This morning the South Slope gets a big writeup in AM New York with a focus on how the area is different from mainland Slope (“There are way less strollers and dogs,” says one resident. “There’s more of the remaining community present and it feels more authentic. There are more twentysomethings here, too.”) but also how it’s also beginning to look a lot more like the North Slope. Brokers and residents say the South Slope’s influx of boutiques, cafes and residents priced out of Slope prime are all contributing to the area becoming more like the blocks north of 9th Street. We half buy this argument but think South Slope’s completely different aesthetic, buildings-wise, is always going to set it apart from its neighbor to the North, and it also seems evident that exciting retail has been a lot slower to come to the area than it has to the North Slope—especially 5th Ave.—in recent years. There isn’t a whole lot of treatment of the area’s new condo building boom, though a sales manager for the Vue (a Brownstoner advertiser) says the condo’s been well-received because “The newer residents of the area have demands that need to be met.” A South Sloper named Jarrett Shamlian, who has lived in the neighborhood for four years, has the article’s most interesting commentary about how the area is changing. “Four years ago it was more affordable—my rent’s raised $100 every year,” he says. “The Latin community has been pushed out. For example, there was a small Latin cafe where I could get Tres Leches at 3:00 am that closed. The 99-cent stores are going under, with banks filling the empty spaces. People are being pressured into putting up new facades, perhaps in a community effort to ‘clean up’ the area’s image.”
New York Real Estate: South Slope [AM New York]
Photo by imbyblogspot.