The Next New Brooklyn
We’ve been told Philadelphia is the new Brooklyn, or Brooklyn is the new Manhattan, and sometimes we’ve been told that Manhattan is the new Brooklyn. New York Magazine reprised the latter argument. Prices are falling in brownstone Brooklyn, they say —″Statistics from Streeteasy.com show 38 percent of townhouses suffering price cuts in recent months, averaging…
We’ve been told Philadelphia is the new Brooklyn, or Brooklyn is the new Manhattan, and sometimes we’ve been told that Manhattan is the new Brooklyn. New York Magazine reprised the latter argument. Prices are falling in brownstone Brooklyn, they say —″Statistics from Streeteasy.com show 38 percent of townhouses suffering price cuts in recent months, averaging an 11 percent drop”—and the market is softening in Manhattan. Given the choice between similar prices in two boroughs, apparently some people are saying, “I’ll take Manhattan”—not that we know any of them. Not to worry. Even if fewer Manhattanites have been scouring the borough for deals, all’s well here. “Brooklyn now has its own momentum,” they report. “There are far more pro-Brooklyn partisans than there used to be.” Anybody out there witnessed this move-to-Manhattan phenomenon?
Manhattan: The New Brooklyn? [New York Mag]
View of Downtown Manhattan. Photo by drunkcat.
I don’t really know anyone who would consider moving back to Manhattan, perhaps it’s just the people I know but most picked Brooklyn over Manhattan not only because of the price but because Brooklyn is quieter with neighborhoods that have their own distinct feel. This of course makes it ideal for young families that want an urban lifestyle that is a little less frantic than Manhattan. The fact that Manhattan is continuing to be overrun by big box stores and mega-condominium developments makes it quite unattractive for most former-Manhattan dwelling Brooklynites to go back.
Taking a price cut on a listing is different than the actual sales price. And if one is judging the market by listing prices than maybe someone should find another day job.
“I live in Brooklyn. By choice.”
benson:
i don’t think we’re talking about the same things….i just purchsed a two family in gowanus (although now i think the relators have changed it to boerum hill or bococa or soho east or something)…not really a nj suburb….new people are great, as long as they don’t keep bitching that the place isn’t like manhattan (which is the difference between the kids in willie’b and the investors)
just for kicks, since you are a supposed brooklyn native….WHEN did you grow up and WHERE did you grow up that people didnt have a sense of Brooklyn as an entity? That one is totally new to me….As you said, people long gone still claim Brooklyn as their own…..Clinging to their villages? yeah residential segregation was and is still real, but you haven’t read this blog long enough……these people are from the village of BEDFORD CORNERS and Stuyvesant Heights or whatever villages they are making up in their mind or dug out of centuries old articles.
But where did you grow up, Mr. Brooklyn, where they didn’t have a sense of Brooklyn as an entity?
what i like best about that photo is how subtle and natural the colors are.
Slappy;
Give it a rest,please.
I’m a Brooklyn native too, and I have vivid memories of what Brooklyn was like before the infusion of new people: decay, ethnic tensions and a lack of any kind of pro-Brooklyn “booster values”. In those days, nobody had any sense of Brooklyn as an entity. Rather, we all clung to our neighborhood villages, usually defined by ethnicity, and had no concern for other areas near by.
I always find it ironic to listen to those Brooklyn natives who talk about how great it was in the old days, and yet they now live in some LI or NJ suburb. I always feel like telling them: “Yeah, it was so great that you couldn’t wait to leave”.
We live in a borough of 2.4 million people, and there is plenty of room for new people. I welcome the life and investment these folks have brought to the borough. Indeed, they have turned around its fortunes, something that was not going to happen if all we had is the “old stock” still in place.
I moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan about nine years ago. When I decided to buy (late 2004) I found many more deals in Manhattan and Queens than in Brooklyn. Ultimately, I ended up realizing that my heart belongs to Brooklyn and decided to buy there. If you’re not buying to invest, you’re going to choose the place that makes you feel the most comfortable.
I had a single girlfriend (renter) who recently jumped back to Manhattan after being in the Heights for 5+ years. Her lease was up she was looking for more space and found that 1-Beds in Manhattan are, in a surprising number of instances, less expensive.
I think it was also the convenience factor of being able to walk to work, being single, and a high amenity building were big factors in her decision.
I’m not sure what the final number she ended up paying (I didn’t want to ask) but she said she got more bang for the buck than with anything she’d looked at in the Heights.
Speaking as a lifer……most of the “new Brooklyn” is filled with people who would jump to manhattan in a heartbeat if they could afford to…..only because they can’t is when they find secondary value aspects….and when they get to brooklyn they generally disdain the long-time locals, especially if the long-time locals are minorities. for them…..they await the neighborhood to change, which usually means becoming more like manhattan, and filled with more people like themselves…….the only exception might be the new people in williamsburg…..the young kids seem way less frustrated by what brooklyn really is (while creating their own spaces at the same time)…..not like the others for whom brooklyn is always 5-10 years away