The Times Discovers Downtown Brooklyn
Downtown Brooklyn, or at least the batch of recent residential skyscrapers that now define its skyline, got its coming out party in The New York Times this weekend. There wasn’t much new information for anyone who’s been following along for the last five years, but there were a few data points worth noting. The Brooklyner,…
Downtown Brooklyn, or at least the batch of recent residential skyscrapers that now define its skyline, got its coming out party in The New York Times this weekend. There wasn’t much new information for anyone who’s been following along for the last five years, but there were a few data points worth noting. The Brooklyner, the 51-story tower on Lawrence Street is described as “fully occupied”; The Oro, at 306 Gold Street, has passed the 70 percent-sold mark (it was at 50 percent only four months ago); as we reported last month, be@schermerhorn is at 80 percent sold. The article also notes some recent or impending changes to the retail landscape in the area: Aeropostale, H&M and the mother of all gentrification signals, Shake Shack. Perhaps most importantly, the article confirms that, after falling through once, a supermarket is indeed coming to Toren. And with two huge new towers—one at 384 Bridge Street and one at 29 Flatbush Avenue—just getting underway, it’s fair to say that there should be a critical mass of residents to support it.
Suddenly, a Brooklyn Skyline [NY Times]
Toren, Oro and be@Schermerhorn are all advertisers
I did not choose to live in Brooklyn because it is cheaper. I did it because I perfer it better than over populated manhattan and because of its awesome people and culture.
The majority of my clients come to Brooklyn from Manhattan in search of a better urban quality of life. And for the most part I think Brooklyn is superior to Manhattan in that regard.
Please, let’s not kid ourselves. Even if we love it and are happy about it and enjoy brownstone living, most everyone who moves here does it for one main reason: because it’s cheaper than Manhattan.
You know it’s the truth.
The community vibe is definetly nice in those Brownstone areas, I loved it while living in Prospect Heights. But it seems like everyone else likes it too, and so I made the move to Downtown BK, love the transit options, love the elevator, miss the old hood feel.
Many of us who moved to Brooklyn (brownstoners in particular) appreciate the historic low-rise architecture, but apparently there’s plenty of people (perhaps a somewhat younger demographic) who like to live in new apartment towers. I remember many trips along that stretch of flatbush ave back when it was pretty grim before Metrotech, and when it was somewhat less grim, but not particularly inviting after. I didn’t follow the development in the area closely, but I think it was very different from Rattnerville where they completely abused eminent domain and used bait and switch development plans to force people from homes that were in no way blighted. The land that was developed for this “Brooklyn Skyline” used to be low rise commercial, not residential (right?)
Having these towers finally completed and occupied seems a net positive for Brooklyn.
minard – not sure if that was directed at me but not all brownstones are creaky. I am in the business of rehabilitating them. Creaks no more.
actually a lot of people hate the idea of living in an old creaky Brooklyn brownstone and would never consider doing so.
“most folks who move to Brooklyn come here for a particular kind of lifestyle, an alternative-to-Manhattan existence that prizes the iconic and historic low-rise architecture for which we’re known.”
i would replace ‘most’ with ‘most who read brownstoner.com’
3932 — love that. i can hear the commercial music now.