Inside Third & Bond: Week 43
Today’s post deal’s with an issue close to many Brownstoner readers’ hearts—neighborhood boundaries. Where are we? Where do our buyers want to say they live? These are two questions that have been bouncing around in our heads lately as we’ve been interviewing marketing firms. Are we in Carroll Gardens? Are we in Gowanus? Are we…
Today’s post deal’s with an issue close to many Brownstoner readers’ hearts—neighborhood boundaries. Where are we? Where do our buyers want to say they live? These are two questions that have been bouncing around in our heads lately as we’ve been interviewing marketing firms. Are we in Carroll Gardens? Are we in Gowanus? Are we at the intersection of Carroll Gardens and Gowanus? In terms of the facts of mapped geography, it isn’t clear to us which neighborhood we’re in. The City’s neighborhood map lumps Carroll Gardens, Gowanus, Park Slope, Cobble Hill and Red Hook together and the Department of City Planning’s zoning study on wide streets in Carroll Gardens addresses only a portion of the neighborhood—not leaving us any clues as to the neighborhood boundaries. NY Magazine says the eastern border for Carroll Gardens is Smith Street. Wikipedia punts on the eastern boundary for the neighborhood entirely. Smalltownbrooklyn.com shows the canal as the eastern boundary. It seems like the more places we look, the more answers we get.
So without an authoritative map to guide us not that real estate marketing sticks to official boundaries — we turned to discussing what neighborhood is the right fit for our buyers. Are people more attracted to the established charm of Carroll Gardens, with amenities at every turn? Or does Carroll Gardens make people see $$$$$ and something staid?
What are people thinking about Gowanus? Is it seen as a bargain since it is new to the luxury housing game? Or do people think of it as a dirty industrial neighborhood with scattered tenements—and is that bad for us or good? Do people want reassurance or adventure? Or do they want a piece of both?
If a lot of our buyers are Gen Xers and we believe the stereotypes, then we are looking at people who are ambivalent about a lot of things. Why not let them live at the intersection of Carroll Gardens and Gowanus? They can tell their parents that they live in Carroll Gardens and their friends that they live in Gowanus. At our project The Clinton (W 48th Street), we use the tag: Clinton Comfort with Hell’s Kitchen Rents. That’s worked great for that project. We suspect that particular dichotomy would not go over as well for this one especially since the new projects proposed for Gowanus are looking for prices equal or greater than today’s Carroll Gardens.
In our quest, we looked at the physical geography of our site, too. Going by sheer eyesight, we are at the intersection of two different places. We will be the last of the housing marching down Third St toward the canal (except for the building on the next corner that has a first floor commercial space and housing above). Across the street is a manufacturing district. Behind us is completely residential. We really are on the edge of residential and industrial. For now: residential = Carroll Gardens and industrial = Gowanus. But with Public Place, Toll Brothers, and others putting up new construction on Gowanus, how soon will that change? Is the intersection of two places an enticing image or just messy?
Inside Third & Bond: Week 42 [Brownstoner]
Inside Third & Bond: Week 41 [Brownstoner]
Inside Third & Bond: Week 40 [Brownstoner]
Inside Third & Bond: Week 39 [Brownstoner]
Inside Third & Bond: Week 38 [Brownstoner]
Inside Third & Bond: Week 37 [Brownstoner]
From our lawyers: This is not an offering. No offering can be made until an offering plan is filed with the Department of Law of the State of New York.”
Hi Guest 7/7 11:27,
Just noticed your comment. In case you check back: yes, we do have permits to put our fence on the sidewalk. Pedestrians can cross to the opposite side of Bond and walk on that sidewalk which is entirely open. We moved the fence onto the sidewalk after procuring the permits because we needed the extra room on the site to do work along the property line–shoring and foundations.
I have a question about boundaries. Not names, just physical boundaries.
You moved your fence on Bond Street all the way to the curb. So now the sidewalk just ENDS, which is potentially dangerous, as pedestrians have to step into the street. Can you put up a barrier so that people can safely walk on the edge of the street?
Do your permits allow you to block the entire sidewalk? Why did you put up the fence along the property line and then later move it out?
As a broker who represents buyers/renters mostly in their 20’s and 30’s looking to move to Brooklyn (some native New Yorkers, some out-of-towners), I can honestly say that not a single person at any price point has ever asked me to find them a place in Gowanus. Go with Carroll Gardens.
I remember zip drives. Who could forget the “click of death” noise they would make as your disc was about to get wacked.
Hey, 4:36, I gotta say it is something to brag about, if ya survived Red Hook the way I did. And people who recently grew up there are still bragging about it, as evidenced by a soon-to-be-released CD, “Welcome to Red Hook Houses.”
2:29, Those gangs like the DeGraw Street Boys, Kane Street Midgets, Bishops, etc. were just a little before my time. I do remember zip guns, however. And who could forget the DTKLAMF scribblings in the streets by each gang marking its turf.
…and how can we forget the Park Slope Patchouli’s … they were fierce. Hung around Ye Olde Tea Lounge in the 50’s.
2:29: I’m 1:25. I also remember hearing about (and fearing, as a child) the two rival gangs: the DeGraw Street Boys & the Seaview Kids (presumably from Red Hook).
2.29 – Being from Red Hook is nothing to brag about … unless you like-uh der Svedish meatballs-uh.
1:25, that’s what I recall too. My family jumped around a bit from Bergen St, Butler Street, and Columbia Street, in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. Boerum Hill didn’t even exist back then. And Cobble Hill wasn’t widely known back then as such. When gentrification started occuring the names started changing. Before then, everything was either South Brooklyn or Red Hook, in those areas, And Clinton Gardens appeared to be the name of an apartment complex on Clinton Street between Carroll and President St. One of the “safe” places I had as a child was the branch library on Clinton and Union Street. It was never known back then as the Carroll Garden’s Branch.
It’s funny though I’m finding that I’m running into a lot of people who claim they’re from Red Hook these days, almost similar to the claims that people were at Woodstock in 1969.