Red Hook: Denise Moves to the Sticks
I’m a lifelong New Yorker and a Brooklyn resident for 13+ years. My boyfriend and I recently set up house in Red Hook. After living in Park Slope for the more than a decade, I jokingly like to say that coming here is our version of chucking it all and moving to the sticks without…
I’m a lifelong New Yorker and a Brooklyn resident for 13+ years. My boyfriend and I recently set up house in Red Hook. After living in Park Slope for the more than a decade, I jokingly like to say that coming here is our version of chucking it all and moving to the sticks without actually having to leave Brooklyn. Aside from the light and openness, impossibly elegant warehouses, and haunting industrial ruins that are among Red Hook’s prize qualities, one of the most profound draws for us is the strong sense of community–something I saw dwindle in Park Slope as the property values shot up and developers eager to cash in fueled what felt like a crushing development/population boom. I’ve found in Red Hook the kind of small town vibe I’ve been missing and like many residents I can attest that once you’ve discovered its charms you can’t imagine living elsewhere.
The startling views from the Beard Street Esplanade are one of the neighborhood’s most potent draws. This Civil War era warehouse (pictured) now home to everything from glass blowers to New York Water Taxi to the Blue Man Group’s costumers is a remnant of Red Hook’s glory days as a bustling maritime center and the cornerstone of its revitalization.
There’s NO where near the amount of new construction going on in RH as in PS and the population is infinitely smaller. That aside, I wasn’t attacking Park Slope, I’m just discussing how I saw it change across a decade. I love the neighborhood or I wouldn’t have chosen to live there for so long and I put a lot of myself into it–from supporting local businesses over chain stores to volunteering in the park to the renovation and upkeep of our brownstone coop. But the tenor of Park Slope has changed in recent years in a way that’s markedly different from what drew me there in the first place and it was time for something new. That’s not an attack, it’s just a fact (for me, at least).
Almost all downtown “brownstone” neighborhoods have risen from the grave. Why attack the upper class of Park Slope because you don’t feel you fit in. There still are communities in Park Slope. Communities exist out of the lower classes.
Moving from Park Slope, Brooklyn to Red Hook, Brooklyn in order to escape property values shooting up and developers eager to cash in is sort of like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
Anonymous 6:40–you realize that the original Anon who started this unleashed his/her own vitriol first, or do you consider “hipstet [sic] dufus crap” valid, constructive criticism? Anon reaped what s/he sowed. That entire first post is nothing but vinegar–and factually inaccurate: there are approximately 8-9000 people living in the Red Hook Houses. Not 18K.
I am an artist and i moved to red hook from NC in april of last year. I have a local friend that pointed me in the direction due to the growing artists community, cheap rents and an up and coming area. I love it. Its very neighborly, a real sense of a community. Yes, the projects are there, but whatever.. I have always felt safe, even walking home from Carroll Gardens at 3am.
I would have to agree with anon’s posting. Name calling is really no way to respond. I think anon made a valid point. What’s with all the vitriol?
It’s a nice block, can’t really speak for what’s going on with the sales though. Here’s a listing:
http://www.rondasavoyrealty.com/index.cfm?action=Townhouses&subaction=detail&aptid=259242&aptpub=10823
just wondering if anyone heard anything or has been in any of the townhomes newly built on sullivan and wollcott? i was interested but have not heard much about them there are a couple left. how are those blocks?
… And FURTHER MORE … everyone who discovers Red Hook is discovering it for first time, for themselves.
If she had taken pictures in the projects, you could yell at her for taking cliched or exploitative pictures of the projects – a lot of people have done that too.
Every photograph taken is different from the next, Monet just painted a bunch of haystacks, you know.