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.
The majority of ivy leaguers come from private schools. It’s exactly why those colleges do actively try and find good candidates from public schools – because they have a majority of kids from private schools so they try to get more balance.
11:19: Private kids don’t do as well as public school kids — GETTING INTO WHAT COLLEGE? Just curious, you know, factually speaking. Cause it sounds to me like you’re full of bs. Period.
The reasons for this family to move to Ft. Greene are similar to those of many families and individuals who have moved to Brooklyn (and other boroughs and New Jersey) from Manhattan. Manhattan is like a big mall, with too many banks and Gaps.
Coming from a family who moved 3 times before I turned 13, I can understand why the family in this article still sends their kids to the West Village for school — the mother says the kids seems to be adjusting quickly, but when it comes to the friends at school, it is harder.
As far as private vs. public — it’s a personal choice. In my family, three of us attended public schools and two attended private. Is there a difference among the siblings in terms of worldliness, demeanor, etc? Not really. Did my public school suffer because people in the neighborhood also sent their kids to private schools? Not really either.
This is NYC — people have been moving among the boroughs for years — I know many people who have lived in at least 3 boroughs. And people have been sending their kids to schools in other boroughs, pubic or private for years. None of this is anything new.
Brooklyn used to be a place to get away from the money-is-everything and money-defines-who-you-are strain of life in Manhattan.
Trouble is, it’s become that. It’s bourgeois, money and status-centered. Bankers and lawyers buying $2mn brownstones. All under the veneer of being laid-back and ‘jusk folks.’
11:16….Why are they sheltered for speaking the truth??
I’d love for you to find statistics on how many African Americans live in the West Village.
I guarantee you it ain’t a lot.
OOPS:
10:48 — you totally read my mind with the comment: “My problem is the NYTimes and their unapologetic upper-middle or rich class perspective on this city – all their Style, Real Estate, Travel,etc articles can make my stomach churn. Same old articles week after week, year after year.”
But I suppose that who their clientele is — dare I say it — US! I mean we all read this crap. WE all read brownstoner.
And that’s ok, like 10:49 put it, most of us just want that life. I certainly do, are you nuts? FIRST OF ALL, just to be in a marriage for long enough to have 3 kids who seem totally happy and well adjusted. Heck, I’d settle for that in Idaho. A happy family. Plus, they get to do it in style, in NYC, on a gorgeous block. URRRGHGGGGGH!
But like someone else pointed out, I think they made their money because they were “newbies” in the west village at some point and waited it out until the the real estate market added a zero to the value of their property.
How they bought it in the first place? Probably with help from the parents. Who, I’m sure, have been paid back every cent for their initial investment and then some.
If anything, this is to me a story to learn from.
11:04: No.
Meanwhile, I want to echo the poster above who shares the nausea I feel every time I pick up the Style section (and most other sections, actually) of the NYTimes.
It’s common for reporters to suffer from envy of and identification with the rich and powerful people they cover, and to betray those futile aspirations in their stories. But nowhere in the world can you read such constant, desperate class envy, such fawning over wealth, as in the NY Times. It’s gross beyond belief.
Memo to the Times: You can cover the fantastic riches of this city without getting drool all over your pages.
I know that when admitting students to one of the top schools in the Northeast, private school kids don’t do as well.
Period.
And as a professional musician, I know A LOT about what I speak.
hey 11:14…
Lack of culture re art and music in private schools? Maybe you’re confusing religious schools with what most of us call ‘private’ schools’.