« Monday Links Fort Greene Street Party »
May 14, 2007
The Times Gives It Up For Alterna-Slopes
The Times had a case of Brooklyn fever this weekend, taking some precious column inchage to profile two neighborhoods that most readers of The Gray Lady probably hadn't heard of until recently, Windsor Terrace and Prospect Lefferts Gardens. The subjects of the Windsor Terrace article, a couple who were pleased as punch to land a four-bedroom house in the nabe last year for $999,000, had this to say about how their new home stacked up versus the Slope: “It’s a little less precious over here, and a little more real. We kind of like that." (The director of the Jack Nicholson flick As Good As It Gets thought it was unprecious enough to cast one of the houses above on Fuller Place as Helen Hunt's working-class digs. The idea that these places are now within reach of people with working-class incomes is, of course, laughable.) Despite initial concern about the "clusters of young men hanging out on some of the street corners," the star of the PLG article ultimately was won over by the area's racial diversity and proximity to Prospect Park, snapping up a small Victorian house just outside the historic district for $240,000 back in 2002. She now shares the house with her 11-year-old daughter, her brother and his wife.
Less ‘Precious’ Than the Slope? Certainly Cheaper [NY Times]
A Wished-For House With a Hideaway Nook [NY Times]
Photo by redxdress
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.brownstoner.com/mte/mt-tb.cgi/1160
Comments
I have to say that even if I do agree somewhat with the sentiment,Brownstoner *loves* to bash Park Slope. Why, oh why?
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 9:08 AM
Good point re: the working class. Minimum wage has been flat for a DECADE! Oy.
Posted by: xoxoANP at May 14, 2007 9:22 AM
Perhaps, like me, he's been ready to kill someone after trying for over half an hour to park his car in park slope - and its all being internalized.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 9:32 AM
And Kensington (just below WT) was profiled last weekend in 'The Hunt'
http://kensingtonbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2007/05/ny-times-hunt-in-kensington.html
Posted by: kensington gal at May 14, 2007 9:34 AM
I don't know why anyone would mess with either one of these neighborhoods when they could do much better (in every respect) in Ditmas Park, Midwood, Fiske Terrace, etc.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 9:38 AM
Prospect Lefferts Gardens is just bad news. There are too many enormous rent-stabilized apartment buildings and proximate housing projects. Anyone who buys a house there will be in a tiny minority surrounded by many hostile neighbors consumed with avarice.
Such buyers WILL be targets.
Posted by: Eryximachus at May 14, 2007 9:40 AM
Where was the PS bashing? It's a simple fact -- Brooklyn isn't **just** PS and PS is not the most desired nabe for a lot of folks, for a lot reasons.
Posted by: jdhs 91 at May 14, 2007 9:40 AM
proximity to prospect park, 9:38, is why.
Posted by: franz fanonymous at May 14, 2007 9:41 AM
9:32, someone would "mess" with one of these neighborhoods before buying in Ditmas because he or she would rather be closer to the Manhattan, closer to the park, and most likely living in a limestone or brick townhouse, which heats and cools efficiently, has minimal roofing costs, and doesn't need to a $10,000 to $20,000 paint job every decade or so. There are also a good percentage of homes with driveways and garages --- not as many as Victorian Flatbush mind you, but quite a few.
Ditmas is gorgeous, but those 100+ year old wood frame houses are an enormous responsibility. And, as our inspector said when we recently bought a limestone in one of the neighborhoods the Times recognized this weekend, Brooklyn is termite central.
So I'm really not sure what you're getting at here, touting the superiority of your neighborhood over the two mentioned above. You can't be referring to safety concerns, as wasn't a woman just stabbed to death on Newkirk last week? Ditmas/Midwood/Fiske Terrace certainly looks like a placid suburban community, but it has urban concerns, just like the rest of Brooklyn. And there are just as many posts on this board about Victorian Flatbush as there are about Windsor Terrace and PLG, and people don't invade those threads and bash the neighborhood only to advertise their own home turf. So let these areas have their due.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 9:51 AM
Windsor Terrace is a neighborhood that Pete Hamill wrote about in his book "A Drinking Life."
He covered the boozing years of his youth in Park Slope as well. But some of his best memories included his trips to Farrell's bar on the corner of 16th Street and 9th Avenue. A community of drinkers. His father took him to Farrell's, and as Pete said, he not only came from a dysfunctional family of drinkers, he came from a dysfunctional neighborhood.
There's still no better bar than Farrell's if you're looking for a link to the Irish drinking past in the borough. But it's fading, even at Farrell's.
It wasn't long ago that I was talking to a fellow at Farrell's who'd been a bat-boy for the Dodgers around 1948. You meet guys like that in there. Firemen, cops, transit workers, sanitation workers, teachers, local politicians, and the occasional screwball.
About 10 years ago there was a major robbery at the World Trade Center. The two hapless dupes who robbed the bank at the Trade Center of a couple of million dollars were seen on a security videotape after removing their masks.
The tape was shown on the news. When it played on TV screens all over, the daytime drinking crew at Farrell's snapped to attention and beat a path to the pay-phone in the bar. The two clowns were regulars.
Posted by: no_slappz at May 14, 2007 9:59 AM
9:54, a little restraint please. It was a horrifying story, and would have been equally horrifying regardless of where it happened.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 10:02 AM
The NY Times article mentioned only one local Windsor Terrace School. Not a peep about P.S. 154, which, for a while, was an undiscovered gem. However, that might have changed, according to comments on some of the websites devoted to NYC schools.
Still, PS 154 operates UNDER capacity. Too many schools, like the insanely popular PS 321 in Park Slope, are like the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.
However, the article mentioned the following school:
"One high school close to Windsor Terrace is the Secondary School for Research, also on Seventh Avenue, where in 2005 students averaged 399 on the mathematics section of the SAT and 361 on the verbal; state averages were 511 and 478."
This school is the former John Jay High School. In short, its graduates -- well, those who pass through its halls -- are voted most likely to spend time on Riker's Island, according to some people with experience at the school.
If by some misfortune your child is sent to this school, switch him to the witness protection program. The place is a nightmare. I know from personal experience.
Posted by: no_slappz at May 14, 2007 10:10 AM
I don't understand the need for acrimony on commenting about the pro's and con's of Bklyn nabes-not-one's-own. We love the Slope, go there every Sat. for greenmarket and errands, pass our old newlywed apt. on 10th St. and check the progress of the holly tree we planted. Even 21 years ago, we discovered sadly that this pleasant place was, mysteriously and hopelessly, out of our reach, but we bear it no grudge, and we feel for the residents as the cozy boho vibe they signed up for is siphoned off in a wave of mini-banks, cell-phone stores and realty offices. Likewise Windsor Terrace. Our daughter goes to Holy Name School, and we'd trade our monster Victorian (still waiting for this decades $10K paint job) for one of those darling Fuller Place row houses in a heartbeat...except that, just like 21 years ago, these "modest" charmers are still out of reach. (As ours appreciated, theirs appreciated even more.) Such is life. So we try to focus on the good stuff about where we are. As the hapless Rodney sez: Why can't we all just get along? (And if you knew what a foul-mouthed and snarky, "Curb-Your-Enthusiasm" person I am, oh Nasty-Posters-Above, you would realize how scary it is that even I can be more pleasant than you.)
Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at May 14, 2007 10:14 AM
BTW, I noticed how few of the decent local public schools got mentioned in the Times' WT piece, but didn't realize that the one they mentioned was in 'the former John Jay' (which, judging from the rough trade at dismissal,is still indeed Rikers Prep, even after its 'reconfiguration'). Was glad they mentioned Holy Name--it's a warm, safe, diverse, "back to basics" school, and non-Catholics are welcomed; and at $4K a year, it's a decent alternative to the private school rat-race if you're willing to forgo the bells, whistles, and status-seeking ambience.
Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at May 14, 2007 10:18 AM
All these Park Slope refugees are making Windsor Terrace a little more "precious" and a little less "real" every day.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 10:20 AM
J.L.: which 6th Avenue place are you referring to? Curious because we went to go see one this weekend on 6th...
Posted by: anonymous at May 14, 2007 10:27 AM
Please provide a link to the stabbing on Newkirk.
Yes, PLG has it's plusses - great architecture being the most obvious - but don't bash Ditmas. There are a lot of people here who made a choice between PLG and this neighborhood. I didn't even get far enough down the road to consider whether or not PLG was too violent. I felt most of the houses available were just two small. Tiny second and third bedrooms felt like horse closets. Beautiful buildings, but I felt better for families raising singletons, or couples who want a home office. Certainly could not accomodate our family of six.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 10:31 AM
Please excuse above typos. Like I said - lots of kids means having to type on the fly and forget about proofing....
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 10:32 AM
When I'm wrong I admit it: I just looked up the last few police blotters, and that awful and very sad stabbing was somewhere else in Flatbush, in front of a big apartment on Bedford Ave., most likely between Ditmas and Lefferts near Kings County hospital. (And 9:59, how right you are. The fates of those two neighborhoods are almost assuredly linked.)
Someone read the story aloud to me last Saturday, and I heard Newkirk. So I either heard wrong, he misread the address, or there was a misprint in an early edition of the paper. My most sincere apologies.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 10:41 AM
That's really disturbed, if that was made up...
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 10:41 AM
To anonymous 9:51 if Brooklyn is termite central it would seem sort of Herculean for all thos Ditmas houses to still be around after 100+ years.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 10:49 AM
"Brenda from Flatbush" your posting is a breath of fresh air.
My family and I currently live in WT. We purchased a 2bedroom co-op in '83 after renting in PS for many years...
(Our "newly wed" apartment was on 12th St.)
We were in WT before it became pricey,but we also loved the close proximity to the park, and the amenities of PS.. and yes we were and are solid "working class".
Point being, the health of one neighborhood affects the health of all the surrounding areas... so there's no need to bash... take that energy and
form a Block Association, get active in
your particular community... bring about
the changes that will make living in your community a pleasurable and safe experience.
Posted by: bren at May 14, 2007 10:54 AM
Folks are envious of PS because they can't afford to live there I think. Besides P. Park and excellent public transportation, it offers a neighborhood that contains the schools (public and private), an array of other important institutions from like Beth Elohim, multiple churches all the way down to the food coop, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, etc. It has several commercial streets, etc. Its boxy shape provides a total, self enclosed neighborhood which is tremendously attractive. Also I think that it never really hit rock bottom like Ft. Greene or some other Brownstone hoods also make a difference.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 10:57 AM
Dysfunctional do you mean everyone left BEHIND in the neighborhood after the great migration to the suburbs? One of the few places where the junkies on the street are white men in their 50's.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 11:01 AM
OK... I could afford to live in Park Slope, if I purchased a building with a rental unit to offset the morgage. However, after doing that, I'm left with a large "apartment" rather than an entire house. I have a large family, and I made the choice to give them all their own rooms, a family room, backyard, etc... by moving to Ditmas. Now, if living in PS was what it was really about for me (and my money), they would be sharing rooms and I'd be collecting rent. Not that there's anything wrong with that... It's just not the choice I made. I'm tired of being told on this board that I can't afford the Slope. I could, if I wanted to compromise my family's living arrangements... OK, I suppose you could say I can't afford the sort of home I want in Park Slope and this is true. But I could certainly afford to live in PS if simply living there was what was most important to me.
I just get sick of hearing how I'm some poor relation because I chose not to live in PS.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 11:08 AM
To 10:49: It is wonderful and amazing that so many of the houses in Ditmas have been well kept through the years. And I applaud anyone who signs on to take care of one now, since it means I get to continue to walk those streets and admire the architecture, albeit from afar.
I was just referring to my experience with a very good and well respected Brooklyn inspector, who found some signs of termite activity in our backyard. (We live in a row of beautifully kept up limestone and brick houses - the last place in the borough one would expect to find any termite activity.) It turned out to be nothing to worry about, but it did make us realize how careful one would have to be in keeping up a wood frame house in Brooklyn, where unfortunately some owners have just let their wood- and non-wood-frame homes rot.
Anyway, it only makes me more all the more grateful there are people out there who are willing and able to take on the responsibility of being a Victorian Flatbush homeowner.
So have I apologized sufficiently to all those out there I offended? I really wasn't trying to start a flame war. Just responding, admittedly rather rashly, to someone who was bashing two neighborhoods I'm rather fond of, in favor of a third neighborhood, which I'm also rather fond of.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 11:13 AM
I'm not saying anything in particular about the comments made for/against park slope as I happen to love the place...not to mention if you're in north slope you are worlds closer to manhattan via the Q or 2/3 trains than Windsor Terrace, but that's neither here nor there.
I just don't understand how people can be SO incredibly short-sighted to not understand that the gentrification of windsor terrace, kensington, prospect heights, etc etc etc was DUE in large part to the improvement of park slope. To bash it makes no sense, because without Park Slope, there would be no million dollar homes in Windsor Terrace or Prospect Heights.
You can not like Park Slope...that's cool with me...but I think you should respect it for the amazing community that it is and for it's residents who have now moved into Windsor Terrace, etc to make them better places to live.
It's also pretty hypocritical because in 5 years, practically everyone in those hoods are going to be former PS'ers...
Posted by: anon at May 14, 2007 11:15 AM
11:15 is so right.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 11:37 AM
10:57, Didn't Park Slope hit rock bottom in the 60's?? I used to live in Park Slope. Cashed out and upgraded to a better home in Bed Stuy. Face realty...not everyone wants to live in the Slope! If that was the case, NOTHING would be on the market there.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 11:38 AM
I'm a perfect example, 11:15. A few years ago I decided it was time to leave PS for newer pastures. And it's funny because I explicitly had PLG and Ditmas in mind as potential places to go. I ended up going to Ditmas because the right place came along at the right time, but I could easily have ended up in PLG, congratulate those who have ended up there, and agree with earlier posters that the futures of these two areas are profoundly connected.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 11:39 AM
I agree 11:15. I am an ex-park sloper who moved to Ditmas because I couldn't afford what I wanted in Park Slope at the time. I would have bought there and would have been very happy. I didn't - and now am very happy where I am with no intention of leaving although my finances would now allow me to. I could also see being happy in Windsor Terrace or Lefferts. I don't understand all the bashing. They are all incredibly neighborhoods in their own ways. Instead of bashing other Brooklyn neighborhoods, lets all get together and bash Manhattan ;) Kidding!
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 11:40 AM
i am 11:15. i agree...all of these neighborhoods are fantastic! i've recently bought my first place this last year...a studio in park slope and couldn't be happier. it's definitely home to me and i feel incredibly lucky to live here. all of these neighborhoods...Windsor Terrace, Prospect Heights, Clinton Hill, Ft. Greene, Ditmas are incredible. We are very lucky to live in brooklyn at this time in my opinion, and after spending 7 years living in manhattan i dread even going to work there now. i'm just so freakin in love with brooklyn. all the neighborhood rivalry is silly. anyone need a publicist for brooklyn?
ha.
Posted by: anon at May 14, 2007 12:04 PM
No need to bash any neighborhoods including Manhattan. A lot of people have life in Manhattan as we do in Brooklyn. Just be happy where you live.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 12:10 PM
Yes 11:38, PS and all adjacent neighborhoods were gritty and crime ridden during those years, late 60's-70's...
As a matter of fact, the entire city
was in terrible shape.
Double digit inflation, lots of folks out of work... not a good time at all.
Many areas, now popular in Brooklyn, were "Red Lined" districts...
Creative folks with a vision, (and not that much money) combined with a "roll up your sleeves" attitude brought these areas back... they invested their precious dollars and energies into resurrecting and restoring
these abandoned but lovely neighborhoods,while I might add, being called "fools" by many skeptics who were very down on all of Brooklyn.
So no one should be bashing any area in Brooklyn... the health and safety of all of our Brooklyn neighhoods is so linked...
Posted by: bren at May 14, 2007 12:14 PM
Silly suggestion, bashing Manhattan. Everyone knows we're supposed to bash the SUBURBS!
Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at May 14, 2007 12:19 PM
Who cares where other people live?
Sheesh.
Just be glad you aren't 35 and living with your parents in Park Slope like I do. I am unable to function without all the necessary Park Slope amenities like my mom doing my laundry and buying me sushi.
Oh, and I went to ps 321 way back when the neighborhood was bottoming out and it was still awesome.
Posted by: PS 321 grad and proud at May 14, 2007 12:19 PM
I'm a born and raised Brooklynite (Gravesend/Kings Highway area), former resident of the South Slope for 10 years, and current new resident of Windsor Terrace. What I love about WT is that its residents remind me of the good folk I grew up with, but also is experiencing gentrification benefits from the radiating Slope. I agree that in a few years, it may be alot less "real", but that may also mean an increase in property values, which enabled me to cash out of the Slope and buy a larger place in WT in the first place.
Posted by: Rocknrope at May 14, 2007 12:26 PM
Slightly off topic -- I'm an enthusiastic lurker moved to post because people are using phrases like "working class" and "middle class," and I suddenly realize that I have no idea what those phrases mean vis a vis Brooklyn. What kind of dual income ranges are we talking about? What bracket qualifies as "working" or "middle" or "upper middle" in this real estate market?
Posted by: juniper at May 14, 2007 12:55 PM
While I agree that we shouldn't be "bashing" neighborhoods, I disagree with the implicit message that all areas are fine and we should all be happy to live in any of them. I would happily live in Windsor Terrace, but after spending lots of time there I have no interest in living in Lefferts Manor or PLG. It just isn't for me. I'm not bashing it, I'm just being honest about where I want to live and to raise my family. The fact is that each area is different and everyone has a different threshold for what they are comfortable with. We should all be free to express that (politely) without be branded as bashers.
Posted by: Bg at May 14, 2007 1:23 PM
Bottom line: If you refer to your neighborhood as "a little less precious" and "a little more real," you are a little less real and a little more precious.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 1:27 PM
Oh, and I almost forgot the biggest bennie of WT, street parking! Even though I actually have a parking space, it does my heart good to walk from the subway to my building and see all the empty street spots, bless their hearts.
Posted by: Rocknrope at May 14, 2007 1:27 PM
Eryximachus,
Ived never agreed with any of your posts but I respect your intellegence and the clarity with which you state your views. That's why I'm surprised by your statement about "proximate housing projects" in PLG. That statement is simply not correct--there are NO housing projects in the neighborhood.
You also write about there being "too many enormous rent-stabilized apartment buildings." There IS the large Patio Gardens complex (which is, possibly the "housing project" you referred to, although that is hardly an accurate description). Other then that, there are many six-story pre-war apartment buildings--medium sized IMO--I wouldn't describe a 50--60 apartment building as enormous.
I have been amazed, in recent years, by the number of young middle class people, white and black, who have been moving into these buildings. This is something that, frankly, I never expected to see. It is no secret that lack of "services" has long been a problem here. IMO this was because the middle class population, in the largely single-family houses, wasn't large enough to support upscale businesses. The changes in the apartment buildings are likely to have a major impact in that area. You may very well disagree--perhaps you could do so without resorting to such pejorative terms as "bad news" to describe our neighborhood.
One last thing--Anon 9:38,
PLG, WT, And Vic't Flatbush are hardly in competition. What builds one historic neighborhood helps them all.
Posted by: Bob Marvin at May 14, 2007 1:49 PM
BG,
While I can (politely) disagree with your opinion of PLG, I have no problem with your post. There are brownstone areas I wouldn't want to live in either. Our lists of desirable and undesirable nabes would probably differ--no big deal.
Posted by: Bob Marvin at May 14, 2007 1:54 PM
Bg, anytime you feel like criticizing PLG to my face, I will gladly take you apart at the joints. Anytime.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 2:00 PM
Anon. 10:57,
You wrote "Also I think that it [Park Slope]never really hit rock bottom like Ft. Greene or some other Brownstone hoods also make a difference".
ALL the Brooklyn brownstone neighborhoods except the Heights could be said to have hit "rock bottom" by the late'50s. In 1975, right after moving into my house in PLG, I took a New School course on the brownstones of NYC with Everett Ortner. Everett, along with his late wife Evelyn, are among the people who can be credited with bringing Park Slope "back from the dead" [his words, IIRC]. Ortner dated the "brownstone revival"as having started in the late '50s, when young "urban pioneers", priced out of relatively affluent Brooklyn Heights, crossed Atlantic Avenue to buy and restore homes in that slum called "Cobble Hill." How easily we forget! (BTW, the publication Ortner started--still published sporatically--is called "The Brownstoner").
Posted by: Bob Marvin at May 14, 2007 2:22 PM
I really hope "anon. 2:00" doesn't live in my neighborhood--with friends like that, who needs enemies? :-)
Posted by: Bob Marvin at May 14, 2007 2:24 PM
I am anon @ 2:00. For your information, I've lived on Maple St. for about the past seven years. Sorry to disappoint you.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 2:35 PM
Hey - if you don't feel right about raising your family in PLG, you really shouldn't live there (although I'm not sure why you think anyone cares).
Frankly, I have no problem raising my family here, just like I had no problem starting a family in Fort Greene in the 1990s. When I moved to Fort Greene, I heard the exact same complaint (over and over again) from the Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill crowd - "I wouldn't want to raise a family OVER THERE..." Well, I sold my townhouse in Fort Greene in 2005 for nearly $2M and relocated my family to Prospect Lefferts Gardens (to a house by the Park w/ parking) and had enough money left over to buy a country home in Woodstock. Now I have two homes, $0 in mortgage and zero regrets.
But even if I wasn't so lucky, I actually liked living in Fort Greene. And I like living in PLG. What's up with all the negativity? No one's forcing anyone to live there.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 2:37 PM
Eryximachus is a doctor and a guest at Plato's Symposium. He is presented throughout as rather pompous, confident in his medical skills, and insistent on maintaining order.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 2:48 PM
2:37, nothing you said contradicts my point. I have friends who are happy in Bed Stuy--I wouldn't be. I have friends who are happy on the UES--I wouldn't be. I have friends who are happy in the suburbs--I wouldn't be. You are happy in PLG--I wouldn't be. Why do you think that the fact that you're happy there means that everyone should be?
Posted by: Bg at May 14, 2007 3:05 PM
well the eryximachus on this board is a whiney self proclaimed 20-something who makes in the 6 figures and complains non stop about how he can't afford anything in brooklyn.
still think he's so intelligent, bob???
not only is he everything wrong with the entitled youth being brought up these days, but then comes on here and posts bitter rants as if we should all feel sorry for him because he hasn't been able to buy property on his meager salary and bashes every neighborhood in the process.
i guess we've got differing opinions on what quantifies intelligence.
Posted by: anonymous at May 14, 2007 3:07 PM
i also think a lot of people SAY they're happy in their respective hoods, because a. it's good for their bottom line b. it encourages others to move into the hood thus adding to a.
i really don't believe for a second that anyone truly LOVES living in PLG if they have a family. it's simply not that safe...or safe feeling, i should say. although prices may be lower, the satisfaction of knowing my kids could go play out front without me going out with them far exceeds saving a few bucks in my mind (if you've got it, of course) and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with "diversity."
in a huge city like new york with a stressful life, you are really underestimating the feeling of a safe neighborhood and the thoughts that go along with "if i were walking home from the subway drunk at 4am, would i be" 1. terrified 2. super alert 3. alert 4. make sure to have ipod off and eyes open.
I prefer to live in number 4.
And I do believe PLG would be considered a very strong 2/1.
To each his/her own, but lots of us like knowing that we can walk around at any hour without groups of people hanging around on the corner, which by the way from the few times i've been down to plg, they were not JUST hanging around. they were selling drugs, they were calling people names as they walked by and they were harassing women.
of course this happens everywhere, but it happens too often for my taste in plg.
Posted by: anonymous at May 14, 2007 3:15 PM
Brooklyn Heights hit rock bottom too, don't kid yourself. by 1960 conditions in the Heights were very bad, it was a semi-slum. Other neighborhoods like Carrol Gardens and Park Slope, fared much better in my estimation.
Posted by: Serge at May 14, 2007 3:18 PM
I don't think there was anything wrong with what the poster with a family of six said about PLG houses being two small. My own three story house has two floors of living and entertainment space, with only one floor of bedrooms. There are four bedrooms, but two ARE tiny. Could a family of six, or larger, live in a house like mine? Yes,of course--people had LARGE families when our houses were built, but it would be tight. A four story in PLG might work for a very large family. So would one of the three story limestones,or brick colonial revivals, with two floors of bedrooms. There even are a handful of frame houses similar to those in other parts of Flatbush further south. Nevertheless, I agree that Victorian Flatbush has far more homes suitable for really large families than most any brownstone neighborhood.
Posted by: Bob Marvin at May 14, 2007 3:18 PM
"still think he[eryximachus]'s so intelligent, bob???"
Yes
Also IMO wrong headed and somthing of a PITA, but NOT stupid.
YRMV
Posted by: Bob Marvin at May 14, 2007 3:23 PM
"But even if I wasn't so lucky, I actually liked living in Fort Greene"
Sorry, but this comment sums it all up. I don't think I'd want to be "lucky" when it comes to the safety of my family and friends and our living environment.
I prefer to be a little more solid about my choice and it would be a sad story if I happened to be one of the unlucky ones because I hoped to turn my 1 million dollar house into 2 a few years down the road.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 3:31 PM
Anon.3:15,
Hate to disappoint you, but I DO love living in PLG and I raised a family quite successfully here. Yes, I DO encourage others to move here and have been doing so since 1975. However, since I never intend to move, I don't really care that much about my RE bottom line--it's sort of like Monopoly money :-)
Posted by: Bob Marvin at May 14, 2007 3:34 PM
serge is up to his revisionist history again.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 3:35 PM
some people are courageous when it comes to this sortof thing and my hat is off to you bob. in some ways i wish i were more comfortable with it because of the ability to make more money on an up and coming hood, but when it came down to it, it was all about the comfort zone.
i'm actually hoping to get down to your hood next weekend as it's been about a year or so since i was last there and i'm always up for a long walk/exploration on a great weather weekend...
Posted by: anon at May 14, 2007 3:38 PM
1 million dollars for a one family house and they want to appear down to earth? How can the middle class afford that house? We are talking $6K a month, which is more than the gross household income of the NYC middle class.
If you want middle class, look way beyond WT. Windsor Terrace is full of the same yuppies as Park Slope.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 3:40 PM
Oh come on! What's the debate for? PLG houses cost 2/3 or 1/2 the price of other neighborhoods, depending on condition. If PLG were Park Slope, uh, hmmm, probably wouldn't be priced so low!
Get some perspective, people.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 3:45 PM
Ditmas is great too. No reason to bash PLG or Ditmas
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 4:01 PM
Ditmas is great too. No reason to bash PLG or Ditmas
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 4:02 PM
Ditmas is great too. No reason to bash PLG or Ditmas.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 4:04 PM
Is someone doubting that Brooklyn Heights had become a semi-slum by mid century? The projects on Cadman Plaza and Monroe Place were built as slum clearance, lest we forget.
Jackson writes about it very succinctly in his "encyclopedia of new York".
It's not revisionist to tell the truth.
Brooklyn Heights was boarding house-ville, a Caucasian slum.
Posted by: Serge at May 14, 2007 4:07 PM
Thank you anon 3:38, but I've never felt especially courageous--I didn't move to PLG to prove a point. To be honest,I wouldn't have looked here except that I was priced out of PS, where I was renting--I was perfectly happy there, but PS houses were pushing $100K in '74!--BIG bucks, believe it or not.
I went on the '74 PLG HT, fell in love with the area, and the rest is history.
I only know ONE person who moved here to make an ideolgical/moral point--I admire him, he's a truly good person, but we can't all be saints.
Posted by: Bob Marvin at May 14, 2007 4:08 PM
When I lived in Windsor Terrace my neighbors took in their grandchild. To save him, according to them, from their son and his crazed girlfriend who were crackheads.
Sounded good. The selfless grandparents taking in their unfortunate grandson to save the kid from his insane parents. Yeah, well, then the grandmother started beating the kid because he couldn't tell time, he couldn't remember his mulitplication tables and he couldn't spell. Beat him. Knocked him out of his chair when she drilled him on his school work.
I could hear the slaps and the screaming through the common wall between our houses.
Yeah, I called the cops and that's when my neighbors started threatening me. Not the grandparents. But one of their several idiot children. The main threatener was the 35-year-old son who still lived at home. Today's he's about 45, still occupying his childhood bedroom. His brothers drift through. There's a married daughter who lives nearby. But her husband won't go in his in-laws house. He hates his in-laws because he knows they are psychotic abusers who scream at all their grandchildren and each other.
Posted by: kings county almanac at May 14, 2007 4:12 PM
The "As Good As It Gets" house is on the corner of Windsor and Howard, not Fuller.
Also--yes, New York went through a miserable depression 30 years ago (unemployment, crime, destruction, you don't the know the half of it)BUT not every neighborhood was "abandoned." Ditmas Park had down times, but people kept right on living there--more crime than now, but WAY cheaper (lots of extra $$ to send kids to St Ann's, as many in the nabe did). PLG also fell on hard times, but let's not overlook the fact that people kept right on raising families there. Is it because they were mostly black families that everybody forgets they existed? And WT never really crashed, but it had a large population of lifetime drug users--like someone said, including white guys in their 50s--right up until like ten years ago.
New people may be shaping these areas to their own tastes, but you're not saving the nabes. The folks who stuck it out through brutally hard times (in some instances twice, the 30s and 70s)saved them for You.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 4:24 PM
kings county almanac 4:12-
uhhh..where did you live approximately? just trying to avoid the area if they're still there
Posted by: anon at May 14, 2007 4:32 PM
I was "lucky" in Fort Greene because my property appreciated in value so much that it ended up being worth as much as a Carroll Gardens townhouse. This notion that certain neighborhoods are doomed in terms of livability, safety and being suitable places to invest is silly.
All I'm saying is that all this Ditmas Park and PLG anxiety sounds like te same BS everyone said about Fort Greene fifteen years ago.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 4:33 PM
4:24, i agree and thus why i think people should be more respectful of park slope (whether they like it or not in terms of a place to live) as it was one of the first hoods to gentrify...not only here in new york, but park slope is a model for gentrification of inner city neighborhoods throughout the u.s.
i'll have to look it up, but i read a book not long ago about park slope in the 60's and 70's and how many urban communities looked at it in terms of using it for their own initiatives.
Posted by: anon at May 14, 2007 4:35 PM
The secret of PS 154 is certainly out. The school may claim to operate under capacity, but they held a lottery for pre-k spots this year (like PS 107, 321, etc.) and turned away lots of folks.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 5:44 PM
To anon at May 14, 2007 4:32 PM from kings country almanac:
I lived on Seeley Street in Windsor Terrace. Don't worry about the psychos who lived next door to me. The child-abusing grandparents are aging as is the grandson they abused.
Grandma Psycho was the worst, by far. Angry in ways psychiatrists have yet to define. But she's been a heavy heavy smoker for decades. If she's not hooked to an oxygen tank already, the connection will occur soon.
Grandpa was a good saloon man for years till he quit drinking. Did the drunk weave home from Farrell's every night for years and years. At least two sons went into the gutter with him. But the crackhead son was fathered by someone else.
Another son, the one living in his childhood bedroom, caught some of his mother's anger. She's got the generic hate-em-all anger. He's a little more focused. A guy with a real Ted-Bundy women-hating turn. Likes to wear hats and shoes that make him look taller.
It's gets worse. The crackhead son whose child was slapped around by the grandparents was long rumored to be a suspect in a Windsor Terrace murder that occurred about 15 years ago. A push-in robbery gone bad. An old lady who'd come home from the bank after withdrawing some cash. The thug grabbed the dough and gave her a shove that knocked her down and killed her. No one's been arrested, unfortunately. Her husband put a monument in their yard on 17th St.
Don't get the wrong idea. Windsor Terrace is a great place. It's just this one family that fills a hole over there. Most people don't know how sick they are. You have to live next door and share a wall and a back porch to know.
Anyway, there was once a lot more family fireworks in households in Windsor Terrace. It's gotten much better in recent years.
The Yuppies that Denis Hammill wrote about in the Daily News have paid off the previous generation of homeowners, giving them big retirement money to buy those places in North Carolina and Florida.
Denis Hammill calls the Yuppies buying the Windsor Terrace homes scum. He joined a protest against a building on Prospect Park Southwest and 16th Street several years ago. Too bad.
Posted by: kings county almanac at May 14, 2007 6:23 PM
To anon at May 14, 2007 4:35 PM re: Park Slope:
Park Slope may seem like a model of many things, but a lot of luck was involved with its rebound.
The limestones and brownstones were once known as "teachers' specials" because they were cheap enough for teachers to afford back in the days when banks red-lined the neighborhood.
Many factors contributed to the long-term rise in prices, but a chief contributor was the general change in banking and mortgage lending.
Red-lining lost its meaning as the mortgage market matured. Once banks had no choice but to hold the mortgages they issued. There was no secondary market in which they could trade mortgages to diversify their risks. That changed.
Because lenders did not want to lend to buyers looking in Park Slope, prices were low. Thus, those with some cash were able to get relative bargains. But they had to accept the urban pathologies that affected the neighborhood.
There was a great study of gangs in Brooklyn written by Harrison Salisbury around 1960. He describes a neighborhood almost no one would recall today. But my father-in-law bought a house on 3rd Street near the Park in 1960. My wife's family remembers it well.
Posted by: slope meister at May 14, 2007 6:33 PM
Anonymous 4:24pm, I am so in agreement with your posting.
Your description of WT up until 10 years ago is also very accurate...
Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: bren at May 14, 2007 6:36 PM
Given the long history of identity hijacking and defaming on this blog, I'm willing to bet that the posts attributed to "Crown Heights Proud" at the 6:48 and 6:51 p.m. are the work of a demented troll.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 8:02 PM
Believe it or not, it's actually me this time. And I've really been enjoying brownstoner the past couple of days.
Posted by: Crown Heights Proud at May 14, 2007 8:42 PM
I knew the trolls were real estate agents!
I've been saying it for the last year and nobody agreed with me.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 14, 2007 10:03 PM
I've lived in PLG for 7 years and have walked home sober and not very so on many early mornings. I've never been mugged in PLG, and was several times when I lived in the Slope between 4th and 5th Avenues.
Stop bashing PLG. PLG has great transportation, is close to the botanical gardens and the best parts of Prospect Park. On top of all of this, it's a wonderful community.
Posted by: anonymous at May 14, 2007 11:27 PM
I came to the same conclusion you did, completely independently, 10:03pm. There are some realtors who are identified with specific neighborhoods, and they use the tactic of creating paranoia about safety in competing neighborhoods.
Nobody wants to get in a contest over which neighborhood is more likely to have muggings, because it's useless and tiresome, but anybody who thinks they are immune to crime because their neighborhood is gentrified is putting themselves and their families at risk. Don't be paranoid, just be realistic about life in the big city.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 11:54 AM
This kind of non-stop chatter reminds me of the now-funny to think about article in NY Magazine from the 70's about the wasteland that the Upper West Side was but how good, honest working families were making it better and how some nutty developers had some big ideas for the area. I think this Brooklyn thing could be very big people too. And it's all about the pouring of the waves of people from Manhattan not at all about us and our little battles over the hoods. We will one day look back on these dialogues quaint relics of our distant past.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 9:49 PM
I grew up two blocks from this house in the picture. I went to elementary school directly across the street from this house. When I was in seventh grade, this house watched several of my year-mates toss furniture out the window of said school...one of my other seventh grade classmates was one of the guys who robbed the WTC..one of the "clowns". My own as well as many other father's in the neighborhood drank his paycheck at Farrell's.
What I love about this area, which was formerly known as "Park Slop" when I was younger, is the sense of family in the area. The manner in which the houses are built and arranged, as well as the park being nearby are a fantastic setup for close and friendly neighbors....we all knew one another and I can still get caught up walking from "The Avenue" (9th, which isn't 9th but PPW) and talk nonstop to everyone I meet...
Thanks for this. It's so much fun to find out how people react to something that is so average and normal for me. This is great.
Posted by: guest at November 2, 2007 1:28 AM
Whoa..just read the middle posts, which I had not seen previously.
One of the things about neighborhoods is that it takes neighbors to make them work.
There is a way to live amongst the kind of yelling and so on that is being described. Staying quietly in your home and phoning the police is not the way it works...
I don't even know how to describe to you how Brooklyn works. But the reason the older children still live at home in the area is precisely because the house is worth so much....1. the adult child wants to be in on the worth 2. now that the house is worth this astronomical amount of money, the parents can refinance and afford for the adult child to do these stupid things and 3. more money to people who are nuts just gives them less need to be somewhere responsible.
The housing values made life difficult in so many ways....maybe it seems to have helped move poeple to Florida and what have you but, really, it created weird situations where neighbors left places they loved because, financially, it was what made sense.
Anyway...
Posted by: guest at November 2, 2007 1:39 AM
Post a comment
Please be patient while your comment is published. It may take a moment.