The Times Gives It Up For Alterna-Slopes
The Times had a case of Brooklyn fever this weekend, taking some precious column inchage to profile two neighborhoods that most readers of The Gray Lady probably hadn’t heard of until recently, Windsor Terrace and Prospect Lefferts Gardens. The subjects of the Windsor Terrace article, a couple who were pleased as punch to land a…
The Times had a case of Brooklyn fever this weekend, taking some precious column inchage to profile two neighborhoods that most readers of The Gray Lady probably hadn’t heard of until recently, Windsor Terrace and Prospect Lefferts Gardens. The subjects of the Windsor Terrace article, a couple who were pleased as punch to land a four-bedroom house in the nabe last year for $999,000, had this to say about how their new home stacked up versus the Slope: It’s a little less precious over here, and a little more real. We kind of like that.” (The director of the Jack Nicholson flick As Good As It Gets thought it was unprecious enough to cast one of the houses above on Fuller Place as Helen Hunt’s working-class digs. The idea that these places are now within reach of people with working-class incomes is, of course, laughable.) Despite initial concern about the “clusters of young men hanging out on some of the street corners,” the star of the PLG article ultimately was won over by the area’s racial diversity and proximity to Prospect Park, snapping up a small Victorian house just outside the historic district for $240,000 back in 2002. She now shares the house with her 11-year-old daughter, her brother and his wife.
Less ‘Precious’ Than the Slope? Certainly Cheaper [NY Times]
A Wished-For House With a Hideaway Nook [NY Times]
Photo by redxdress
Whoa..just read the middle posts, which I had not seen previously.
One of the things about neighborhoods is that it takes neighbors to make them work.
There is a way to live amongst the kind of yelling and so on that is being described. Staying quietly in your home and phoning the police is not the way it works…
I don’t even know how to describe to you how Brooklyn works. But the reason the older children still live at home in the area is precisely because the house is worth so much….1. the adult child wants to be in on the worth 2. now that the house is worth this astronomical amount of money, the parents can refinance and afford for the adult child to do these stupid things and 3. more money to people who are nuts just gives them less need to be somewhere responsible.
The housing values made life difficult in so many ways….maybe it seems to have helped move poeple to Florida and what have you but, really, it created weird situations where neighbors left places they loved because, financially, it was what made sense.
Anyway…
I grew up two blocks from this house in the picture. I went to elementary school directly across the street from this house. When I was in seventh grade, this house watched several of my year-mates toss furniture out the window of said school…one of my other seventh grade classmates was one of the guys who robbed the WTC..one of the “clowns”. My own as well as many other father’s in the neighborhood drank his paycheck at Farrell’s.
What I love about this area, which was formerly known as “Park Slop” when I was younger, is the sense of family in the area. The manner in which the houses are built and arranged, as well as the park being nearby are a fantastic setup for close and friendly neighbors….we all knew one another and I can still get caught up walking from “The Avenue” (9th, which isn’t 9th but PPW) and talk nonstop to everyone I meet…
Thanks for this. It’s so much fun to find out how people react to something that is so average and normal for me. This is great.
This kind of non-stop chatter reminds me of the now-funny to think about article in NY Magazine from the 70’s about the wasteland that the Upper West Side was but how good, honest working families were making it better and how some nutty developers had some big ideas for the area. I think this Brooklyn thing could be very big people too. And it’s all about the pouring of the waves of people from Manhattan not at all about us and our little battles over the hoods. We will one day look back on these dialogues quaint relics of our distant past.
I came to the same conclusion you did, completely independently, 10:03pm. There are some realtors who are identified with specific neighborhoods, and they use the tactic of creating paranoia about safety in competing neighborhoods.
Nobody wants to get in a contest over which neighborhood is more likely to have muggings, because it’s useless and tiresome, but anybody who thinks they are immune to crime because their neighborhood is gentrified is putting themselves and their families at risk. Don’t be paranoid, just be realistic about life in the big city.
I’ve lived in PLG for 7 years and have walked home sober and not very so on many early mornings. I’ve never been mugged in PLG, and was several times when I lived in the Slope between 4th and 5th Avenues.
Stop bashing PLG. PLG has great transportation, is close to the botanical gardens and the best parts of Prospect Park. On top of all of this, it’s a wonderful community.
I knew the trolls were real estate agents!
I’ve been saying it for the last year and nobody agreed with me.
Believe it or not, it’s actually me this time. And I’ve really been enjoying brownstoner the past couple of days.
Given the long history of identity hijacking and defaming on this blog, I’m willing to bet that the posts attributed to “Crown Heights Proud” at the 6:48 and 6:51 p.m. are the work of a demented troll.
Anonymous 4:24pm, I am so in agreement with your posting.
Your description of WT up until 10 years ago is also very accurate…
Thanks for sharing.