Park Slope
"I see people who buy $25 mac-and-cheese on both sides of this argument," Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, told The Observer last week as he finished dinner at Rachel's Burritos in Park Slope and prepared to hop on his bike for the 1-mile trek home. "And yet I do think it's true. I think Marty Markowitz and his ilk have been buffeted over the last decade by change after change that... MORE >
For a while, it seemed like Williamsburg was becoming the next Meatpacking District, a formerly industrial neighborhood transformed into a playground for spoiled New York post-grads. But The Times, ever hip to the ways of Brooklyn, declares the area has actually become something worse: the new Park Slope, replete with baby yoga and funky-looking... MORE >
Most New Yorkers know the Grand Prospect Hall from its amazing TV ads, like the one below. But, pretty soon, the gaudy Park Slope party mecca will be better known for its new 11-story hotel, which was announced last week, and the controversy it's likely to stir up. Sure, the Hall has been in the Slope longer than many of its BroBos neighbors, but that won't stymie their sense of entitlement or NIMBYism at... MORE >
--A lot of people "were prepared to hate Nell Freudenberger," according to Curtis Sittenfeld's catty article titled "Too Young, Too Pretty, Too Successful." The news that Ms. Freudenberger has bought a $2.3 million Park Slope townhouse probably won't... MORE >
On Saturday afternoon, a security guard sat in the back seat of an idling white jeep, watching over a 2.1-acre patch of dirt near the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. There was an overflowing can of garbage next to the car's front bumper and a puddle of groundwater nearby. Just across the canal, against the backdrop of cement silos, elevated tracks and the Kentile Floor sign over an old asbestos tile factory, a backhoe clawed... MORE >
It used to be that biking in the city fell into the domain of messengers, mad men and David Byrne. Now, thanks to the Bloomberg administration and progressive streets czarina Janette Sadik-Khan, bike lanes are all over the damn place -- the city has added 250 miles of the designated paths over the past four years -- and the streets are safer and more enjoyable for... MORE >
The Journal had an interesting story today about the slower-than expected development of Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, which was rezoned in 2003 with great hopes for creating "Brooklyn's Park Avenue." While much of the article is a by-the-numbers status report on what's built and what's stalled, there is an undercurrent emphasizing the importance of a well-designed... MORE >
Brownstone-lined Park Slope is soon to get a new restriction on out-of-scale development. After years of urging by advocacy groups, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission is expected next week to enter into the designation process a 564-building swath of Park Slope that would serve as an extension of the existing Park Slope Historic District, which has nearly 2,000... MORE >
Inwood has rugged parks, misty river views and spacious one-bedroom apartments under $350,000. It's a Manhattan real estate fairytale still waiting for a happy ending. People ask, "Has Inwood arrived yet?" said Lisa Castro, a broker, who moved to the neighborhood in 1993. "No, it hasn't." Unfortunately the recession arrived before Inwood could. Now few are willing to make a Sunday outing to the last stop on the A-train, and the land of spacious one-bedroom co-ops... MORE >
There's a certain retro chic about shopping for $3.5 million brownstones on a Sunday afternoon in Park Slope. Throw in nine wood-burning fireplaces, five bedrooms, and a fully stocked wet bar, and it's like it's 2005 all over again. But, thankfully, these are kinder, gentler times than when Park Slopers were rumored to fight wars with Bugaboo strollers over organic co-op bananas. On Sunday, the lattes were decaffeinated and a handful of families turned up... MORE >
Amy Sohn’s Prospect Park West, a gleefully bitchy take on Park Slope moms by a former New York columnist, won’t be released until September—but as of last week, Sarah Jessica Parker’s production company was already looking to turn the novel into an HBO series. The allure of the park is hard to resist. Whether that’s as true for real estate as for chick-lit remains to be seen, but Sunday saw two open houses on... MORE >
Leading his interviewer up to his second-floor apartment on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens, Darcy James Argue, the leader of the Secret Society, a postmodern, 18-piece, big-band jazz outfit, apologized for the mess. He'd just received a new shipment of Secret Society... MORE >
The median sales price in the North Brooklyn condo market dropped to $565,128 in the first quarter of 2009, down 2.5 percent annually and 1.1 percent quarterly. Pity... MORE >
“I am not now, nor have I ever been, a hipster,” vowed Harper’s senior editor Christian Lorentzen at a panel discussion provocatively titled “What Was the Hipster?,” organized by n+1, and held at the New School on Saturday... MORE >
A whopping 248 voters -- plus children and at least seven baby stollers -- waited in a U-shaped line, stretching from the Fourth Street entrance to PS 51, continuing down the entire block of Fifth Avenue, to a spot halfway around Fifth Street when I arrived at the Park Slope polling place at precisely 7:54 a.m. on Tuesday morning. It's a neighborhood that eats, drinks and breathes "hope" and "change," from the Obama cookies... MORE >
