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
That’s really disturbed, if that was made up…
When I’m wrong I admit it: I just looked up the last few police blotters, and that awful and very sad stabbing was somewhere else in Flatbush, in front of a big apartment on Bedford Ave., most likely between Ditmas and Lefferts near Kings County hospital. (And 9:59, how right you are. The fates of those two neighborhoods are almost assuredly linked.)
Someone read the story aloud to me last Saturday, and I heard Newkirk. So I either heard wrong, he misread the address, or there was a misprint in an early edition of the paper. My most sincere apologies.
Please excuse above typos. Like I said – lots of kids means having to type on the fly and forget about proofing….
Please provide a link to the stabbing on Newkirk.
Yes, PLG has it’s plusses – great architecture being the most obvious – but don’t bash Ditmas. There are a lot of people here who made a choice between PLG and this neighborhood. I didn’t even get far enough down the road to consider whether or not PLG was too violent. I felt most of the houses available were just two small. Tiny second and third bedrooms felt like horse closets. Beautiful buildings, but I felt better for families raising singletons, or couples who want a home office. Certainly could not accomodate our family of six.
J.L.: which 6th Avenue place are you referring to? Curious because we went to go see one this weekend on 6th…
All these Park Slope refugees are making Windsor Terrace a little more “precious” and a little less “real” every day.
BTW, I noticed how few of the decent local public schools got mentioned in the Times’ WT piece, but didn’t realize that the one they mentioned was in ‘the former John Jay’ (which, judging from the rough trade at dismissal,is still indeed Rikers Prep, even after its ‘reconfiguration’). Was glad they mentioned Holy Name–it’s a warm, safe, diverse, “back to basics” school, and non-Catholics are welcomed; and at $4K a year, it’s a decent alternative to the private school rat-race if you’re willing to forgo the bells, whistles, and status-seeking ambience.
I don’t understand the need for acrimony on commenting about the pro’s and con’s of Bklyn nabes-not-one’s-own. We love the Slope, go there every Sat. for greenmarket and errands, pass our old newlywed apt. on 10th St. and check the progress of the holly tree we planted. Even 21 years ago, we discovered sadly that this pleasant place was, mysteriously and hopelessly, out of our reach, but we bear it no grudge, and we feel for the residents as the cozy boho vibe they signed up for is siphoned off in a wave of mini-banks, cell-phone stores and realty offices. Likewise Windsor Terrace. Our daughter goes to Holy Name School, and we’d trade our monster Victorian (still waiting for this decades $10K paint job) for one of those darling Fuller Place row houses in a heartbeat…except that, just like 21 years ago, these “modest” charmers are still out of reach. (As ours appreciated, theirs appreciated even more.) Such is life. So we try to focus on the good stuff about where we are. As the hapless Rodney sez: Why can’t we all just get along? (And if you knew what a foul-mouthed and snarky, “Curb-Your-Enthusiasm” person I am, oh Nasty-Posters-Above, you would realize how scary it is that even I can be more pleasant than you.)
The NY Times article mentioned only one local Windsor Terrace School. Not a peep about P.S. 154, which, for a while, was an undiscovered gem. However, that might have changed, according to comments on some of the websites devoted to NYC schools.
Still, PS 154 operates UNDER capacity. Too many schools, like the insanely popular PS 321 in Park Slope, are like the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.
However, the article mentioned the following school:
“One high school close to Windsor Terrace is the Secondary School for Research, also on Seventh Avenue, where in 2005 students averaged 399 on the mathematics section of the SAT and 361 on the verbal; state averages were 511 and 478.”
This school is the former John Jay High School. In short, its graduates — well, those who pass through its halls — are voted most likely to spend time on Riker’s Island, according to some people with experience at the school.
If by some misfortune your child is sent to this school, switch him to the witness protection program. The place is a nightmare. I know from personal experience.