Open House Picks

babs,

I agree the bashing has become ridiculous. You make a reasonable statement when you say that “I don’t believe that PLG, where I live, is any more dangerous than Clinton Hill was 5 years ago.”

Problem is — PLG is being priced *higher* than Clinton Hill today. At least this HOTD is, on a square-footage basis.

I dunno why all the animosity to PLG — racism, conspiracy, whatever. But I think there is a totally legitimate case to make that PLG (imho) is pricing in several years of gentrification yet to come. I know that’s the case in a lot of Brooklyn, but from the listings I’ve seen here, it seems more aggressive on the PLG houses. I dunno why that either.

Maybe I’m wrong and the market will prove me wrong, but that’s the advice I’d give to a friend who was house-hunting. (But I’d also tell them to check it out for themselves.)

I don’t believe that PLG, where I live, is any more dangerous than Clinton Hill was 5 years ago (or even still is today in parts — a recent thread discussed the bodega where the drug dealers hang out, the deals people have seen going down, etc., which actually sounds a bit scarier than what I’ve seen around here).

But this is true of just about any neighborhood anywhere in NYC — and there are posters on this site in previous threads who’ve maintained that Fort Greene is unsafe due to the presence of the Walt Whitman Houses, etc., etc. I lived in Fort Greene over ten years ago and I never felt unsafe there then — of course no-one ever went past Dekalb Ave and even that was dicey — but maybe it’s a matter of perception, and I still think that the (mostly) white people who post here feel safer around their own kind.

And I don’t know why, but we certainly don’t have as many obnoxiously sidewalk-hogging strollers or three-abreast walkers as you see in Park Slope. These are probably the same people BTW — when they’re out with their adult friends they take up the whole sidewalk, too — I see them all the time in Manhattan, too.

But maybe the idea that someone’s trying to buy something and wants to hold (or bring) prices down isn’t too far off the mark. Maybe it’s working – Corcoran just lowered the house for sale on my block to $615K. If it gets down to $500K I may have a shot! I just couldn’t lie about my neighborhood and my neighbors in the interest of lowering it there, however.

OK, it is becoming clear to me now, the poster who loves to rag on Lefferts is actually someone who is bidding on a house and wants to scare everyone else away. If not that, then this person must have ancestors who were rivals of the Lefferts family.

It isn’t up for debate. I’ve made my choice and am happy to raise my child in PLG. Why does that bother you so much?

I’m a long-distance runner, and I run several days a week through various neighborhoods (PS, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, DUMBO, etc.) as well as Prospect Park. Over 15 years as a Brooklyn pedestrian, I have had my way blocked far more often by oblivious pedestrians, *without* strollers, sluggishly walking 2 or 3 abreast, who feel that they don’t need to interrupt their meaningful conversations for the .5 seconds it would take to let another person pass. Selfish people without kids just become selfish people with kids, in my experience.

As for giving up strollers sooner, maybe people in PLG do — I don’t know. Maybe Slopers just cosset their kids more, or something. But saying it’s because there is so much in walking distance of PLG? Come on. Yes, I know the zoo and the botanic gardens are lovely, but we actually have one or two amenities in walking distance in the slope.