Streetlevel: Organic Boom on Cortelyou
The changing demographics in Victorian Flatbush are having a big impact on the neighborhood’s food market scene. On the heels of a new organic market opening on the cornering Cortelyou and Stratford a couple of weeks ago (and the Green Market opening this past weekend) comes the news, via a neighborhood tipster, that the Food…
The changing demographics in Victorian Flatbush are having a big impact on the neighborhood’s food market scene. On the heels of a new organic market opening on the cornering Cortelyou and Stratford a couple of weeks ago (and the Green Market opening this past weekend) comes the news, via a neighborhood tipster, that the Food Co-op will be buying out the Associated on Cortelyou and Marlborough. According to our source, Associated owner Leon Boyer is selling because of all the “damned yuppies.” What’s the impact of this on the folks in the area who can’t afford organic fare? Do they still have other options?
Photo by Kate Leonova for Property Shark
Cortelyou Road is and was an excellent place for a bank! I moved into the area in 1981 when the unsightly Laundomat on Coretlyou Road and E16th St. was a full service Chase Bank. There were no traffic jams! Just the ability to walk around the corner to a bank.
The CO-OP’s problem is easy-Rude Staff/Laughable high prices/loooooong lines as well. I hope the new store on Stratford puts the CO-OP out of business
OK, this is something to get annoyed/worried about, or at least take notice of:
http://ditmaspark.blogspot.com/2007/07/cooperating.html
At least the Co-op is local.
I like nice things and have no issues with bettering the neighborhood.
I DO NOT like uber-feminine Beta Males walking around the hood looking all scared. Get the fuck out. Also, ladies, plz shave. Who has seen the mustached lady out and about?
I think this whole business of calling some people yuppies, and assuming that working class people don’t need or want fresh vegetables or a decent cheap bottle of wine bought in a place that doesn’t have plexiglass around the cash register, or a neighborhood that feels liveable, is very silly and dividing. This kind of conversation stands in for more important and more difficult conversations, and highlights how uncomfortable issues of class make us all. But hurling meaningless words like “yuppie” around sheds more heat than light. I’m with Anon 11:20 here. I’ve been here for 2 years, and have seen the new stuff moving into the neighborhood, and I also see that all members of the neighborhood seem to be enjoying the new businesses. Just go to the Farm any evening, and you’ll see a pretty good cross-section of area residents.
I also think it’s sad when things like the farmer’s market are referred to as “Park Slope things”. The whole city benefits from the Greenmarket, and so do local farmers in our state and the surrounding area. It is a form of good citizenship to support local businesses and agriculture. And the whole notion that nice places to hang out, decent groceries, and good coffee are somehow the province of the wealthy is a particularly American distortion that we would all do well to shed.
Issues of schools, affordable housing, and health care are something else entirely, and I reserve that discussion for people who actually know what they’re talking about (i.e. not me).
10:41 – no one is trying to pretend to be discussing significant social issues here – just what stores might be convenient for them on a street where a number of stores are turning over. I have only been in the neighborhood for a little over 3 years. The difference over the last year is astounding and, I would argue, enjoyed by people in every socio-economic group in the neighborhood. A large number of people at the outdoor market on Sunday (which, by the way, was fabulous) were the working class folks and their children and they seemed to be enjoying it as much as the yuppies. There are still hundreds of stores on Flatbush, Coney Island Avenue, etc… that cater to people with less money and from various different nationalities with specialty food, etc… There is nothing wrong with having one street with some higher end stores and, believe it or not, even working class people enjoy having a great wine store with a large selection of lower priced wines in their neighborhood or a restaurant to go to on a special occasion. It is not just the yuppies going to TB Ackerman – the store has a very diverse client base and is doing a great job keeping a selection of wines for the various tastes of the neighborhood.
I’ve been following this amazingly long thread with some interest as I’ve lived in the general area for about 8 years and do shop at the Associated occasionally. I think the total focus on the gentrification happening in Ditmas Park is out of proportion to the actual situation in the neighborhood. While it is true that there are some stores cropping up on Cortelyou that cater to a crowd with more disposable income than most, the fact still remains that Ditmas Park and the neighborhoods immediately around it are overwhelmingly working class neighborhoods and the real issues that deserve attention are issues of housing, health and education services, transportation, adequate and appropriate police attention etc. Look outside your relatively small social circles and you will see that the issues being brought up here are not significant to the broader community.
Real Estate REality 8:13:
Excuse me… READ what i was RESPONDING to. Don’t worry Mr/Ms. Realtor… I’m all for your slopification of this area; that’s why I bought here. Continue to please hype up all the PS things in DP. Isn’t that what’s making your Vic. houses and co-ops sell these days? C’mon, don’t tell me you’re not mentioning The Farm and Picket Fence.
I was responding tongue in cheek to the poster who said ” However, I don’t think people have anything against PS per se. They simply don’t share your feeling of “slumming it” in Ditmas Park, and I must confess that I don’t share it either. Ditmas and PS both have their strengths and weaknesses. Neither place is for everyone. You seem to prefer PS, but live in Ditmas. Is that correct or am I misreading you here? If it’s true, then why stay in a nabe you don’t like. You owe it to yourself to live in a place that makes you happy, and you owe it to someone else to make a little more room in a nabe that’s growing on more and more people.”
NOWHERE do I say prosperity is bad.. in fact I’m happy for all those things here in DP and I’m happy to be here. I am more than happy for all the park slopification. Isn’t that what you realtors are after anyways, in DP?
I don’t have to say a word here. Those who wrongly believe i think I’m “slumming it” in DP… fine. I’ll keep my mouth shut. The changes are happening without my voicing things that you are all misconstruing. I’ll say it for the last time: I am happy here, and only voicing the changes EVERYONE else here has asked for (read my posts above people: green grocers and basics). Don’t think that the Cortelyou Assoc. isn’t trying to add all those PS things… we’ve now got a greenmarket going. So don’t blame me for wanting more of all that.
slope to cortelyou, you wrote:
“if everyone lived where they were happy, you wouldn’t have displaced low income families or artists being forced to move…”
Apparently you think prosperity is bad. In any case, where many apartment buildings stand today, there were once more houses. Meanwhile, many houses in the area built as second homes. But, like always, Brooklyn continued to change.
The neighborhood peaked, and then started to decline as new residents began committing many crimes, truly driving out older residents. I know a number of them who sold big houses for very low prices 20 years ago, when Park Slope was booming.
You wrote:
“…nor would you have slopers who finally want to buy, be forced out of the slope because of the prices.”
Forced out? What is this? Are you advocating a federal limit on the prices of homes? A ban on the economic principle of supply & demand?