Open House Picks

Ha–my quote was featured.

“Park Slope is the most annoying neighborhood in Brooklyn”… That’s funny.

WOOHOO…BROWNSTONER IN THE HOUSE!
(Jonathan…you *were* planning posting the link to this article, no? Gotta give the fans what they want!)

Here it is Folks!:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aAzGOK3UYne4

A Goldman Banker Moves to Brooklyn, Bloggers Go Ape: Joe Mysak

Commentary by Joe Mysak

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) — Who’s moving in?

Perhaps no other question is as central to the future of our cities and towns. Some seem to think that the best way to achieve urban renewal is to attract young, single, artsy or gay people.

More often than not, though, the question about who’s moving in is tied up with fear and suspicion, hostility and resentment. At one time or another, New Yorkers have worried about White People, the English, the Irish, the Italians, the Jews, the Blacks, the Puerto Ricans.

And now, at least one neighborhood in America is worried about the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bankers.

You just knew it would come to this.

On Dec. 11, a blog about Brooklyn real estate and renovation called “Brownstoner” carried the following item: “We got an e-mail a few days ago from a regular tipster who’s always been right in the past so we’re tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt this time around. While pointing us in the direction of a recent sale on Joralemon Street, he noted that the buyer happened to be a Goldman Sachs executive.”

The entry continued: “This was, he claimed, part of a trend that’s seen members of the city’s most successful investment bank crossing the East River (more than usual) in recent months to buy a piece of the rock in Brooklyn Heights.” Another broker told the blogger that he knew of at least two other recent deals involving Goldman bankers.

`Special Button’

The blogger, Jonathan Butler, an ex-banker and journalist who launched the site in October 2004, concluded: “The only bank where bonuses are expected to rise significantly this season, Goldman bankers and traders are certainly in the best position to snap up those $5 million-plus houses. Think there’s anything to this `trend’ or has it just always been so?”

The item was posted at 9:32 a.m., under a nice little photo of, what else, a row of brownstone facades.

And then — explosion. The “Comments” section, where readers write in offering their opinions, had 17 posts in the first hour, 70 items by noon. By midnight, 231 comments had been posted, at least ostensibly about Goldman bankers moving into Brooklyn Heights.

“There are usually a couple of posts a week that generate 100+ comments, but it takes a special button being pressed to clear 200,” Butler said in an e-mail to me. He thought the response was close to a record.

Blame the Wives

Some people said they weren’t surprised, that if Goldman bankers were going to choose any neighborhood in Brooklyn, they would choose the Heights because it has the best housing stock and is very close to Goldman’s downtown offices, a subway stop or two away.

This being the blogosphere, of course, disputes arose.

Some commentators — almost all of whom were signed in anonymously as “guest” — said that Wall Street bankers don’t take the train. “When talking about these Goldman Sachs types car transportation is the only thing that matters. My father, who is 75, is one of them and I think you can count on one hand the times he has set foot on a subway or bus in his life.”

Others threw water on the entire notion.

“The reality is that 95 percent of Wall Streeters don’t live in Brooklyn and only a few more live in Manhattan. The vast majority of Wall Street live in the suburbs of Westchester, Northern New Jersey and Long Island,” said one reader.

Another observed: “From what I hear, many of the execs would not mind living in Brooklyn but their wives absolutely veto the notion. It is seen as declasse and inconvenient by them.”

Most Annoying Neighborhood

One reader wrote that bankers also liked Park Slope. This resulted in a fierce rejoinder, one writer calling Park Slope “the most annoying neighborhood in Brooklyn,” while another asked “why Park Slope tries to highjack every thread,” or topic for discussion. One writer wrote “park slope” 44 times.

There were the inevitable comments on restaurants, or lack of them, and celebrity sightings, both real and imaginary: the actor Maggie Gyllenhaal, who lives in Park Slope, the journalist Jim Grant, who lives in Brooklyn Heights, and, inexplicably, television screamer Jim Cramer, who actually lives in New Jersey. The writer admitted the Cramer sighting “sounds crazy.”

And then, as always happens on the Internet, it was over. Just before midnight, one person wrote, “Brooklyn Heights is really beautiful,” and at 1:36 in the morning another wrote “Brooklyn Heights is actually kinda shabby.”

The Goldman Sachs/Brooklyn Heights storm had blown itself out.

(Joe Mysak is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Joe Mysak in New York at jmysakjr@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 14, 2007 00:04 EST

[UPDATE: THERE WERE ACTUALLY ALMOST 30 MORE COMMENTS POSTED TO THE THREAD AFTER MYSAK, JR. STOPPED LOOKING AT IT…THE “Goldman Sachs/Brooklyn Heights storm had (NOT QUITE) blown itself out.”

“but if it’s overpriced, someone will just offer lower, and it will eventually sell, right?”

That usually happens in real estate. Unless, of course, the seller is just testing the waters and has no real interest in selling.