Reuniting in a Bed Stuy Brownstone
There were a couple of things that stayed with us after we read Sunday’s piece in The Times about the Indian family who moved into a beautiful brownstone in Bed Stuy last summer. The first was their decision to stain the parquest floors cranberry and green. This looks fine to us in the photos but…
There were a couple of things that stayed with us after we read Sunday’s piece in The Times about the Indian family who moved into a beautiful brownstone in Bed Stuy last summer. The first was their decision to stain the parquest floors cranberry and green. This looks fine to us in the photos but we’re wondering what others think of this idea. We were more struck by Rina Banerjee’s description of the first time she visited the neighborhood:
“I came for a visit five years ago and honestly I was a little scared, Ms. Banerjee said. I walked out of the Utica subway station and there was a gang of boys there fooling around and I was worried, but I decided I had to know the neighborhood and I asked them for directions and they were so kind that I immediately felt comfortable. It’s amazing how a neighborhood’s reputation impacts your thinking about it even before you see it.
Food for thought indeed.
Family Reunited in a Brownstone [NY Times]
I think the floors sound cool. I wish there were pictures of them. Kudos to them for doing something unique!
As for the staining of the floors….remember, she is an artist and they are both originally from India where brightly colored clothing and the plaster walls of homes are very often bright prime colors. If staining the floors cranberry & green makes it feel more homey for them then more power to them. They are the ones that live there, right?
I don’t recall if this artist’s husband worked in Manhattan, but for parents who work in the city, maybe they prefer their child to go to school closer to where the parent works. One thing that’s a drag for the kids though – most of their school friends would not live in Brooklyn so the kids might feel more isolated out in Brooklyn on weekends, especially when they’re old enough to hang out on their own with friends.
Many people are ripping up those parquet floors anyway, to go down to the original wood floors underneath. Depends on how old the houses are. Doesn’t parquet date back to the 20’s and 30’s, not before? And if the parquet was stained or water damaged or something, doing a colorful stain on the wood is a good solution; it’s less expensive than putting in a whole new floor.
My experience seems to have paralleled the Banergee’s exactly: I bought a brownstone in Bed Stuy earlier in the year, w/some trepidation about my safety because of the neighborhood’s bad reputation, and have been very pleasantly surprised. I am very happy I chose this part of Brooklyn. The sense of community here is like none I have ever experienced in all my years living in NY and my only complaint is the complete lack of amenities. I can only hope that the plethora of empty storefronts along Malcolm X will become occupied by a nice cafe, bookstore, sitdown restaurant, etc. and not razed and turned into substandard ‘Fedders’ buildings.
As for this couple’s choice of sending their daughter to a school in Manhattan, well, I know couples who live in nice parts of the Slope and couples who pay a lot in school taxes out on eastern L.I. who still choose to send their children to private schools far from their home. To each their own. I don’t have children so I do not have first hand experience with the schools. What I know is from my neighbors who have many complaints about the quality of our nearby schools.
I thought it was a great article and I wish them continued happiness here in Bed Stuy. Anyone else that has any reservations about BS, come out and see for yourself.
Where in the photos can you see any parlor floor that’s been stained green or red? It looks like maybe they stained the foyer green, but the parlor floor looks unmolested. (BTW, it’s a free country, but I think applying bright colors to century-old inlaid hardwood floors to be a serrrrrrious mistake.)
i found the most interesting thing to be something that we all discuss a lot on here about living in bed-stuy…where do you send your kids to school? this couple chose manhattan…
My experience in PLG a couple of years ago was very different. I asked a couple of ‘kids’ for directions and ended up in the hospital.
RE: Ms. Banergee’s experience with a “gang” of boys, I had a similar educational experience when I first moved to PLG in the early ’70s. Shortly after I moved there were a bunch of black teenagers playing loud music across from my house at about 11 PM. Now on the south Slope block from which I had moved I never would have dared ask the white teenagers to quiet down because I saw them (rightly or wrongly)as rather thuggish and intimidating (the south Slope at that time was VERY different from what it is like now). Anyway, I was a home owner now and not a renter, so I gathered my courage , went across the street, and asked the kids to lower their music a little. Their response was to apologize and turn the music off. I felt foolish for having hesitated to approach them, but this small incident went along way to confirm in my mind that I had made the right choice in where to buy my house.