,000 for a small three-bedroom semi-attached house, to upward of $1 million for new or renovated houses with four or five bedrooms, luxury appliances and in-ground pools, brokers say.

Of the 13 closings in the third quarter, according to StreetEasy.com, the median sales price was $458,000, a 1.8% increase from the same period in 2010 and a nearly 16% drop from 2008. The median price for third-quarter closings in all of Brooklyn was $470,000, the StreetEasy data show.

Efforts to turn the area into a resort community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were eventually abandoned, though residents still enjoy their proximity to Jamaica Bay. Part of the Gateway National Recreation Area abuts Bergen Beach, and a horse stable, the Jamaica Bay Riding Academy, is situated alongside coastal riding trails.

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Jamaica Bay Riding Academy, which features coastal riding trails.

The past decade has seen a building boom, with the construction of hundreds of new houses. Former empty lots, particularly in the northeast part of the neighborhood, have since been transformed into new single-family homes or small condominium buildings, and brokers say many of the existing ranch-style houses have undergone renovations and additions.

But the increase in housing and residents hasn't altered the character of this quiet area, where most businesses remain confined to a few small strips and there are a handful of restaurants.
Neighboring Mill Basin, an affluent community featuring many large waterfront estates with private boat slips, offers a few more amenities.

"You think you're living in the country, but you're living in Brooklyn," says Arlene Peldman, of Talk of the Town Realty Corp. "The streets are very pretty here."

Parks: The 77-acre McGuire Fields, at Avenue Y and Bergen Avenue between Avenue V and the Belt Parkway, offers five baseball fields, a football field, roller hockey rink, beach volleyball court and tennis courts, and is also home to the John Malone Community Center. The neighborhood abuts part of the U.S. National Park Service's Gateway National Recreation Area, which offers beach access, trails and wildlife viewing. The nearly 800-acre Marine Park, the largest park in Brooklyn, is also nearby.

View Interactive (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204464404577114802575137094.html?m od=WSJ_NY_RealEstate_LEADNewsCollection#)

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Schools: Bergen Beach is part of District 22, where 85.9% of students met or exceeded state standards on math exams in 2009, compared with 66.4% in 2006. In English Language Arts, 75.8% of students met or exceeded standards in 2009, compared with 60.5% four years earlier.

Local schools include P.S. 312, an elementary school with 857 students that received a C grade on its city progress report for the 2010-11 year; and J.H.S. 78 Roy H. Mann with 1,126 students that also received a C. A city Department of Education environmental study center, next door to P.S. 312, has science programs and several plant and wildlife exhibits.

Area private schools include the St. Bernard School, a Roman Catholic school with prekindergarten through eighth-grade classes.

Dining: There are few restaurants in Bergen Beach, though residents can find a slightly larger selection in neighboring Mill Basin. Local options include the Bergen Beach Cafe, on Avenue U; Gourmet Grill, on Avenue N; La Villa Pizzeria, on Avenue U; and Pinocchio's Restaurant, an Italian spot on Avenue N.

Shopping: The neighborhood includes two shopping centers for basic items and groceries. Nearby is the Kings Plaza shopping center, at Flatbush Avenue and Avenue U, with more than 150 stores and restaurants including Macy's, Sears, Best Buy and H&M. Box-store shopping, including Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond, can be found in the Gateway center in East New York.

Entertainment: The Jamaica Bay Riding Academy is situated along the Belt Parkway. Strike 10 Lanes, a bowling alley, is on Strickland Avenue. A multiplex movie theater is in Sheepshead Bay.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204464404577114802575137094.html?m od=WSJ_NY_RealEstate_LEADNewsCollection

Merry

January 21st, 2012, 01:49 AM

Where History Meets Industry

By JOHN FREEMAN GILL

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Amy Lawday with her son, Oscar, 3, outside their home on Clinton Avenue in Wallabout.

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SLO PING down from Myrtle Avenue to the walled fortress of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Industrial Park, and bisected by the rumbling equator of the elevated Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the two-block-wide semi-industrial neighborhood of Wallabout would seem to have some unenviable physical challenges. It lacks subways, and although it shares a name with nearby Wallabout Bay, its residents are cut off by the Navy Yard from the tantalizingly close waterfront. But for all of the neighborhood’s isolation and industrial grit, and perhaps because of these characteristics, many of its residents describe it with immense pride and fondness.

“To live there, you’re a little bit of a risk taker and an adventurer, because you’re off the grid a little bit,” said Gary Hattem, a chairman of the Historic Wallabout Association, who since 1976 has lived on Vanderbilt Avenue in an Italianate 1850s row house with a wooden porch. “And there’s more of a romantic quality to living there, because the houses are a bit more random.”

Among outsiders, the area has typically been viewed as simply the northern fringe of Clinton Hill and Fort Greene. But Wallabout has been coming into its own of late, attracting developers and preservation agencies alike. The Wallabout distinction, local preservationists say, is intended to summon up an awareness of the area as something more than just a poorer version of its neighbors. Its history and streetscape are certainly textured. Its name can be traced to the 17th century, when a group of Walloons, French-speaking Protestants from what is now Belgium, settled along the nearby bay, which came to be called “Waal-bogt,” or “bend in the harbor.”

The Navy Yard dates to 1801, and the Wallabout Market operated north of Flushing Avenue from the 1880s until it was gobbled up by the Navy Yard in World War II. The Historic Wallabout Association, a preservation group, defines the neighborhood as the 22 blocks between Classon and Carlton Avenues from Flushing Avenue to Myrtle.

Some blocks are mixed-use, but buildings south of the B. Q. E. are generally residential, while those north of it are industrial. Some industrial buildings are honeycombed with artists’ studios. Wallabout contains the largest concentration of pre-Civil War wood-frame houses in the city, many with early porches and cornices. This was a big draw for Dina Rosenbloom, a marketing executive. Last year she and her husband, Brice, paid $1.3 million for a two-family 1850s house in the new city historic district on Vanderbilt Avenue. As with many old Wallabout houses, its wood facade had been covered with vinyl siding. But it retained plenty of charm. “It doesn’t feel like you’re in Brooklyn when you walk in,” Ms. Rosenbloom said. “You feel transported to an old wood-frame house in a country town.” The four-bedroom house had been widened to 25 feet by the enclosure of a side walkway, so that an internal bathroom wall is the former exterior of the house, complete with antique wooden siding. “It’s unique, not cookie cutter,” she said. Although the city bestowed landmark protection on only one block of Wallabout last year, a wider area between Myrtle and Park Avenues was placed on the state and federal historic registers. These designations could bring tax credits to owners like the Rosenblooms if they restored their facade.

WHAT YOU’LL FIND The area has long been populated by members of the working and creative classes, joined recently by professionals. The nearby Pratt Institute has brought in artistic types like Jim Morehand, an interior designer turned massage therapist who graduated from Pratt in 1993 and shares a Vanderbilt Avenue row house with Dave Polazzo, a retired teacher. The couple host a salon, Parlor Jazz, out of the house. Census data covering Wallabout, as well as one block to its east and three to its west, showed that the estimated 7,613 residents in 2009 were 43 percent African-American, 35 percent Hispanic and 17 percent white. The proportion of whites rose 6 percent from 2000, as the share of blacks shrank by about the same amount.

Mr. Morehand, who is of mixed heritage but says he is perceived as black, said he had sensed resentment among black renters toward white newcomers, “but there haven’t been any neighborhood conflicts that I’ve seen.”

The area is home to many gay and biracial couples. “We wanted to raise a family in a place where the child sees the differences in people,” said Luan Cox, an Internet entrepreneur who in 2009, along with her partner, Eliane Bugod, paid $654,000 for a condo unit in a town house north of the B. Q. E. Navy Green, a 458-unit housing complex, is rising on the site of a former naval prison on Clermont and Flushing Avenues. It will include 4 apartment buildings and 23 town houses, with three-quarters of the units for low- and middle-income tenants. Residents began moving into the first completed building last month.

A “supportive housing” building that includes 59 units for the homeless is to open in the spring. For decades Wallabout was so bereft of high-quality shops that residents “dreamed of buying a head of lettuce” nearby, said Mr. Hattem, a board member of Myrtle Avenue’s local development corporation. But all that has changed, largely because of Pratt and the Navy Yard. In recent years Myrtle’s bulletproof-glass liquor store has been joined by organic groceries like Greene-Ville Garden and restaurants like Putnam’s Pub and Cooker. A pedestrian plaza is in the works. And last year Pratt opened a building on Myrtle Avenue, deepening its commitment to a strip once nicknamed Murder Avenue. “I remember running gun battles down Myrtle, probably in ’02 or ’03,” said an officer with the 88th Precinct, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

“But that doesn’t happen anymore,” he added, describing crime as minimal on Myrtle and in Wallabout generally. “It does feel like the area is primed,” said Adam Friedman, director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, “but we want to make sure the development doesn’t lead to displacement.” He said that Pratt graduate students would begin a land-use study this semester as a first step toward the possible creation of an “innovation corridor” between Pratt and the Navy Yard. The success of the Navy Yard, with 275 businesses employing 6,000, among them 695 from Wallabout and surrounding blocks, has helped rejuvenate Washington Avenue. Steiner Studios, doubling its space within the yard, is remaking a building to house the Brooklyn College Graduate School of Cinema. As Wallabout continues to heat up, the future seems very much up for grabs. “North of the B. Q. E., I think there will be enormous, exponentially increasing pressure to convert more and more of that to residential,” said Andrew Kimball, the president of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

“Certainly Pratt and the Navy Yard are aligned in wanting to make sure there’s a balance kept between residential and industrial.”

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

Doug Bowen, a resident and senior vice president of CORE real estate, said the average house price last year was $975,000 or $395 per square foot, virtually unchanged from 2010. Andrea Yarrington, a vice president of the Corcoran Group, said houses took an average of 136 days to sell, versus 347 in 2010. Ms. Yarrington added that 15 condos sold in 2011, for an average of $452 per square foot. A search on Streeteasy.com showed four co-ops, three condos and three town houses on the market.

WHAT TO DO

Washington Avenue has Il Porto, an Italian restaurant, as well as a gourmet grocery, a Cuban restaurant and an art gallery. J. J.’s Navy Yard Cocktail Lounge, a stalwart of seediness, closed in 2010; its new owner plans to lease to a Dunkin’ Donuts and a Subway. Fort Greene Park is a short walk. The Brooklyn Navy Yard Center at Building 92, a museum devoted to the yard’s previous occupants and current tenants, opened late last year. It will soon house an employment center.

THE SCHOOLS

Public School 46 on Clermont Avenue received an A on its most recent city progress report. No. 157, on Kent Avenue, earned a B. Middle School 113 on Adelphi Street in Fort Greene teaches Grades 6 through 8. It scored a D. Nearby public high schools include the selective Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene, where SAT averages last year were 583, 659, and 579, versus 436, 460, and 431 citywide.

THE COMMUTE

The closest train is the G, which runs along Lafayette Avenue in Clinton Hill, stopping at the Classon Avenue and Clinton-Washington Avenues stations. Buses take under 20 minutes to stops a short walk from the 2,3,4, 5, N and R trains at Court Street-Borough Hall. Some residents take the B62 from Park Avenue; others catch the B57 on Flushing. The B54 runs along Myrtle to the A, C, F and R trains at Jay Street/MetroTech. The B69 bus travels Vanderbilt and reaches the A and C trains at High Street within 10 minutes; residents grumble about infrequent service.

THE HISTORY

Walt Whitman completed “Leaves of Grass” while living at 99 Ryerson Street, according to “Brooklyn’s Historic Clinton Hill and Wallabout,” by Brian Merlis.

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Merry

February 4th, 2012, 12:44 AM

Secret Is Out in Prospect Lefferts Gardens

By JOSEPH DE AVILA

The stunning architecture and easy access to Prospect Park have always been the main draws for newcomers to Prospect Lefferts Gardens in Brooklyn. The neighborhood offers some of the city's best examples of turn-of-the-century architecture at a fraction of the price for homes in Park Slope on the other side of Prospect Park.

The Romanesque Revival, Colonial Revival and Neo-Federal style homes in the historic district are highly coveted properties with homeowners who often have lived in the neighborhood for more than 30 years. Residents say the long-term homeownership makes the community a tightknit group that takes pride in preserving its historic homes.

"People can't believe the architecture in that neighborhood and how nice it is," said Keith Mack of Corcoran Group, who has lived in the area since 1998. "The secret is out."

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Ocean Avenue along Prospect Park in Brooklyn's Prospect Lefferts Gardens.

The neighborhood has historically been home to one of the city's largest West Indian populations. They began moving to Prospect Lefferts Gardens in the 1950s and 1960s. In recent years, the neighborhood had increasingly attracted more young people seeking affordable condos and apartments as well as the older homes, said Bill Sheppard of Brown Harris Stevens, who has lived in the neighborhood for 24 years.

"It's drawing a big segment of younger people priced out of other locations," Mr. Sheppard said. "It's your classic New York melting pot."

The historic homes in the neighborhood date back to about the 1890s. In 1893, James Lefferts, a descendant of Dutch settlers, divided up his family farm into 600 building lots. That area now makes up the Prospect Lefferts Gardens Historic District.

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Building restrictions were enacted at the time so that the homes would develop in a uniform way, and houses were given deed covenants that permitted only single-family homes. Those restrictions remain today, and they have prevented homes in the area from being separated into individual apartments.

The median asking price for Prospect Lefferts Gardens homes, condos and co-ops is $374,500, or $470 a square foot, according to real-estate site StreetEasy.com. In Park Slope to the west, it is $686 a square foot, and in Crown Heights to the north, it is $397, according to StreetEasy.

Less than a dozen single-family homes a year in the historic district are put on the market, brokers say. Prices range from the low $900,000s to around $1.5 million, said Lee Solomon of Brown Harris Stevens.

Ms. Solomon recently sold a three-story limestone townhouse with six bedrooms and three bathrooms that had an asking price of $1.695 million. The home, built in 1901, has a wraparound, rear garden, and most of the home's original woodwork has been preserved.

In Park Slope, similar homes are sold in the range of $3 million to $4 million, she said. "People are just blown away by the space that they can afford over there," according to Ms. Solomon.

There were some condo developments in the area that have been build in recent years, but most have sold out. Now condo inventory in the neighborhood is very tight. There is, however, a new condo development at 185 Ocean Ave. that faces the park. Current asking prices range from $299,000 to $575,000.

Prospect Lefferts Gardens has easy access to express train stops. The neighborhood is serviced by the 2, 5, B and Q trains as well as the shuttle to Prospect Park.

Parks: Prospect Lefferts Gardens is near the southeastern portion of Prospect Park. It is close to the park's lake and also the Parade Ground, which has baseball fields, a football field, a soccer field and basketball and volleyball courts.

Schools: Prospect Lefferts Gardens public schools are in District 17. They include primary school Adrian Hegeman and middle schools Parkside Preparatory Academy and Gladstone Atwell. Also in the area is Lefferts Gardens Charter School.

In 2011, 47.1% of District 2 students in grades three through eight received a proficient score on the math exam, and 37% of students received a proficient score on the English exam. In 2006, the results were 43% for math and 39.8% for English.

Private schools nearby include St. Gregory the Great in neighboring Crown Heights. That school runs from nursery through middle school. Also in Prospect Lefferts Gardens is the Lefferts Gardens Montessori School.

Restaurants: Caribbean restaurants in Prospect Lefferts Gardens including Culpeppers and De Hot Pot serve food from all over the West Indies. Gino's Trattoria on Flatbush Avenue serves Italian fare.

Shopping: Flatbush Avenue is the neighborhood's main thoroughfare and has basic shops including grocery stores, hardware stores and pharmacies. There are also independent stores like Monk's Trunk, a vintage and children's clothing store.

Entertainment: The Wollman Ice Skating Rink at Prospect Park is under construction, but is scheduled to be ready in time for next winter. Also nearby to Prospect Lefferts Gardens is the Prospect Park Zoo and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

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