From the West Village to Fort Greene, With Few Regrets
This weekend’s real estate section in the Times has a story that’s likely to resonate with many ex-Manhattanites who’ve moved to Brooklyn and find the living across the East River a whole lot easier. The article is about Hali Lee and Peter von Ziegesar, a couple with three kids who uprooted from the West Village,…
This weekend’s real estate section in the Times has a story that’s likely to resonate with many ex-Manhattanites who’ve moved to Brooklyn and find the living across the East River a whole lot easier. The article is about Hali Lee and Peter von Ziegesar, a couple with three kids who uprooted from the West Village, where they’d lived for 15 years, to Fort Greene. The pair bought a house (a former crack den, actually) on South Portland Avenue in late ’05 and say that while they miss a few things about the city (chief among them their old proximity to the Village Community School on West 10th Street, which their kids still attend), Brooklyn has presented a number of quality-of-life advantages. The perks, according to Ms. Lee, include an environment that doesn’t feel like a high-end mall, as the Village did; a space where their brood’s noise doesn’t disturb the neighbors; their new borough’s down-to-earth population (There are mixed-race couples, and black people here who aren’t nannies); and the fact that their kids can now go play on the sidewalk and in the backyard.
In a House, You Can Make All the Noise You Want [NY Times]
Photo by lunalaguna.
12:23…
I work in nonprofit and make almost 200K a year.
No one said they don’t work.
Please stop asking the same inane question over and over.
Ms. Lee’s comment was dead on. My progressive white Brownstone neighbors used to make assumptions about me until I set them straight. They thought that I was my bi-racial childs nanny, that I rented not owned and that if I did own, I must have been there way before prices went over the million dollar mark because how else would a Black woman afford the neighborhood. I was even mistaken for a cleaning lady while tidying up the outside of my home by a prospective tenant who was coming to see my rental unit. This brownstone was not my first purchase. My husband and I are not trustafarians but we lived in some unsavory places which turned out to be good investments after building euity. Once we built equity we reinvested in other properties which also did well. I no longer have to work and he works for a non-profit and our children go to a private school. You can build wealth but it does take sacrifice. It may mean living in Bed-Stuy, Red Hook, or Williamsburgh (like we did) way before the areas became popular. This couple may have made similar sacrifices. We are not entitled to a Brownstone in Park Slope or Bed-Stuy for that matter but if you put a plan in place for it to happen it can happen.
The fact that they bought well explains how they were able to afford to buy in Fort Green, but it does not explain how they are able to afford to send three kids to private school.
People did not make the schools better in Fort Green. They send their kids to private school if they live in Fort Green.
Wow, sending your kids to private school makes you “community indifferent” and soulless? I thought that title was reserved for people who drive cars and let their dogs poop on the streets. I ride a unicycle everywhere, and I’ve trained my dog not only to crap in a toilet, but to make fun of other dogs who don’t when we take recreational walks together.
jeez. this couple and their children are great. they have great values, they aren’t precious at all. they have created a loving home for their family. what do you care if they choose private school over public? people can be good and still make different choices. this is a really disappointing thread. it makes the readers look provincial, mean-spirited and trite. regarding how they’ve afforded it; A. none of your business and B. sounds like one of the above posters is probably spot on about them buying well and selling well in past manhattan markets. that is how my husband and I were able to buy our house. we bought an apartment in manhattan 11 years ago for 160k, with very little down and sold it for quite a bit more. also, as someone else pointed out, those of you who claim ownership rights to the neighborhood, step off. lot’s came before you and will come after you and us newbies. take a look at yourself and how you’re behaving. you’re no better than those crazy christians who vilify all that are different. you know, those republicans…
“11:52, you sound very contradictory. Bed Stuy and Crown Hts are AMAZING because unlike Ft. Greene you can still get in while the gettin is good.”
Sorry, I don’t agree.
A million dollars or even 700K or 800K is not getting in while the gettin is good.
Buying my 2 bedroom on the Upper West Side for 250k was gettin in while the getting was good.
You are incredibly out of touch if:
A. You think 800 is affordable to the middle class.
B. You think that Crown Heights and Bed Stuy will turn out just like the other gentrified neighborhoods. The reason Park Slope and Ft. Greene are so great is because a lot of people got in cheap and made the neighborhood and schools better. This IS NOT happening in either Bed Stuy or Crown Heights. There is still a large concentration of poverty, and then there are the new people who think that the neighborhood is going to change on its own.
I see zero effort being made to improve schools in either neighborhood.
EDUCATION is key for ALL neighborhoods.
My problem with the fact that everyone who moves to Fort Green and Clinton Hill with young kids use private schools is that this is exactly the kind of gross hyper competitive, soulless, community indifferent, people that I thought I was getting away from when I moved to Brooklyn. Now these areas are only going to have the super wealthy who can afford to send their kids to public school and hold a $2 million mortgage. Meanwhile the other 3/4 of the population will continue to send their kids to crappy public schools and become more resentful of the gentrifiers who refuse to invest in the community financially or emotionally unless it is to get a Whole Foods, which the other 3/4 of the population can’t afford. Sounds like a recipe for an unhappy community to me.
11:53…you and your husband are idiots, then.
NO WHERE in this piece, did either of them say they “discovered Brooklyn” nor did they even make a reference to having “found” Brooklyn for anyone but themselves.
You and your husband sound like incredibly jealous fools.