Brokers Weigh in on PLG
In light of yesterday’s post about a Prospect Lefferts Gardens house selling over ask, reader and neighborhood guru Bob Marvin points out that the latest issue of the Lefferts Manor Echo—download via this link—has a roundtable interview with real estate brokers who live in PLG. There’s a bit of disagreement between them about whether townhouse…
In light of yesterday’s post about a Prospect Lefferts Gardens house selling over ask, reader and neighborhood guru Bob Marvin points out that the latest issue of the Lefferts Manor Echo—download via this link—has a roundtable interview with real estate brokers who live in PLG. There’s a bit of disagreement between them about whether townhouse prices have gone down slightly or just flatlined, though general agreement that the average house is selling for $900,000. Some of the quotes:
Barbara Rogers, associate broker at William B. May: “[H]ouses in good shape may be hard to find. I don’t live in the historic district of the Manor. I’m on Lefferts 3, and there are a number of houses for sale on my block and on Sterling Street that are being listed by small, independent brokers. But a lot of those houses are in pretty bad repair.”
Bill Sheppard, associate broker and senior vice president with Brown Harris Stevens: “I’ve been selling here for 20 years, and 20 years ago I’d get a listing for $200,000, and there were those who’d say, ‘Who’s going to pay $200,000 for that? My response was to say, ‘Find a better house somewhere else for $200,000.’ And my response is still the same, only now it’s ‘Find a better house for $1 million.'”
Audrey Edwards, associate broker and vice president at Brown Harris Stevens: “I think you are going to see commercial growth in the neighborhood in five years or less, but you’re probably going to see it first on Rogers.”
Keith Mack, associate broker with the Corcoran Group: “Ten years ago no one thought their homes would ever sell for a million dollars, but they do. You may well see houses here break the $2 million range.”
Lefferts Manor Echo 2011 [Lefferts Manor Association]
Photo by bobmarvin11225.
Besides that, Flatbush is HUGE, and saying you’re from Flatbush is about as specific as saying you’re from Downtown in Manhattan – can mean anything below 14th Street.
What I object to is the “stretching” of neighborhood boundaries for real estate purchases. For example, in recent ads it that anything in Flatbush that isn’t Ditmas (no Park, which is weird, and I guess therefore qualifies as a made-up nabe) is now PLG – all the way down to Caton.
I’ve even seen houses on the north side of Empire Blvd called PLG.
Now to me that’s what’s obvious – like South Slope at 24th St. and Fifth Avenue, or Clinton Hill at Bedford and Quincy, or Fort Greene on Washington Ave, etc.
EastFlatEasy,
Of the three neighborhood names you mention only “East Williamsburg” was made up after you were born. The “Prospect Lefferts Gardens” name was made up in 1968 by neighborhood residents, not brokers, as Brooklynista pointed out yesterday. In fact, when I started looking for a house there in 1974 brokers listed them under “Flatbush” or (more frequently) “Park Slope vicinity.” It took many years for most brokers to catch on. “AFAIK Ditmas Park” did start as a real estate development, but the name is over 100 years old.
You’re quite young and have a lot to learn. You may think you know the “obvious” motivation behind the PLG “nomenclature” but, if you Google “PLGNA” and look at their website I think you might be VERY surprised to learn that you’re not “being real about it” at all.
My main point is, that I’ve lived in BK all of my 29 (Born in Brownsville, raised in East Flatbush, schooled in Bushwick, living now in Flatbush) years and I’ve never heard the name Prospect Lefferts Gardens (or Ditmas Park, or East Williamsburg etc…) until recent years and the influx of both new residents and brokers who brought them there. No one who lives in these neighborhoods identify them as such. It frustrates me to see this new nomenclature when, to me at least, the motivation behind it is quite obvious.
I won’t deny that these name have not existed in the past, but they have not been common knowledge to anyone living there until recently.
Just being real about it.
Thanks for that, Bob. (Always good to see if someone has added a better answer before you hit the “send” button on your own). Since you’ve done a great job of explaining the diff between Greater Prospect Lefferts Gardens and Lefferts Manor, let me just add this note about diversity:
Brooklyn is a very diverse borough, no question about it. But not all of Brownstone Brooklyn’s streets are equally diverse. Part of the cachet of PLG is that it’s diversity is pronounced — and growing. And, yes, the photo here was taken on a house tour day. But you can come to PLG — especially Lefferts Manor– on any day, not just tour day, and find a scene very similar to one in Bob’s photo repeated over and over. It’s the norm for the way we roll over/down here. (Not just the mix but the socializing of the mix is what I’m talking about.)
Thanks DitmasSnark; I try hard, but that shot really was the sort of thing that Cartier-Bresson might have called a “decisive moment”. I’m primarily a landscape photographer, so careful composition is second nature, but I don’t direct my human subjects or move my inanimate ones.
“I’m presuming the pic was taken on house tour day” Exactly Broklin; last May.
“I thought the PLG name, as with many (but not all) of the neighborhood names went back to when the homes were built. These homes were restricted to be single family only – was there no group name back then that covered the blocks that were so designated?”
The Prospect Lefferts Gardens name was coined c. 1968, as Brooklynista pointed out. The Prospect Lefferts Gardens Neighborhood Association was started, in part, by people who thought (rightly IMO) that the 8 block Lefferts Manor area was too small to preserve on it’s own.
Lefferts Manor is the name for the part of PLG that has single-family deed covenants. Even that name wasn’t coined until c. 1918, shortly before the homeowners’ association [the Lefferts Manor Assoc.] was founded. LMA was founded after the Lefferts family sold the last of the 600 building lots they had subdivided and a new organization was needed to enforce the covenants. I’ve read that prior to the LM name being devised this part of Flatbush was called “the Lefferts Estate” or “Prospect Park East” in real estate ads. FWIW the c. 1900 ad I have framed on my wall, for the development that includes my house (built in 1899) doesn’t use any neighborhood name and merely describes the houses as being ” located on Midwood Street, near Flatbush Avenue, two blocks from the Willink entrance to Prospect Park, 30 minutes from New York; 5 minutes walk to Erasmus Hall High School.”
Used to the diversity in Brooklyn, so didn’t notice anything other than normal life on a brownstone street in that picture.
There is a number on the house, so I’m presuming the pic was taken on house tour day. Anyone who thinks there isn’t diversity in all these brownstone neighborhoods only needs to go on a house tour to see otherwise.
I thought the PLG name, as with many (but not all) of the neighborhood names went back to when the homes were built. These homes were restricted to be single family only – was there no group name back then that covered the blocks that were so designated?
Flatbush or Midwout, a 400 year old designation, is an area that has multiple neighborhoods with their own identities. Prospect Lefferts Gardens has been called as such since 1968 and was named by a community organization (PLGNA). It may not be the best name but it is what it is and I for one like having identifiable neighborhoods in an area as large as Flatbush.
Actually,lots of long time locals DO still call it Flatbush, EFF. Meanwhile, the name Prospect Lefferts Gardens, has been around a while — all the way back to 1968, in fact. And it was not concocted by realtors. Instead, it was coined by the founders of the Prospect Lefferts Gardens Neighborhood Association — people who were proud of this section of Brooklyn which was once owned by the Lefferts family and is bordered by Prospect Park and the Botanic Gardens. I speculate it had something to do with claiming a bit of turf identity, just like so many other of the other little nabes that, together, all make up the one gigando neighborhood we know as Flatbush.
Why not call it Flatbush, like everyone who lived there before the brokers decided to give it a name they could sell?