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 1st came to the neighborhood then(late 70s), Bookistan, but have never lived in some people’s official boundaries of BH.
I believe the MetFood was always there on corner of Baltic,
I do not remember boarded up storefronts at all (although at any time there are bound to be vacancies as there are today). I do remember a fresh fish market on Smith near Bergen. And that corner of Pacific/Smith was the vege/fruit market.
No doubt crime was more prevalent and our whole city has seen drastic reduction since those days. my general impression was that muggings were more common east of Smith.
I’m surprised that the NYTimes article didn’t focus on Atlantic Avenue which has really seen makeover also.
I don’t recall ever being afraid or avoiding those streets except late at night. at the time belonged to YWCA and would most of time walk home in evening on Atlantic but would also take Pacific/Dean or bergen.
santa- Having lived both places, I don’t really think so. boerum Hill felt empty in many respects- bed-stuy and CH never feel lifeless- there is a rich cultural and community life that is often overlooked because it was not considered ” upscale”
Carroll Gardens is the kind of Brooklyn living I dreamed of before I moved here. That place is mystical.
bookistan, I can’t speak to the ’70s, but when I moved to Carroll Gardens in the mid-90s, most of the storefronts on Smith Street were boarded up or shuttered. Grocery had opened, and there were a couple of other new restaurants, but that was it.
Hmm, that sounds good. After the descriptions of gentrified LES, it turns into a boring crime novel, my LEAST favorite. You may also like “I’m so Happy for You”, a sendup/satire of women’s friendships and the secret jealousies they often barbor toward one another.
Now I’m reading “The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election.”
I really lived on teh border and spent a lot of time down State St. as I also worked where MM did for a time. Never a hellhole but you had to be careful. As you do now. But even by me on Court St. it could be scary- so was Schermerhorn when I first moved over there. The first week I lived there we had a sniper on a nearby big apartment building shooting it up and of course the place I moved into was in a direct sightline. We waited a long time for more stores and restaurants, and for Key Food on Atlantic to clean up their act- they were the closest to me. But it was not the Wild West.
i tried to read lush life too!!!! i only got about 50 pages in.. zzz. did it ever pick up? really long book so i put it down with the intention of going back to it but i never did. right now im reading high maintenance by jennifer belle about a woman who gets a divorce from her rich husband and is forced to be a riff raff renter lol.
*rob*
Wow, bookistan, thanks for sharing that.:)
would it be correct to say that many areas of Bed Stuy and crown heights have a similar feel that Boerum Hill did 20 years ago?