Most Popular Stories 2025: Affordable Apartments in New Builds, Retail Changes

In 2025, Brownstoner readers showed a strong interest in stories that spoke directly to the borough’s housing pressures and changing skyline. Affordable housing lotteries dominated the year’s most-read list, including lotteries in new developments across Gowanus, East New York, Brownsville, Greenpoint, Carroll Gardens, and Crown Heights, many of them tied to rezonings.

Readers were also drawn to listings across the spectrum, from a modest Midwood one-bedroom to a multimillion-dollar Park Slope carriage house and a historic Shingle Style home in Yonkers. Rounding out the list were stories about Bed Stuy locals organizing to take ownership of a historic building and Brooklyn’s changing commercial landscape, including a look into Fulton Street’s bygone retail emporiums, and plans for a new bookstore and bar in Bed Stuy led by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Below are Brownstoner’s top 15 stories of the past year.

15. Affordable Housing Lottery Opens in Greenpoint With Units From $1,757

An affordable housing lottery has opened for a recently completed apartment complex with a landscaped rooftop garden and yoga studio on a busy Greenpoint corner. Not a glassy skyscraper, the eight-story pale brick building with arched windows, dubbed The Dome, replaced a gas station.

14. Brownsville Affordable Housing Lottery Opens With Units Starting at $1,095

An affordable housing lottery has debuted for 85 apartments in a 100 percent affordable development spanning a block of East New York Avenue in Brownsville.

13. A Shingle Style Dwelling in Yonkers’ Historic Park Hill Neighborhood, Yours for $949K

It isn’t as sprawling as some of the more exuberant dwellings in the Park Hill neighborhood of Yonkers, but this Edwardian has quirky charm, well-preserved interior details, and an unexpectedly intriguing social history. The house on the market at 230 Van Cortlandt Park Avenue was constructed in the early 20th century as part of the planned suburban community.

12. Affordable Housing Lottery Opens for Gowanus Tower With $823 Units

An affordable housing lottery has opened for one of two towers in a glassy new development on the banks of the Gowanus Canal beside the Union Street Bridge dubbed Society Brooklyn. The complex, one of the first to rise in the neighborhood after it was rezoned, includes an outdoor rooftop pool overlooking the canal, as well as waterfront access, barbecue equipment, parking garages, and a yoga lawn.

11. Midwood One-Bedroom With Sunken Living Room, Wood Floors Asks $275K

This one-bedroom could use some TLC, but it has some period features, like arched doorways and a sunken living room, and is listed at under $300,000. On the second floor of 901 Avenue H in Midwood, it is also generously sized with a practical layout.

10. Prominent Journalist to Open Bookstore, Bar in Former Macon Hardware Digs

In a major development for Bed Stuy’s literary community, prominent journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones is partnering with well-known local entrepreneurs to open a literary salon and bar in the former home of iconic Macon Hardware, located at the corner of Macon Street and Marcus Garvey Boulevard.

9. The Rise and Fall of Downtown Brooklyn’s Dazzling Emporiums

Downtown Brooklyn’s Fulton Street has long been a shopping mecca, home to large department stores and specialty retailers alike. An early 20th century shopper could stroll along the street and find everything from furs to furniture.The retail corridor has certainly seen change over the centuries, and the recent announcement that Macy’s would be closing its Fulton Street location brings to mind some of the other stores that have disappeared from the street. We’ve dug into the 20-year catalog of Brownstoner stories on the borough’s history and built environment and rounded up eight tales of dazzling emporiums that once graced Downtown Brooklyn.

8. Park Slope Carriage House With Mantels, Built-ins Asks $5.75 Million

The sole remnant of a grand 1880s mansion that once stood on the block, this Park Slope carriage house got a makeover in the 1920s. That renovation turned 860 Union Street into a two-family dwelling, with a generously sized unit on each floor with wood floors, mantels, wall moldings, and built-ins.

7. Affordable Housing Lottery Opens in Gowanus With $784 Studios

The latest affordable housing lottery to open for a new development made possible by the Gowanus rezoning is for the still under-construction 499 President Street Apartments. The nine-story development, which wraps around the Royal Palms Shuffleboard building between Nevins and Union streets, comprises 350 apartments in total.

6. Affordable Housing Lottery Opens in East New York, With Units From $544

An affordable housing lottery has launched for a truly affordable under-construction seven-story development on the corner of East New York’s Shepherd and Glenmore avenues. Studio apartments start at $544 a month and one-bedrooms at $689.

5. East New York Affordable Housing Lottery Opens With $994 Units

An affordable housing lottery has opened for 68 apartments in a 100 percent affordable development that spans a block along Atlantic Avenue in East New York.

4. Bed Stuy Locals Race to Buy Historic Stuyvesant Avenue Mansion as Sale Looms

A group of Bed Stuy residents is scrambling to take community ownership of a historic early 20th-century mansion on Stuyvesant Avenue following a court-ordered sale, organizing to form a community land trust and raise millions of dollars to buy and repair the property before it is sold to a private buyer.

3. Carroll Gardens Affordable Housing Lottery Has Studios From $978

An affordable housing lottery has opened for a recently completed eight-story building in Carroll Gardens, a short walk away from the Gowanus Canal. It is another lottery tied to the Gowanus rezoning.

2. Gowanus Affordable Housing Lottery Opens With $1,031 Two-Bedrooms

An affordable housing lottery has debuted for an under-construction tower on Gowanus’ 4th Avenue, the latest of several lottery launches tied to the neighborhood’s rezoning. Built on the site of a former taxi stand and garage at 380 4th Avenue, the Longview will stand 175 feet tall with 17 stories and 197 apartments, according to city records.

1. Crown Heights Affordable Housing Lottery Debuts With $1,161 Two-Bedrooms

An affordable housing lottery has launched for an under-construction 17-story, 569-unit development dubbed Loden, with units starting at $914 a month for a studio. Rising half a block from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in Crown Heights south, and overlooking the S shuttle train tracks, the complex at 54 Crown Street and 131 Montgomery Street takes up about half the block between Washington and Franklin avenues and Crown and Montgomery streets.

Related Stories

• Most Popular Stories 2024: A Partition Sale in Bed Stuy, Change in Gowanus
• Most Popular Stories 2023: Woman Fights Home Investors in Court, Gingerbread House for Sale
• Most Popular Stories of 2022: The Demolition of the Dangler Mansion, Affordable Housing Lotteries

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