Williamsburg All Grown Up
Bougie couples with kids are buying in Williamsburg. That’s the central message of the cover story from yesterday’s New York Times real estate section titled “Williamsburg, Toddlertown.” There’s one couple who bailed on Park Slope after only a few months because, well, let them tell you: It felt really suburban to me, said the 29-year-old…
Bougie couples with kids are buying in Williamsburg. That’s the central message of the cover story from yesterday’s New York Times real estate section titled “Williamsburg, Toddlertown.” There’s one couple who bailed on Park Slope after only a few months because, well, let them tell you: It felt really suburban to me, said the 29-year-old jewelry designer and blogger. Park Slope has puppets and guitar strumming for kids. In Williamsburg, it is like rock ‘n’ roll for kids. And there are more and more of these kids. The Williamsburg Northside Preschool has grown from a daycare center in 1999 to a ten-classroom school with plans to expand to a third building and accommodate up to the fifth grade. The demand from families has also prompted the developers of such high profile projects as 80 Met and The Edge to reconfigure apartment layouts to include more three-bedroom offerings. Any readers out there fall into this demographic of recent family-sized converts to The Burg? Tell us why you made the call.
Williamsburg, Toddlertown [NY Times]
Photo by Trespassers Will
Mopar, yes, I read the article and it sounded as though it was written by the Vice President of the Corcoran office in Williamsburg.
FSRG and Heather;
I have to disagree about the Bronx. While the apartments themselves may be better in and of themselves (layout, construction, etc.) than Bushwick, the streetscape leaves MUCH to be desired. Specificaly, too much of the Bronx is just block-after-block of 6 story apartment buildings.
I am not against apartment buildings – I live in a 5 story condo myself. In many Bronx neighborhoods, however, there is just no variation in building type. Main avenues, side streets – there’s no relief to the eyes from this building type.
“As for the Williamsburg article, it’s dumb. There have been kids there forever but now that there are rich, white kids somehow the NYTimes have deemed it worthy of discussion.”
Did you read the article? That’s not what it says.
Heights Magnific: What you are missing in all of this is that Brooklyn is a brand now. It’s everything cool. Talk to savvy Europeans or people in Portland or artists in Buenos Aires. They think Brooklyn is the coolest thing since sliced bread. The Bronx…not so much. One day, sure. But I don’t see it in our immediate future. Hipsters (no matter their financial status) want to be where the cool factor is. Despite popular belief…they aren’t really trendsetters…they are trend followers.
Biff, my sister and BIL live in Austin, which is a very blue city. As I recall from the 2008 electoral map, Dallas and Houston are also fairly blue cities, but what really does it for Austin is the University of Texas population.
11217 – your point about nightlife moving downtown is well taken but families dont generally care that much about nightlife and many jobs have moved uptown (away from Brooklyn). And for sure the Bronx is lacking in the restaurant, nightlife and school department (although the Bushwick and Williamsburg schools arent exactly Ivy League factories either). subways are varied – Grand Concourse to Manhattan is VERY fast.
But I guess my surprise comes because of the laziness factor you cite…lets face it, making a pre-war brownstone or clap-board livable for a family (they are generally dark, oddly layed out, and expensive) is ALOT of work, but in the Bronx there are tens of thousands of beautiful pre-war buildings with large apartments, incredible architecture and great detailing, which require minimal effort and at 50-70% less than alot of these “up and coming” neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Its just weird to see neighborhoods like Bushwick become super expensive when a classic 6 on the Grand Concourse can be had for $1600 a mo.
dirty hipster, I still say The Bronx in 5 years.
“I think the “gentrifiers” of the world are lazy now. Nobody wants to go in and do what those who came to the brownstone belt in the 60’s and 70’s did.”
Pure comedy, 11217. The gentrifiers of Williamsburg aren’t as tough as the gentrifiers of Park Slope?
“Yes, mopar, and for generations their parents worked their asses off to move them OUT of the toxicity.”
Indeed. My husband’s mother grew up in Williamsburg and is horrified we are living nearby in Bed Stuy and keeps asking when are we going to move to a nice new suburb in Connecticut?