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.
6:26, while not pretending that the city is a color- or class-blind place, I think many parents are not “waiting for the neighborhood to reflect their skin color or economic status” before sending their kids to public schools, but instead waiting for the neighborhood schools to reflect a level of school system and parental commitment that would make these schools worth attending. Those who have the economic means to “wait and see” and send their kids to private school in the interim do so; those who don’t use the public school in good times or bad.
I think it’s worth noting (as a few people here have done) that you don’t have to love the $2M townhouse owners to appreciate the fact that the ones who send their kids to the public school can help to make it a better place. (I didn’t say they’re the only cause for improving local schools, but they are one of many causes.) The challenge is not to keep them out to maintain the “good old days” but to make sure the improving public school environment is accompanied by a commitment to middle and low income housing, so those who could benefit from it the most are able to take advantage of it.
How did the family in the article find a 1.8m brownstone? Did they buy a couple of years ago?
We are looking in FG. What can we expect to pay for a four-story brick rowhouse (not the big brownstones on South Portland) with a basic footprint (about 700-750 sq feet per floor) that needs a gut reno?
Does it make sense? Will we come out ahead paying less for a house that needs a reno PLUS the reno costs? Or does it make more sense just to buy a finished house with, say, two duplexes (tenant upper and owner lower duplexes)?
“there’s nothing hotter than a beer drinker who loves to “kick it up a notch” at the gym. ROWR!”
I kinda like the frequent spurts of sweat coming from the treadmill next to me. Especially if they’re beer infused. double rowr.
1;18 You are so right. It’s like the new Brooklyn residents be it affluent or white are just waiting for the neighborhood to reflect their skin color or economic status in order to begin utilizing the public school system. As for the couple who live in fort greene now, Yes this city has minorities that are not only housemaids and nannies. ANd if they really wanted to get to know other cultures they would see we have morals and are educated not only inthe public school sector but even in IVY league instituitions. The article just confirmed the new wave of Conquering mentality of pushing out the “indians” (Blacks and Latinos) and placing them on new reservations because the ones they live on now are a very valuable asset to those with $$$. As they say just repeating history…
The explains his absence 6:22. I guess you loved him so hard his black black heart finally just quit.
i made sweet, sweet love to “The What” in the PS NYSC steamroom
Why do so many threads begin with inane, money-driven hating?
this thread is nowhere as good as the Goldman Sachs/Brooklyn Heights thread a few months ago.
Here we go with the Homo-eroticism…
Why do so many threads have to end this way?