Open House Picks
Clinton Hill 83 Downing Street Brown Harris Stevens Sunday 1-3 $1,325,000 GMAP P*Shark Ditmas Park 726 Rugby Road Fillmore Sunday 2:30-4:30 $899,000 GMAP P*Shark Crown Heights 1227 Union Street Corley Sunday 12-2 $489,000 GMAP P*Shark
Clinton Hill
83 Downing Street
Brown Harris Stevens
Sunday 1-3
$1,325,000
GMAP P*Shark
Ditmas Park
726 Rugby Road
Fillmore
Sunday 2:30-4:30
$899,000
GMAP P*Shark
Crown Heights
1227 Union Street
Corley
Sunday 12-2
$489,000
GMAP P*Shark
putnam–261 is definitely one we are looking at based partly on your experience. but they are having fewer and fewer spots of late for out of district kids. But we will definitely apply there. As I said there are a fairly large number of schools we will end up applying to. The Australian thing is something that we have always been thinking about as my wife is from Sydney. But I suspect that is a few years down the road.
ncarty–I believe that the little pocket of houses from #81 through #85 are part of the landmarking but I could be wrong.
WTbound–friends of mine have a child the same age as my oldest and they are looking outside of district too. Don’t know what school they are zoned for.
Wasder:
I assume you have looked at 261 (which is D15) in Boerum Hill. That’s where I send my son from our neck of the woods. There are a bunch of kids from Fort Greene/Clinton Hill who go there – not an impossible bike ride or walk from Fort Greene, and an easy twostops on the subway from Clinton Hill. Of course there are some who are at 11 and quite happy with it, if acknowledging it is still a school in transition. But hey, who am I to knock Australia…
Re Crown Heights house. The armory at Union/President and Bedford is not the armory that the city wants to make into an intake center for NYC’s homeless men. That’s the 23d Regiment Armory on Bedford and Atlantic. This armory may have a homeless shelter in it, but it’s not that big. They also do a lot of movie shoots here, they were filming Nicholas Cage’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice here last summer. Don’t know much about schools, but I do know there is a parochial (Episcopal) elementary day school nearby on Brooklyn and President St. These blocks are very quiet, and the house looks great, and the price is in the range of reality. I’d at least look. It’s also right around the corner from 2 subway lines.
Wasder and MM:
I disagree – most schools in D15, from Cobble Hill through Kensignton, are good and I know kids at just about all of them. I am thrilled with 154 over in Windsor Terrace. I also have heard great things about one of the schools in Ditmas Park. I have heard some good things about PS 8 (Bklyn Heights/D13) too, and 261 (I think D13?).
I think some of the great brownstone nabes have some poor school choices, but it certainly isn’t 321 or nothing!
Good luck everyone
I love the Downing St house. PS 56 right down the block was an pretty good school when my niece went there, so I would think it’s a good option.
“This house is landmarked in Clinton Hill historic district.”
I don’t think that is right. It may be landmarked, but the Clinton Hill historic distric doesn’t extend that far south on Downing and is only on the west side of the street from what I read when I looked it up.
MM–
What’s “the book”?
Rugby Road is in the West Midwood section of Flatbush. This house is by a wide margin the worst eyesore on the block. It evokes the worst stereoypes of a hillbilly shack somewhere in Appalachia. I really hope they come around to pricing it reasonably so that a new owner can give that house the care it’s long overdue for.
“You can join Alexander (from the horrible very bad day – get the book if you don’t already have it). Good luck with the variances – they are hard to get! (My whole RE story has been about school) Can you at least apply to Community Roots? That seems to the best thing Clinton Hill/FG have going re: schools, but lottery is super competitive…”
MM–will definitely apply to Community Roots as well as a bunch of other schools in other neighborhoods (Brooklyn New School and others). This is not a problem limited to Clinton Hill either. Except if you are in the PS 321 zone I don’t know too many people happy or confident in their local choices so parents I know from Cobble Hill and Windsor Terrace and other neighborhoods find themselves in the same boat.