House of the Day: Lefferts Manor FSBO
Three different readers sent us the link to the Lefferts Manor limestone being sold sans broker. While the owners may not have the web design skills and marketing savvy of the Fizzbows, we still like their independent and enterprising spirit. Will buyers like the $930,000 price tag? We’ll see. Here’s what one of the tipsters…
Three different readers sent us the link to the Lefferts Manor limestone being sold sans broker. While the owners may not have the web design skills and marketing savvy of the Fizzbows, we still like their independent and enterprising spirit. Will buyers like the $930,000 price tag? We’ll see. Here’s what one of the tipsters had to say: “This house is in a pristine row of limestones in the historically landmarked district in single family only Lefferts Manor. It seems like a good price for the area (there are homes sold for over $1 million now).” Curious? You can check out the open house this Sunday from 1 to 3 pm. Address: 156 Maple Street between Bedford and Rogers.
Limestone for Sale [156 Maple Street] GMAP
I’m the 4.33pm poster, and I agree with you that being courteous gets you a long way. What I have issues with is people thinking that being curteous to someone who yells a racial slur at you or heckles you. They are being rude and disrespectful. Rather than defending or trying to explain away that disrespectful and racist behaviour it should be condemned by the entire community.
All I can tell from these posts are that you all are pretty much very racist. The fear you all demonstrate has been institionalized in you just as it probably has for the “thugs” you’re talking about. We are all guilty of it. Go see the movie Crash which may be the most honest view of race in america. And all of your comments seem to support its conclusions.
Btw, I live in a “gentrifying” nabe and have lived in almost every nabe in the city over the last 10 years. Being nice and courteous gets you a long long way. Its called respect on the street. You deserve it and they do as well. I’ve been giving it whether I receive it or not and nothing has every happened to me and by all accounts I’m about as waspy as its gets.
PS I’m also 6’4 and 230 which may have something to do with it.
What a silly post. Of course no where is 100% safe, but some neighborhoods definitely have less crime than others.
As for the comments about being friendly to those who are verbally and/or physically threatening to you as you walk down the street because of your race, give me a break. I’ve heard that said before on this site to white people moving into a predominantly black area and it is ridiculous. Do you think trying to make friends with some racist guy who yells at you on the street is going to work? I would not advise a black person to do the same to a group of white racist thugs making racial slurs. Let’s just recognize that some people are not nice and are a problem. Whatever your color, if you verbally harass a minority group that is moving into your neighborhood, you are a racist jerk who is not going to be convinced be smiles and “how do you dos”. People who behave that way are beyond converting. Their behavior is what continues to perpetuate racial intolerance.
To be clear, I’m all for being friendly with your neighbors and those in your community. My family is and it is great. I’m just extremely skeptical of the notion that trying to be buddies with the local group of thugs, white or black, in your neighborhood that heckle you is going to get you anywhere, and might even get you hurt in the worst case scenario. People who already behave irrationally and outside of social norms do not necessarily react rationally.
No brownstone neighborhood is immune from either crime or unpleasant encounters. I was once robbed at gunpoint at 7:00 pm in Carroll Gardens on my way home from work less than 50 yards from my house (on a landmark block). I have also witnessed several purse snatchings on the same block in broad daylight; a carjacking; a band of kids kicking in car windows at midnight; another (or maybe same) band of kids hurling trash cans around the street the night before trash collection; and last October around 10:00 pm, saw a man get slashed in the head and punched and kicked by two kids who escaped on bicycles…all on the same landmark block. (I regularly look out my window when I’m home just to check that things are OK, and if I see anything amiss, I call the police.) So whatever nabe you folks live in, you need to be vigilant. Don’t take anything for granted, and don’t think that any neighborhood is safer than another or better than another. In reality, there is no street, anywhere, that is 100% safe, landmark district or not.
I’m the one whose friend had the bad encounter in LM. I called her to check. She refuses to write on this blog, but she said that that particular encounter was aprox. 10 african-americans (or perhaps west indians, she doesn’t recall) hanging out on the street corner, with a car radio playing loudly. As she passed through them with her 2 kids, ages 3 and 5, a few of the guys made vulgar comments at her and one said “What are you doing here? You should be on the other side of the park.” There was general laughing and hooting. She was upset, as were her kids.
Race is obviously an issue when discussing any changing neighborhood and she be discussed, whether we’re talking about white people moving to black areas or vice versa.
And Gardens Gal, I applaud you’re honsety about PLG/LM and it’s problems. Most of the residents who regulalry post here never admit to any problems–it is all peachy perfect fluff. So, thanks.
GardensGal,
You did read the actual Veggieburger post to which I was responding, right? I’ll quote it:
“I think people need to stop criticizing other neighborhoods and saying that houses are overpriced on this blog. … [snip] We can ALL profit off of Brooklyn’s rise here.”
You can read the whole thing above, but it sounded to me like “let’s not air our dirty laundry.” I was responding, as I addressed my post, specifically to VB. (How can you tell? I wrote “Veggieburger,” at the top of my post.) Not to the defenders of PLG on this thread in general. I don’t even know where VB lives.
In other words, I am specifically arguing AGAINST the selective muzzling of opinions. VB was arguing FOR the selective muzzling of opinions (negative ones).
I say, go ahead and talk about racial bashings in white neighborhoods. And let’s talk about the drawbacks of PLG or any other neighborhood. And let everybody toot their own neighborhood’s horns too. We should criticize other neighborhoods and say houses are overpriced; and we should argue back when we disagree.
What I read VB as saying, however, was “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” and I’m sorry but I 100% disagree with that.
Linusvanpelt:
There is a difference between comparing neighborhoods and civilly arguing the pros and cons in each and engaging in outright false exaggerations. Surely, because we all don’t agree on what constitutes a “good” home or neighborhood, we’re not all going to agree about what makes for a good RE investment and/or place to sink down roots. I think it’s a good thing that we don’t all agree and that’s why, for the most part, I’ve come to appreciate blogsites like this one. More often than not, Brownstoner.com can be fun and informative as we record our opinions and perhaps, listen and learn from each other about neighborhoods other than own.
Where I think I might depart from you on this topic, however, is in your view that folk who have invested in PLG and sincerely like living here,and wish to promote the virtues of investing in homeownership here,(like everyone else in every other nabe discussed onthis blogsite) are somehow motivated to do so only in order to suppress the public airing of our “dirty laundry.” That is such an unfair accusation! What it does is give full license for folk on this blog to slam PLG in any hyperbolic way that they wish (e.g. making the suggestion that if you want to raise your family here, you must train your children to become “proficient in the use of handguns” (anon 2:01 of 1/11.) However, when folk who actually live here attempt to point out what is negative exaggeration about some of these comments, our opinions are then devalued as being nothing more than biased attempts to protect our property interests.
IMO, the dialogue about PLG always becomes charged because so much of it takes place in CODE. The bottom line is that much of the subtext of these discussions is really centered on the race/class dynamics of gentrification in a nabe that is in the process of accelerated transition. What an emotional and juicy subject!
Although I question the characterization of the street incident offered by (anon 11:59 of 1/11) about “gangs of people [who] yell” (could it have been 3-4 loud talking, Black male youths?), I applaud him/her for finally putting the issue on the table: This was an intimidating and obnoxious street encounter made all the more frightening because there was a racial charge to it. But get this: that’s always going to be a fact of life whenever folk cross race and class barriers to live in neighborhoods in which they are not predominant. Indeed, this same kind of negative street action has been a historic problem for people of color who have attempted to integrate white Brooklyn strongholds like Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge. Heck, some of the street encounters in those areas have even escalated to the point of there being mobs of bat-wielding white youths who have actually murdered Black people who dared to step onto the wrong turf! But, we don’t talk about that kind of stuff when we discuss those nabes. I wonder why not?
PLG is by no means without its share of problems. Development is decidely uneven in this neck of the woods. The majority of the residents here are hardworking, but low-income, people of color. There is an historic (and rising) middle class population that lives quietly in landmarked pockets and other more upcale enclaves that are scattered throughout the neighborhood. But, there is also a criminal element that is unabashed in it’s street presence on the major business corridors like Flatbush Avenue and Nostrand Avenues. Without question this nabe suffers from an inadequate suppply of quality goods and services. FWIW, however, I’ve never seen a resident of PLG ever deny any of this on this blog. In fact, most of us have publicly and consistently acknowledged these downsides on this forum. But, then what? Are we not allowed to also toot our own horns about what’s good here? Please help me to understand that the selective muzzling of our opinions is not what you are suggesting.
veggieburger,
totally disagree. someone looking for a home and reading this blog for research deserves to hear how neighborhoods compare with one another, and to get some help in answering one of their big questions: Is neighborhood X worth as much as neighborhood Y? Sometimes that’s going to mean negative comparisons and arguments. Oh well. I’m all for civility, but I’m not for declaring, let’s all agree not to air our dirty laundry in public, so we can all watch our equity go thru the roof together.
I like most the nabes we discuss here in their own way. But that doesn’t mean they’re all equally good and valuable.
What do you mean, “from Brooklyn?” No, I wasn’t born in Brooklyn but I’ve lived here for over 20 years — does that count? And yes, bad kids will be bad kids everywhere and I avoid them — I’m certainly more wary of gangs of kids than of any adults I run into. But this is true, as you mentioned, everywhere, and PLG is no better or worse in this regard than anywhere else.
And I totally agree with you on this point — I hate the Prospect Park and Franklin Avenue subway stops around the time school gets out and in the morning for that reason — look out when that Franklin Ave shuttle pulls into the station at Propsect Park. You know most of these kids’ moms would have a heart attack if they know how their children were behaving and that these kids wouldn’t act that way on their own, but in groups it’s a different story.
And I also have a place on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and I encounter more problems there, in the form of drunk well-off young adults, than ever here in PLG.