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Prospect Heights: are we the Sloppy Seconds? — Brooklynian

Prospect Heights: are we the Sloppy Seconds?

dailyheights
dailyheights
edited November -1 in Prospect Heights
JoshB is becoming a regular ambassador for PH/CH... check out his sordid tale of what it feels like to gentify:

From Joshua Bernstein’s Prospect Heights/Crown Heights primer in the New York Press: "Now that Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and the Slope are bought and mortgaged, Caribbean-flavored Prospect Heights garners sloppy-seconds attention... Only in the last three years has Prospect Heights regained its swagger."

"You can thank me. Nearly 36 months ago to the day, I moved into a three-bedroom floor-through apartment on Park Pl., near Classon Ave., which was really Crown Heights, though I called it Prospect Heights, just like my realtor told me…"

"Back then, the sole drinkery was a suspect sports bar called Utopia. It served eight-dollar chicken wings and menace … Estrogen seemed to attract trouble ... My girlfriend, Adrianne, while walking home one hot summer eve, was pelted by a rainstorm of rocks. 'It did not,' she said, 'feel good to get hit in the head.'"

"Then came the turning point. 'It’s Operation Snowflake,' said my neighbor Jose, as post-college twenty-somethings increasingly U-Hauled their lives into the brownstones and the block-long Jewish Hospital, which was reborn as overpriced abodes…"

"New residents demanded new services … First came Vanderbilt Ave.’s Soda Bar … Soda became an anchor … Nearby we find Beast, an organic eatery serving sumptuous brunches and slightly overpriced, yet savory tapas … It’s joined by BYOB pizzeria Amorina, as well as sister Italian restaurant Aliseo … Artisanal cheeses are sold at the inevitable yuppie deli, Delicacies."

"Gentrification has inched east too ... On Washington … there’s Restaurant Gen—a surprisingly decent sushi restaurant amid shuttered storefronts and condo construction—as well as Tom’s, a kitschy, decades-old diner where you’re fed free oranges and cookies."

"And, rumor has it, an espresso-selling coffee shop will soon open on this once-blighted stretch. Where do you hear such rumors? Dailyheights.com, the lively, one-stop message board for Prospect and Crown Heights gossip."

Read the whole article…
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Comments

  • jack krohn
    jack krohn
    Seriously, what do you expect from a paper as low-level as The New York Press? The writing is amateurish and, overall, the quality is about as good as that of your average high school newspaper. This article is more about the author trying to prove how cool he is for residing in an allegedly rough area than about profiling Prospect or Crown Heights.
  • ana.log
    ana.log
    "First came Soda Bar..."? Hasn't Soda been there for, like, 10 years or more?
  • alecorock
    alecorock

    Subject: Soda vintage

    Soda's been there almost five years... more or less. My memory is not so reliable. Before Soda it was called Micheline's which was about dancehall parties in the basement (w/ strippers) and some bad poetry nights.
  • alafairnadia
    alafairnadia
    ana.log wrote: "First came Soda Bar..."? Hasn't Soda been there for, like, 10 years or more?
    not sure it's been 10 years ,but something like 5 or 6. it's def been here around as long as aliseo
  • qtrain
    qtrain
    Jack Krohn wrote: This article is more about the author trying to prove how cool he is for residing in an allegedly rough area than about profiling Prospect or Crown Heights.
    I'm with Jack on this one. daveb can speak to the romance of violent crime. grow up, Josh.
  • jimmylegs
    jimmylegs
    soda opened in sept 2002, according to this article about development in the hood in the brooklyn rail:

    http://www.thebrooklynrail.org/local/fall02/prospectheights.html

    and cut joshb some slack, nobody ever said the ny press was The Paper of Record. the article's funny, and a nice little overview of the area for the uninitiated.
  • isa
    isa
    Maybe it's out of context (I only read DH's quotes) but even though he states that Tom's has been there for decades he includes it with the inching eastward gentrification.

    I really wish that someone would write something different about the neighborhood. This type of writing is embarassingly outdated and I cringe everytime I come across it. Thank god I'm not a writer or I would have to take myself up on my own challenge.
  • brooklynswordstyle
    brooklynswordstyle
    Man, this whole nabe has gentrified all to hell. I remember when it was a just cooled mass of magma and noxious gasses. Those days rocked. Only the hard-core lived here, and the vibe was great.

    Old school? Fuck that man, we were single celled! I had this kick ass bit of rock, but then these yuppie lung-fish started waddling in on their fancy-pants fin-legs and drove up the cost of everything. I tried dividing myself a few times to share the rent, but then one of me mutated and became a total dick to be around. It's all those damned lung-fishes' fault. If they hadn't moved in then those hairy-assed mammals wouldn't have shown up. Now this place is so lame.
  • stacey
    stacey
    BrooklynSwordStyle wrote: Man, this whole nabe has gentrified all to hell. I remember when it was a just cooled mass of magma and noxious gasses. Those days rocked. Only the hard-core lived here, and the vibe was great.

    Old school? Fuck that man, we were single celled! I had this kick ass bit of rock, but then these yuppie lung-fish started waddling in on their fancy-pants fin-legs and drove up the cost of everything. I tried dividing myself a few times to share the rent, but then one of me mutated and became a total dick to be around. It's all those damned lung-fishes' fault. If they hadn't moved in then those hairy-assed mammal's wouldn't have shown up. Now this place is so lame.
    :lol::lol::lol:
  • alafairnadia
    alafairnadia
    stacey wrote: [quote=BrooklynSwordStyle]Man, this whole nabe has gentrified all to hell. I remember when it was a just cooled mass of magma and noxious gasses. Those days rocked. Only the hard-core lived here, and the vibe was great.

    Old school? Fuck that man, we were single celled! I had this kick ass bit of rock, but then these yuppie lung-fish started waddling in on their fancy-pants fin-legs and drove up the cost of everything. I tried dividing myself a few times to share the rent, but then one of me mutated and became a total dick to be around. It's all those damned lung-fishes' fault. If they hadn't moved in then those hairy-assed mammal's wouldn't have shown up. Now this place is so lame.
    :lol::lol::lol:

    I second this laughing stuff. I have never chortled in my life until just now.
  • bewitched
    bewitched
    LOVE IT!!!
  • will
    will
    Is Clinton Hill gentrified out now? I had no idea.
  • candicissima
    candicissima
    Before Soda it was called Micheline's which was about dancehall parties in the basement (w/ strippers)
    Hey now...that's some back in the day shit that I can get behind! 8)
  • jimmylegs
    jimmylegs
    Will wrote: Is Clinton Hill gentrified out now? I had no idea.
    oh hell yeah. it's no park slope of course, but the change over the past few years makes my head swim.

    see brownstoner.com for details.
  • will
    will
    Wow. On our recent apartment hunt we looked at a bunch of places in Clinton Hill, but really didn't like the area. I assumed, considering the remarkably low apartment prices in comparision to Prospect Heights, that it was the next big thing.
  • brooklynswordstyle
    brooklynswordstyle
    I lived in Clinton Hill for four years. The housing stock is beautiful, but there's not much in the way of restaurants and such. And the G train is terrible. I hated that train so much.
  • devincf
    devincf
    DailyHeights Hive Mind: Attack!
  • candicissima
    candicissima
    devincf wrote: DailyHeights Hive Mind: Attack!
    Actually, it's more like me popping in three times today and seeing the fucking annoying pileups all over the place. All of y'all need to take a chill pill. And you can eat me, Devin.
  • devincf
    devincf
    Gimme a break. Why is only one opinion on continued gentrification allowed on this board? Why is someone a dick if they don't agree with that view? And why are the distasteful attacks on JoshB's mostly well written and humorous piece given such a pass?
  • brooklynswordstyle
    brooklynswordstyle
    Devin, you write for Chud? Awesome! That's one of my daily stops.
  • vanilla
    vanilla
    devincf wrote: Gimme a break. Why is only one opinion on continued gentrification allowed on this board? Why is someone a dick if they don't agree with that view? And why are the distasteful attacks on JoshB's mostly well written and humorous piece given such a pass?
    this time i am going for my belt. back off. :evil:
  • devincf
    devincf
    See, I question the prevailing attitude and it's "belt time."

    BklynSwordStyle - thank you very much.
  • flute
    flute
    devincf wrote: And why are the distasteful attacks on JoshB's mostly well written and humorous piece given such a pass?
    Yes. Give the guy a break.
  • qtrain
    qtrain
    devincf wrote: Why is only one opinion on continued gentrification allowed on this board?
    What opinion are you talking about? There are only a few posters here that want to transform the neighborhood.
  • devincf
    devincf
    qtrain wrote: [quote=devincf]Why is only one opinion on continued gentrification allowed on this board?
    What opinion are you talking about? There are only a few posters here that want to transform the neighborhood.

    The neighborhood is transformed. JoshB seems to be taking shit here for mentioning that.
  • candicissima
    candicissima
    devincf wrote: See, I question the prevailing attitude and it's "belt time."
    Devin: You are trolling and stirring up shit for the sake of the drama of it all. And you know it. The one rule we have is "be nice" and you've been in rare form on that other thread. I warned everyone about and then locked it, so take a hint and give it a rest. You're not going to "win" the "argument." The only hive mind presently existing is the consensus that wishes you would stop being annoying.

    Everyone on the board seems to be acting testy and bratty and I'm a little sick of it. Everyone: just stop.
  • devincf
    devincf
    I'm trolling? That's incredibly offensive. I have links in my signature to two sites with my real name and picture. I'm not some anonymous jerk making trouble. I am someone with an opinion that is not shared by others, and who has been called a douche, among other things, for it.
  • oiseau
    oiseau
    Did you know that Ditmas Park is the most ethnicly diverse area of the world?
  • candicissima
    candicissima
    Oiseau wrote: Did you know that Ditmas Park is the most ethnicly diverse area of the world?
    I thought that was supposed to be Jackson Heights or somewhere in Queens? :wink:
  • carnivore
    carnivore
    Candicissima wrote: [quote=Oiseau]Did you know that Ditmas Park is the most ethnicly diverse area of the world?
    I thought that was supposed to be Jackson Heights or somewhere in Queens? :wink:
    I had heard Elmhurst. Not that there's any way to quantify this in a meaningful way.
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