582 Marcy ave

I live a block up on Tompkins. I'm excited for the Duane Reade too!! Yeah, there are a lot of projects around, but I have had no issues with the neighborhood, I like it a lot. People are pretty chill. I'm still very aware when I get off the train at night, no boppin to the ipod as i walk back, but I don't live in fear or anything ridiculous like that. Usually coming out of that train at night, especially on weekends, a lot of people are getting off with you. My roommate works at a movie theater in the city and regularly comes home between 11:30 and 2 am, and she's never had a problem either.

It's a little sketchy, I won't lie. Those are the Marcy houses, by the way, home of Jay-Z. The area in general, kind of quiet-ish but borderline vague. The G is a major downer in my opinion, but with the proximity to Fort Greene and Clinton Hill and some patience on your part, gentrification could come. It could be a really big investment. You may wanna cruise crime stats for your precinct and on gothamist.com, but the latter only appear as they happen.

G train thoughts (from a post I made in a different thread:

As for the G train, when there isn't construction it runs pretty much as frequently and reliably as any other train in the city. Before I moved to the nabe I bought into the anti-G-train hype but after living here for [three] years I have to say the reputation is unfair. The G train gets me to and from work during rush hour as well as any train. it comes infrequently at night but what train doesn't?

When there's weekend construction the G train is a mess and I don't use it. But the rest of the time it's a perfectly reliable train, even if it's shorter and makes me feel like i'm riding the short bus.

The G train certainly makes your commute longer b/c it adds a transfer to any trip to Manhattan, but it's also a perfectly usable train.

Hard to give you any advice when we don't know how much you will be paying, what your other choices are etc. But you shouldn't expect the neighborhood to change overnight. My corner of Clinton Hill (the much maligned and somewhat sketchy area near Grand and Putnam) really hasn't changed much in the past 7 years - which were the height of the real estate boom. So given that you probably aren't planning to live in a condo for ever, you probably shouldn't be buying in a place you don't like now. Altho financially I am doing fine and I like my larger neighborhood, I sometimes kick myself for being over-optimistic about the rate of change of my block. But I bought a house, and have room to grow in it. (One of the dirty secrets of NY real estate is how high the transaction costs are - for me to sell and buy a new place would cost me at least 100k with realtor fees, taxes, etc.)

I didn't mean to sound despondent. Location-wise I believed, and still do, that superior to further out in Bed-Stuy. Irving and Downing are cute streets with a varied housing stock and quiet. (There seems to be less drug dealing by the guy living on Irving a few doors in from Putnam.) Putnam is pretty ugly with its vacant lots (the owner of the now-emptied junkyard seems to be in no hurry to develop it), no trees and raceway aspects (would it kill people to wait for the light at either Grand or Classon?). You can walk to Fort Greene Park in 20 minutes (same to Prospect Park, but Atlantic feels like more of a barrier). Recetnly I received a notice for the TriBlock Association, but was out of town./ When I attended about 5 years ago, it seemed more focused on the blocks between Classon and Franklin around Claver Place, and was mainly older women who were long-time residents. The area does seem to call out for a lively community group to focus on arborization, crime, etc. An acquaintence of mine has just incorporated such a group for Lefferts Place and had offered to help me do the same for the Grand/Gates/Classon/Fulton polygon. I hear that the owner of the funeral parlor across from Outpost has sold to a developer. So, no, I remain hopeful about improvements. And welcome to the neighborhood.