The Times’ Living In column covered the south Brooklyn neighborhood of Gravesend this weekend, a largely Sephardic Jewish area sandwiched between Brighton Beach and Bensonhurst. But it’s not just Middle Eastern immigrants who inhabit the one- and two-family homes there—Chinese, Mexicans and Russians have been taking root as well. It’s always been an immigrant neighborhood, they say, but the geography of the immigrants changes over the years. As the neighborhood grows wealthier, it’s seeing the increase of a fad popular in other parts of the States: the tear-down. Five million dollar mansions are going in razed lots, though they say you can still snatch up an older home—one that doesn’t need razing—for $600,000. One local broker summed up why prices are so high: 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.
A Neighborhood Both Insular and Diverse [NY Times]
Ocean Parkway at Avenue U. Photo by Lisanne!.