Cobble Hill, a Little Slice of Heaven, Gets Hotter
Several paragraphs into Jeff Van Dam’s love letter to Cobble Hill come some market data points that, frankly, surprised us a little. Guess we haven’t been paying close enough attention. In addition to the 13-footer that recently sold for $1.75 million, it was news to us that townhouses south of Atlantic have been going into…
Several paragraphs into Jeff Van Dam’s love letter to Cobble Hill come some market data points that, frankly, surprised us a little. Guess we haven’t been paying close enough attention. In addition to the 13-footer that recently sold for $1.75 million, it was news to us that townhouses south of Atlantic have been going into contract north of $4 million. Can anyone point us to some concrete examples? The article also made much ado about P.S. 29, a prekindergarten-through-fifth-grade program that ranks among the best in the city. There must be some readers out there whose kids go, or have gone, there. We’d love to hear your take on it.
A Timeless Neighborhood Grows More Popular [NY Times]
There is some truth to what anon at 1:56 has stated but it does not completely explain PS 29 as most of the “well-heeled Manhattan emigres” and BH denizens tend to favor Packer, Brooklyn Friends and St Annes over their local PS.
Ditto for PS 29.
Another reason Cobble Hill is popular? It’s as white as Brooklyn Heights. Which matters to certain well-heeled Manhattan emigres.
Another reason Cobble Hill is popular? It’s almost as white as Brooklyn Heights. Which matters to certain well-heeled Manhattan emigres.
Whitbo, “brownstoner” is not a new term….
I hate to say this, but it’s true – a school can have 25% of its kids failing math or whatever, and still have a nucleus of super bright kids who are learning and achieving at a very high level. If you want all the kids to be brilliant as yours, enroll in a school with a gifted program (there are many out there, particularly in district 22). Yes many schools are awful, but others have a lot to offer, despite having a sizable number of kids enrolled who are not intellectually gifted. You can’t just look at tests scores. You have to go in to the school and see if it is working for some of the kids, potentially kids like your own. Often the high achieving, motivated kids are given a lot of perks by these schools and your kids will benefit greatly. I’m not saying this is how public schools should be in brooklyn or anywhere – where’s our money, Pataki??? But – if you can’t afford private and want to live in Brooklyn you have to be smart about the system. Lots of people out there make it work for them. I’m not mentioning where I live, but the school here is a mixed bag – some really smart kids with high achieving parents, also lots of low income kids… .Mixed test scores, steadily improving, etc…. Yet the vast majority of my neighbors who have gone the public route here have seen there kids accepted to Stuyvesant, Midwood, etc… and then go on to prestigious private as well as public universities.
who deens math?
I wook at a spore and i hab a good money.
math aint impotent, aight?
How sad that an elementary school where 25% of its students don’t meet the (minimum) STANDARD in math and English is considered a “success” by the NYTimes and a “huge draw” and “one of the best schools in Brooklyn” by readers of this blog. Some of our schools are much better than others, but how can we define this as a “success?” And the lower rate of standard achievement in the middle school just shows the increasing progression of failure, not success.
PS 29 has been on par with PS 321 for many years. Many families from Brooklyn Heights sought variances to send their kids there and it was not uncommon for parents to lie about their address to attend the school. A few years ago, the Dept. of Ed. made a concerted effort to put resources into neighboring schools (PS 58 and PS 8) to convince parents to stay within their zone and take some of the pressure off of 29 — which pretty much worked and both those schools now keep a much greater proportion of zoned families than previously. I believe PS 38 will be the next beneficiary of such a policy — improve the school and keep more families from seeking variances elsewhere. But PS 29 still remains the “destination” school (at least in terms of real estate buying decisions) although PS 58’s test scores are nearly on par with 29’s .