Boerum Hill: In a Nutshell
The New York Times profiled Boerum Hill this weekend (timed, perhaps, to coincide with yesterday’s Atlantic Antic), focusing on the neighborhood’s boutiques and its transformation from shady (“rooming houses, drugs, and prostitution” in the 1970s and ’80s) to chic. On the real estate front, prices in the neighborhood are dropping as they are everywhere else,…
The New York Times profiled Boerum Hill this weekend (timed, perhaps, to coincide with yesterday’s Atlantic Antic), focusing on the neighborhood’s boutiques and its transformation from shady (“rooming houses, drugs, and prostitution” in the 1970s and ’80s) to chic. On the real estate front, prices in the neighborhood are dropping as they are everywhere else, but still, nothing’s cheap in Boerum Hill: townhouses selling for over $1.5 million, condos and co-ops between $600,000 and $1 million, and rentals starting at $1,300 for a studio. New construction in the area includes Green on Dean and the Nu Hotel on Smith, as well as several planned or unfinished projects on the periphery of the area. Beyond the housing market and the area’s commercial offerings, the profile gives a nod to yesterday’s Atlantic Antic and it profiles Boerum Hill’s schools with their test scores of varying levels. Did the writer miss anything?
Subway Lines Galore, But Who’s Leaving? [NY Times]
Atlantic Antic photo by Jim in Times Square
I was sorry to see Sur close. I had some amazing meals there. But last time I ate there, my friends and I were the only ones in the restaurant, and my friends had the same experience the last time they’d eaten there. Great Argentine beef.
There was no more sad and bereft street in Brooklyn than Smith Street. Many shopfronts were vacant and the few in business were so paultry and depressing. The upheaval of the re-paving and re-lighting (yes, with bishop crooks) did in many of the old shops that were struggling to stay open , but then, when the project was completed, almost overnight, the street came to life with all kinds of new restaurants and businesses. It was a remarkable transformation. Night and day.
CarrollGardened, I once heard that Patois was the first of the wave of Smith St. restaurants but don’t know if it truly came before Sur.
Long before the Smith St. restaurant scene began there was a quite remarkable restaurant for a few years on Hoyt and Bergen, where the Brooklyn Inn is now. It was called Huberts and was run by a husband and wife team between 1979 and 1981 or ’82; they later relocated to Manhattan and were quite successful for several years. The Hubert’s were among the early adherents to the Greenmarket aesthetic. They also brought in guest chefs – it was quite amazing in the early 1980s to enjoy a special meal at Hubert’s in Boerum Hill prepared by chefs like Diana Kennedy and Jacques Pepin!
Petebklyn, I agree that it was the time of day, because almost all the storefronts were closed by dark. There were also quite a few storefronts that were private “clubs” — and even in the day, there was blocks without much in the way of a storefront that you’d enter to buy something. It may be shuttered in the early morning now, but if you walk down Smith, there are still many retail stores open by noon (and many of the restaurants as well).
I think when people refer to boarded up or shuttered – it is because time of day. I really don’t ever remember many vacancies on Smith.. but if went in evening, yes, almost all were closed by then. It was a daytime place not the nighttime place as is now. Walk down that street now in morning – – it is shuttered.
CGfan, you may be right. I don’t recall exactly which restaurants opened when, only that Smith Street was largely vacant when I moved to the neighborhood but for a few new restaurants that went on to form the backbone of the new “restaurant row”.
bxgrl2, I can understand that. Even the less than desirable areas have very lively street life. I wasn’t here in the 80’s so I cant relate to the emptiness but Bed Stuy and Crown Heights are always packed with people during the day. I guess I was asking more along the lines of the working class nature of the areas.
Yes the Met food. Maybe they’ve cleaned up their act as have many smaller supermarkets (that has certainly happened in Park Slope where I now live). Maybe not so much boarded up storefronts as vacant ones or storefronts that had been bricked over (maybe being used as cheap/illegal living spaces?). Anyways, I did feel scared later at night walking from the Smith St. subway down Bergen (almost all our entertainment/going out took place in Manhattan in those days); probably as a woman I was more of a target.
Even back then, Atlantic had a lot of antique stores and a single gourmet grocery (I believe between Hoyt and Bond) with nice take out that seemed like an oasis to me back then.
CarrollGardened, I didn’t think Grocery and the other restaurants opened up on Smith until much later than the mid-90s. The first restaurant I recall is Sur, in 97 or 98, and at night, it seemed like the only place along blocks of shuttered storefronts. But the Met grocery store on Smith and Warren or thereabouts seemed to be there for much longer.