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The Times’ Living In column covered the south Brooklyn neighborhood of Gravesend this weekend, a largely Sephardic Jewish area sandwiched between Brighton Beach and Bensonhurst. But it’s not just Middle Eastern immigrants who inhabit the one- and two-family homes there&#8212Chinese, Mexicans and Russians have been taking root as well. It’s always been an immigrant neighborhood, they say, but the geography of the immigrants changes over the years. As the neighborhood grows wealthier, it’s seeing the increase of a fad popular in other parts of the States: the tear-down. Five million dollar mansions are going in razed lots, though they say you can still snatch up an older home&#8212one that doesn’t need razing&#8212for $600,000. One local broker summed up why prices are so high: Sephardic Jews would rather pay a million dollars for a 2,000-square-foot lot in Gravesend than pay $500,000 for a 4,000-square-foot lot elsewhere.
A Neighborhood Both Insular and Diverse [NY Times]
Ocean Parkway at Avenue U. Photo by Lisanne!.


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  1. ENY – lets be honest, you said “but ‘The What’ is easily the funniest person posting here”. And by that I presume you didn’t mean inadvertently the funniest. Which he is. especially when he’s unashamedly using his sock puppet to congratulate himself on his brilliant posts.

  2. My partners are cool with it. They play viseo games. The less we fuss with the portfolio, the better are the returns. We all own the firm.

    Interested in the horse stable story. I used to watch my neighbors coal hauled up the hill at their house by a guy using a bushel basket.

  3. Hey Dave,

    Because I was raised in East New York and now own a home in Crown Heights. I also enjoy referring to my East New York roots. My Mom still owns a two-family home there, across the street from what in my boyhood was a horse stable. That’s right, a horse stable. I could tell you a history of East New York you could never imagine, but I’m not sure someone as pretentious as you appear to be is capable of appreciating what I’d have to say.

    I haven’t “defended” the What and DOW. I’ve commented that while I don’t always agree with him/her, I find a few of the What’s posts quite funny, which I do. I don’t recall ever having commented on a DOW post.

    My turn: why do you spend so much time posting here? I have to say your employer is really getting the short end of the stick, unless they are cool with your obsession with this site. If so, then good for you.

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