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.
omg. lack of music/art in BROOKLYN PRIVATES? you know not of what you speak
“Black people who aren’t nannies”? These people are incredibly sheltered!
My dad is the head of admission for a top liveral arts college, and he said he always looks more highly on kids who come from public schools and do well.
Private schools are nothing more than bought educations, he says in many circumstances.
He says the lack of culture in most private schools with regard to music, art, etc put them much farther down the totem pole when looking for students to admit to college.
I went to public school all my life, went on to top masters and doctoral program and now at 32, am highly successful.
Those who send their kids to private school should know they are doing their kids a disservice.
Someone said:
“Not sure what your point is, 10:23. Houses in PS and CG are more expensive than FG and CH precisely because the public schools are better.”
That’s EXACTLY 10:23’s point, silly. The neighborhoods with top public schools are more expensive, therefore, follow me here, those who pay the bigger mortgage to buy in those neighborhoods can usually not also afford private school on top of that mortgage. 10:23 was illustrating the conscious choice people make about where to buy, based on whether they know IN ADVANCE they are going to choose public or private schools. In the case of this article, these people didn’t want to move their kids from the school they already attended so they bought in a more affordable neighborhood. Pretty logical, not a weird choice no matter how you twist it, sorry!
We too are not big fans of public schools, based on personal experience. As kids we attended both public schools (good ones) and private schools and did way better academically and socially in private schools. So we bought in a more affordable neighborhood knowing we’d be choosing to pay for private schools regardless of where we lived. We’re hardly alone. It’s just hard for some people to accept not everyone worships public schools.
they don’t need to worry about it, 11:07.
seems to me they already have some money.
you aren’t going to get your 2 million dollar brownstone by making asinine comments on this blog, that’s for darn sure.
Most all my neighbors who have bought 2mm houses are lawyers/bankers. It’s no mystery.
But the London housebuyers made the money part clear: he worked in finance. He made a zillion dollars. They made that clear
“Lots of people are working hard right now trying to get a step up the ladder.
Meanwhile you’re sitting here commenting on brownstoner asking why so many people have so much money.”
The people featured in the NYT articles weren’t so busy making money that they couldn’t take time out to blow-hard to newspaper reporter about their fabulous lives.
“Are republicans and Bush supporters welcome in diversity-approving Brooklyn?”
Not the hateful, racist ones.
The rest are welcome.