NYT: PH: Tucked Between Past and Future in Brooklyn

inpixels

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/realestate/17living.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

whynot_31

Pardon me as I cite a similar profile by of PH the NYT, written in 1985

IF YOU'RE THINKING OF LIVING IN: PROSPECT HEIGHTS

By ANN BARRY

Published: April 7, 1985

BY the reckoning of a resident jogger, Prospect Heights is just a mile into Brooklyn from the Manhattan Bridge. Yet only recently has it become a popular refuge from the high cost of living in Manhattan.

Prospect Heights has grown even more attractive as prices continue to rise in neighboring Park Slope, which began its brownstone boom late in the 1960's.

Unlike the Slope, however, it has remained Manhattan-like in its melting-pot population: Blacks and whites, West Indians, Haitians, Hispanics and Asians occupy adjoining brownstones, row houses and apartments. Upper-class professionals and middle-class municipal and corporate employees live side by side with working-class and welfare families.

A barometer of the changes in Prospect Heights - a neighborhood roughly defined by Atlantic Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue that some urban geographers say is the westernmost slice of Crown Heights - is St. Marks Avenue, one of its principal brownstone blocks, which was a showcase street around 1915. (Among the neighborhood's other brownstone blocks are Prospect Place, Park Place, Sterling Place and Carlton Avenue.)

The residents with perhaps the longest tenure on the block are Rudolf and Margaret Kalen, 90 years old and 83, respectively, who moved there from Czechoslovakia in 1953. The neighborhood then in cluded Swedes, Irish and Italians; within five years the Kalens saw an influx of blacks, many from the Caribbean.

Among them was Edgar Clarke Sr., who was born in Jamaica and reared in Cuba. He bought his house on St. Marks Avenue in 1959 for $17,500. He can compare those days, when many whites began leaving the neighborhood, with the onset of gentrification in the late 70's.

Mr. Clarke's neighbor, William E. Moore, who grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section, arrived between those two eras. He bought a house on the avenue in 1967 with a down payment of $3,000, only to see brownstones deteriorate into boarding houses, the neighborhood Italian restaurant and German delicatessen shut down and vandalism by a transient element become common. In 1972, Roni and Paul Ramos, who had become dissatisfied with their apartment on the Lower East Side, bought a house on the avenue for what they then considered the enormous sum of $53,000, affordable only because it had possibilities for tenants. ''You want to look on the other side of Flatbush Avenue?'' asked their real-estate agent, who had been showing them housing in Park Slope. The Ramoses have noticed a change on the street in the last eight years or so. ''Even though it's a positive change - there are more trees and houses fixed up - we don't always see it that way,'' Mrs. Ramos said. ''We recognize fewer people on the block. Now there are some we don't even know, since they live in a world inside their houses.''

The Ramoses are not acquainted, for example, with Evan Cornog and Ann Goldstein, who live just down the street. The couple, both editors, were looking for more space and moved into a brownstone, for which they paid $74,500 in 1980.

As relative newcomers and homeowners, they are keen about what they call their ''unfrenzied'' surroundings. They appreciate having a nearby double-feature moviehouse, Plaza Cinema; a favorite bar, Charlie's, and a favorite restaurant, the New Prospect Cafe, all within a five-minute walk on Flatbush Avenue. In addition, they value the availability of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Public Library, Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, all nearby.

''You don't feel like you're not living in a city,'' Mr. Cornog said. ''And one of the nice things is that Prospect Heights doesn't feel as homogeneous as Park Slope.''

Today, comparable brownstones in the neighborhood fetch $250,000 and more, according to Richard Lazarus, a retired renovator and real-estate agent who moved to Park Place in 1956. At that time, a floor-through garden apartment rented for $90 a month, a top-floor apartment $75; today, these rents run about $850 (with garden privileges) and $650.

Mr. Lazarus said a brownstone costing $200,000 would pay about $1,200 in taxes.

(Page 2 of 2)

RECENTLY, co-ops have become an option in the neighborhood. An eight-family unit on Vanderbilt Avenue between Park Place and Sterling Place has just sold out its two-bedroom apartments for $75,000 to $80,000. A completely renovated former rental apartment house on Vanderbilt and Park Place currently has one- and two-bedroom units available, ranging from $74,000 to $149,000.

While Prospect Heights is enjoying a comeback, questions are raised by a recent study, entitled ''Brooklyn in Transition,'' conducted for the New York Foundation by the Municipal Research Institute, which found that since 1977 Brooklyn had suffered the most severe economic losses of any of the boroughs.

The study painted a picture of a borough whose population had shrunk by 71,000 people in the decade as it lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs, as its population in general became poorer and as economic disparities between its white and minority populations become more striking.

In the study, Prospect Heights showed a population loss since 1977 of 27 percent. According to longtime residents such as Mr. Lazarus, the decline was caused in part by the decrease of rooming houses in the neighborhood and their replacement by single-family houses.

The study also noted that ''blacks constituted a higher percentage of the school population in Brooklyn than in any other borough.'' For example, the neighborhood's one elementary school, Public School 9, at 80 Underhill Avenue, has 982 black pupils in a total enrollment of 1,221. Dr. J. Jerome Harris, Superintendent of Community School District 13, said 47.8 percent of its pupils read at or above grade level.

Just outside the neighborhood, at Classon Avenue between Union and President Streets, Prospect Heights High School has a totally minority student body of 2,300. Steven C. Appelbaum, the principal, said that 88 percent of last June's graduating class of 260 seniors went on to higher education.

The former P.S. 9, at the corner of Sterling Place and Vanderbilt Avenue , was closed in 1976 and is being maintained and upgraded by the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Corporation, using public and private money. The corporation hopes to convert ''Old 9,'' as it is called, into artists' housing and a center for social-service programs.

The increase in owner-occupied buildings has reduced crime, according to John W. Bell, detective specialist of the 77th Precinct, which includes Prospect Heights. He said that in the year ending December 1984 there had been a 14.3 percent reduction in reported felonies.

Yet there are pockets of crime, notably Washington Avenue, a dreary strip of rundown stores, frequented, many residents say, by drug dealers. Flatbush Avenue, on the other hand, has experienced a resurgence of new businesses.

And on Vanderbilt, an ice-cream parlor and gourmet delicatessen at the corner of Prospect Place have recently joined the Spanish-American and Haitian-American grocery stores.

Flatbush and Vanderbilt are the principal shopping streets, although many residents rely on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope for its clothing shops, delicatessens, health-food shop and so forth.

''The real story here is livability,'' said Richard Golden, a lawyer who moved into his St. Marks Avenue brownstone on the day the Ramoses' first child was born in 1973.

''The neighborhood is ideal for people who enjoy the advantages of the big city and its diversity but dislike the city's crowding and anonymity, and don't want to be as far away as the suburbs.''

Beyond livability there is availability - of transportation: Commuters to jobs in Manhattan can get to midtown in just about a half hour on either the D train of the IND or the Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 trains of the IRT

A COMMUNITY REHABILITATION EFFORT

Thirty-three members of the St. Marks Avenue Block Association have banded together to rehabilitate an abandoned structure at 191 St. Marks Avenue - a double-bow front, center-hall, four-story brick building - and convert it into a co- op. They bought it for just $1.

The project was initiated by Raleigh Cox, president of the Block association, her husband, Tom, and a neighbor, George Morgan. They formed a general partnership and rallied 30 limited partners who are contributing either money or work - volunteering for such jobs as carpenter, plumber or electrician.

The building was purchased last October from the city under the Dollar Sale Program, created to put deteriorated housing back on the market. ''We were the first community group to close with the city under this program,'' said Mrs. Cox. Manufacturers Hanover Trust agreed to lend $200,000 to finance rehabilitation and Dime Savings Bank gave the group a permanent mortgage commitment.

Eight two-bedroom, two-bath apartments are being created and they will be sold to local residents to provide low-cost ownership within the neighborhood. The average price of the units will be $50,000. Occupancy is expected in October.

photo of Charlie's bar and restaurant; photo of Brownstones on St. Marks Avenue (NYT/Don Hogan Charles); map of Prospect Heights

www.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504EEDF1338F934A35757C0A963948260

friscopete

Maybe in 15 years there will be a similar article about PH revitalizing after the Arena brought down the neighborhood...

I kid...

Nice slide show btw.

whynot_31

my favorite is slide #13

I'm just amazed that a block this blog/board once commonly referred to as "Crazy Lane" now asks almost 600k for a 2 bedroom.

bill c

wait a minute. they are putting the atlantic yds development in PH now? all the previous NYT coverage

indicated it was in "downtown brooklyn."