In Brooklyn, Brand Value Outpacing Real Estate
Even if Brooklyn’s condo prices are no longer skyrocketing, the value of its brand still is, according to a recent piece in the NY Press. Check it: I was having lunch yesterday with someone from a prominent Brooklyn cultural institution and he admitted that he now gets requests to collaborate with his arts organization simply…
Even if Brooklyn’s condo prices are no longer skyrocketing, the value of its brand still is, according to a recent piece in the NY Press. Check it:
I was having lunch yesterday with someone from a prominent Brooklyn cultural institution and he admitted that he now gets requests to collaborate with his arts organization simply because they’re located in Brooklyn. “We think it would be great to do something with you guys,” he’s been told. “We’d really like to have BROOKLYN associated with our name. It’ll look great on the poster.” Isn’t it grand how quickly a borough can become a brand?
This anecdote comes as no surprise to us. Do you think there’s the risk of overexposure to the brand, though? Might there be brand fatigue at some point and, God forbid, a backlash?
The Brooklyn Brand to Expand [NY Press]
Photo by Dan Cox
I’d argue Montrose that even though that outdated notion of Brooklyn that some outsiders have is PRECISELY what makes it “cool” to live here as well.
Artsy and “edgy” creative folks are usually the first to gentrify an area. As long as Brooklyn remains seen as rough and tumble, it will be looked at as the next hottest thing.
That’s what made Soho SOO cool back in the day. It was rough around the edges. Same thing with the East Village, then Lower East Side and now the Bowery.
Now there is no longer a feeling of rough and tumble in Manhattan.
Even though most of us know that Brooklyn is a much gentler version of its former self, the longer we keep up the appearance it’s rough, the better for our brand.
Brooklyn is certainly known all over the world, but more for its rough and tumble, slightly gangster past, from old white ethnic street gangs, to more current “urban” gangsta rappers. Sad but true.
I was riding in a London car service a couple of years ago, on my way to the city from the airport, and the African driver asked me where I was from, and I said Brooklyn. He was quite impressed at my survival and toughness, and then asked me if I knew where he could get a gun in New York, because he wanted to come to the States and drive cross country, and he had heard that EVERYONE in the States had a gun. I’m sure I was quite the disappointment to him when I assured him that I didn’t have a gun, don’t know where to get one, and that not everyone here is packing heat. What a world.
Whoops–it’d probably still get there , even though I mis-spelled Carroll Street.
11:09 AM Those aren’t neighborhoods, they were towns before the great incorporation.
“why does Manhattan have a monopoly on the “New York” in their mailing address? ”
I suspect it’s more tradition than anything else, dating back to before the consolidation of New York (AKA” the mistake of 1898″) .Brooklyn was a separate city. Queens was a collection of towns.
The Bronx OTOH has been part of New York City much longer than the Long Island boroughs; it used to be common for Bronx mail to be addresssed to New York, NY.
AFAIK it’s still common for older Staten Island neighborhoods to use their name PLUS Staten Island in their mailing address (i.e. St. George, Staten Island, NY).
I think a letter addressed to ” *** Carrol Street, New York, NY 11215″ would get there, but it would look funny.
I have lived in Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope and except when talking to fellow Brooklynites – I always say Brooklyn to the question of where I live and so does most everyone I know.
While I am sure the class warfare people here will continue to have other theories, I think the fact that postal addresses in Queens are by ‘Town’ (i.e. Astoria, Flushing, etc..) rather then by Boro/City – (i.e. Brooklyn, Bronx, NY) plays a MUCH bigger part in this then anything else
Well, I’ve always first said, when asked, that we live in Fort Greene.
These days, it seems most Manhattanites have at the least a vague idea of where or what FG is. Heck, the NYT does an article on Fort Greene every two seconds for G’s sake.
And to that person who returns a blank stare, I quickly append a “you know, Fort Greene, near BAM” (BTW, speaking of “branding”!).
Doesn’t anyone remember the “Welcome to Brooklyn” sign on the bridge in the series “Taxi” opening credits?
Brooklyn has been a “brand” in some form or another since the 1800s…once sold for its fresh air and beaches!
FG/TheGrammarLady
as to mailing address – why manhattan has ‘monopoly’ is historical reasons. But really doesnt matter much what you put down – could put Palm Beach, NY and as long as zip code is correct will be deliverd.
Thing that annoys me most is the NY TIMES.
They insist on Fort Green, Brooklyn or Cobble Hill, Brooklyn anytime in any article.
It is never Greenwich Village, Manhattan or Soho, Manhattan. Just Soho or Greenwich Village.
What does condo prices in the borough have anything to do with this topic? Just another gratuitous shot? Try: ‘Now that Brooklyn’s brownstone and pre-war apartment building prices are no longer skyrocketing…’
B’stoner, your prejudice-pushing is like listening to a monkey banging on a piano.
And no, I’m neither a broker nor a condo owner.