Carroll Gardens: Old School Amid the Changes
Carroll Gardens gets the “Living In” treatment this weekend from The TImes. Among other things, we learn that old Italian men still play dominoes inside a social club, people tend to say hi to each other on the street and that Luquer Street is pronounced lu-KWEER. Carroll Gardens is very much still a Sesame Street…
Carroll Gardens gets the “Living In” treatment this weekend from The TImes. Among other things, we learn that old Italian men still play dominoes inside a social club, people tend to say hi to each other on the street and that Luquer Street is pronounced lu-KWEER. Carroll Gardens is very much still a Sesame Street kind of community, said Maria Pagano, president of the neighborhood association.That means people get out there and do things; they’re involved, she said. That involvement includes protesting buildings that are out of context—after resisting landmarking efforts for years. What else? At the peak of the market, condo prices topped $1,000 a foot, though there’s now been a “leveling” off to the $800 range, according to Corcoran broker Lindsay Barton Barrett. And the best houses? You’ll find those on First Place, says another, though the big 25-footers turn over infrequently.
Living In: Carroll Gardens [NY Times]
Photo by colorstalker
The reason the old Italians were opposed to landmarking is that they don’t want any kind of government interference. Don’t tell the govt anything and don’t ask them anything. They brought that attitude with them from the old country even though there are very few around now who were not born here.
Marie Brown if you think “neighborhood made it through the greatest residential building boom in history in the last ten years without any damage” I don’t know where you’re living.
From the piece of crap horror on Carroll St btwn Hoyt and Bond (that will likely remain unfinished until it rots) to the unsellable piece of crap on the corner of a Place street and Clinton with the bizzare addition, to the hole in the ground on Court btwn Union and Sackett which will likely remain a hole in the ground for 10 years, the huge glass tower on another Place block btwn Clinton and Henry, the brownstone on a numbered street btwn Court and Smith completely rebuilt to lower all the ceilings (and so shortened all the windows) to fit in an additional 2 floors, to the out of scale piece of crap at the subway station (will that ever be completed?) and any number of rooftop additions with no relationship to anything around them, there is plenty of damage to chose from.
It’s pretty unlikely that your “tasteful” 1200′ addition will enhance anything but your pocketbook. With any luck the zoning/landmarking will happen before any more transients take the money and run, leaving garbage in their wake. They are destroying the very thing that attracts people to CG to begin with.
And no, I’m not a lifer.
An PS, I propose that in the future builders have to post a bond to cover demo and conversion to parkland or cost of completion of any project they start. It surely will not enhance the neighbohood to have unfinished projects littering the area for years.
I live in Carroll Gardens too and love it but don’t want it land-marked or down-zoned. Yeah, one reason is that I want the development value retained in my property. When I bought my home it included a certain, relatively modest actually, development rights, about another 1200 square feet. I paid for that whether the seller knew it or not. Someday, I’d like to add that 1200 square feet and plan to do so in a more tasteful manner respecting the “context” of the neighborhood, I’d like to do better than what has been done over the last 100 years since this neighborhood was built. How many brownstones have been downed by developers. A couple have had additions I don’t really like but that has been going on since the neighborhood was built. The fear of the developers borders on paranoia. This neighborhood made it through the greatest residential building boom in history in the last ten years without any damage. Now that prices have fallen there is much less of a need to down-zone or land-mark than ever. More available housing means lower prices for renters, more available buildable square feet means more value for homeowners. Down-zoning and land-marking both increase rents for renters and decrease values for homeowners.
i live in carroll gardens and i love it because it is a real neighborhood..my neighbor picks up my younger daughter from school four days a week,and everyone on the block has keys to each others homes in case of an emergency..my house is not an investment, it is a home…
i live in carroll gardens and i love it because it is a real neighborhood..my neighbor picks up my younger daughter from school four days a week,and everyone on the block has keys to each others homes in case of an emergency..
I lived in Brooklyn Heights for 17 years. For exercise, I used to do fast walking from Brooklyn Heights through Cobble Hill all the way down to the BQE. I varied the route everyday and got to love the vibe of Carroll Gardens. We wrote about Brooklyn Heights the other day and while it was beautiful and I liked it there in BH, the feeling of Carroll Gardens was totally different – no sense of transience like BH – the people had been there for generations and the stores and the street life had that feel. I remember having a slice of Pizza on Court Street in a little Italian restaurant/pizzaria once when a gaggle of men were hanging on, watching on TV the last game of the World Cup when Italy was a contender — the Italian team scored the winning goal, winning the cup for Italy and the little place went WILD! Yelling and carrying on in Italian, English it was a nut house. Very comfortable. There are great bakeries, you can get every kind of Italian food. Walking by the stoops at night, neighbors had their folding chairs out on the street, talking and having a nice time. Very nice vibe.
“That involvement includes protesting buildings that are out of context—after resisting landmarking efforts for years. What else?”
It’s a tough situation. Landmark neighborhoods are great because it ensures the look/feel maintain. However owning a landmarked building, or one if a landmarked district, can be a pain. Any time you want to change something to the front of your property, or do a major renovation, you not only have to get city approval but Landmark Commission approval too.
And Landmarks approval can be worse to deal with then the city.
(I speak from experience)
When I first moved to Boerum Hill and was trying to describe where I lived to my mother, I called it “Sesame Street.” When she finally (reluctantly) visited, she found the description apt. CG has the same warm, neighborhood vibe.
“That involvement includes protesting buildings that are out of context—after resisting landmarking efforts for years. What else?”
There are the old school property owners who have always resisted landmarking because they believed that they can sell their property for more if they are not landmarked. Then there are the newer property owners who have arrived in the past 20 years who care much more about keeping the unique character of the neighborhood in tact. There are similar tensions in all Brooklyn neighborhoods. Why does this warrant a snarky comment Brownstoner?
The next ten years will be the crucial ones for Carroll Gardens. Will it remain a family neighborhod made up of historic rowhouses and churches or will it become built up with high-density development? The area has no landmark protection by and large and since many of the houses are quite large, an assemblage of two or three could produce a mighty fine condo site.