Park Slope vs. Upper West Side

Thanks for the responses.

Ysabelle, I think (or hope) the whole hipster/stroller mafia thing is greatly exaggerated (I've met lots of Park Slopers who fall between those extremes), but you do touch on a concern of ours, namely, does most of the social activity in Park Slope revolve around doing stuff with kids? We like kids, but don't have any, so we're a little worried about our ability to make friends in the area if the socializing revolves around play-dates.

Drew, the Bronx has some great areas and, I may be wrong, but to me the neighborhoods and houses in the Bronx don't seem to compare to brownstone Brooklyn from an aesthetic perspective, which, for better or worse, matters to us. Also, the commute from the Bronx to midtown may be OK, but it's a long trip to downtown, which is where we prefer to go for dinner on weeknights and to hang out on weekends when we're in town.

I think that sort of addresses your point, bkrules. We have some friends on the UWS, but they're really all over the place, including the UES, SoHo, Financial District, Chelsea, etc. The subway ride from Park Slope to Union Square is only about 15 minutes -- about the same as the ride from the UWS. As for the house stuff . . . I can definitely relate. Our weekend place can certainly be a pain sometimes. The local electric company was installing new meters and hired a subcontractor that didn't work weekends. They suggested that we leave the house unlocked for a week, which was a nonstarter. One of us ended up taking a day off from work. Maybe renting for a while is the way to go.

All great advice. Your posts are by far outpacing my responses!

As for the garden rental, I agree with Dave. We want the staircase in our unit to be fully open floor to floor, so I think we would avoid having a tenant above us.

By the way, does anyone have any thoughts on the 17-foot limestones on 4th bewteen PPW and 8th? One was on the market for a short time recently. We took a look at it and, although I know many people despise anything narrower than 19 feet, the scale of that house seemed right for our purposes. Those houses are really just 3 floors (the English basement is too far below grade to be anything more than a cellar), and the houses were originally built with ground floor kitchen extensions out back, which solves that whole kitchen-in-the-basement dilemma.

As you can see, despite what may be the right answer with respect to our potential move (i.e., staying put), I can't let it go.

Thanks again for all the sound advice.

As for other neighborhoods in Brooklyn, we have considered Prospect Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill. The housing in Prospect Heights is similar to that of Park Slope, and we actually focused on Prospect Heights first because of the better value proposition. However, as sad as I am to admit it, I like the slightly more scrubbed streets of Park Slope. I think I'm just getting old -- wouldn't have cared in the least 10 years ago. As for the latter three neighborhoods, although they are beautiful, the houses are of a different style and an earlier era, and we tend to prefer the late-19th and early 20th century houses.

As for the commute to our weekend house, we've actually driven from that house to Park Slope to check out open houses on Sunday afternoons, and it's not significantly longer than the commute to the UWS.

Finally, on the entitled parent front, we've spent about a dozen Saturdays or Sundays in Park Slope over the last year. It seems like the stroller epidemic is a lot less pronounced on 5th than on 7th, and we've gravitated to 5th for meals. It's a hike from the park blocks, but it's not much worse than our current situation. We tend to go either 10 or 15 blocks up to the high 70s and 80s or down to the 50s when we go to restaurants in our area. Most of the places near us cater to the pre-performance Lincoln Center crowd, so we're used to taking a short hike for restaurants with good food and character (and reasonable prices).

I truly appreciate the feedback.

Just to clarify, the return trips to the city were made in the early afternoon, and the weekend house is on Long Island, so the trip to Park Slope is a few miles shorter and doesn't involve crossing a river. Getting from the LIE to Park Slope, however, can sometimes take longer than getting through the Midtown Tunnel and up to the UWS.

Thanks, dm1204. I'm surprised at how often, when I mention the possibility of moving to Park Slope, people (mainly Manhattanites, including those with children) try to dissuade me by jumping on the entitled parent bandwagon. Reasonable people who otherwise loathe stereotypes have no issue with that one. Granted, I have never lived in Park Slope, so my perspective isn't all that well informed, but I've been going there on and off for more than two decades, and with much greater frequency in the past year. Sure the sidewalks on 7th are clogged with strollers, but they'd be as clogged on Broadway if the sidewalks were as narrow as they are on 7th. It always seemed to me that Park Slope attracts a variety of people. The demo may skew one way or another over the years, but overall it seems pretty balanced.

Also, thanks both to you and elizabetJane for the driving tips. I'll have to try some of those alternatives. I actually grew up at the Queens end of the Jackie Robinson and considered that route, but for some reason I thought the drive down Eastern Parkway might take too long. 20-25 minutes sounds great.

dm1204, right now we're fixated on a house, but we'll let you know if we change our minds! As for the drive out of the city, to avoid traffic we normally leave on a Friday night after dinner (around 10 or 10:30 p.m.), and even during the peak summer months traffic tends to be fairly light at that time. I assume the same would be true on Eastern Parkway. The return trip is the tough one -- on Sunday, leaving any time between noon and 9:00 p.m. is bad. We have low expectations, so I'm sure we'll find a suitable route.

One last thing on the weekend commute -- when we're not driving we often take the LIRR from Penn Station after work. We could continue doing that. On the way back, we could take the LIRR to Atlantic Terminal. According to the LIRR schedule, the trains to Atlantic run with the same frequency as trains to Penn and the trip takes about the same amount of time.

broker and grand army -- thanks. It's interesting how the responses to my post originally seemed to caution against moving to Brooklyn and then started leaning the other way. Part of the reason may have been the incorrect assumption about the location of our weekend house, which I corrected a little too late in the process, so many posts focused on the additional commuting time to points north and west of the city. To answer your question, grand army, the weekend house is on Long Island, so the commute from Brooklyn is about the same as the commute from the UWS. We did consider Prospect Heights initially, focusing mostly on Park Place and Sterling. Great houses, but not many on the market. Although we're leaning toward PS now, we haven't ruled out PH.