Flatbush: Bargain Hunters' Paradise?
This weekend’s profile of Flatbush in the Times (which defines the area’s ambiguous boundaries as Ocean Avenue, New York Avenue, Parkside Avenue and Avenue H) characterizes it as a place that’s becoming more attractive to buyers priced out of Manhattan and other parts of Brooklyn. According to a Century 21 broker, prices are hovering around…
This weekend’s profile of Flatbush in the Times (which defines the area’s ambiguous boundaries as Ocean Avenue, New York Avenue, Parkside Avenue and Avenue H) characterizes it as a place that’s becoming more attractive to buyers priced out of Manhattan and other parts of Brooklyn. According to a Century 21 broker, prices are hovering around $120,000 for one-bedrooms, $170,000 to $190,000 for two-bedrooms, $450,000 for one-family houses and $600,000 for two-family houses. Some recent transplants say they’ve also been won over by Flatbush’s diversity and retail offerings (which will soon include a new Target). The area’s primary lure, though, is its affordability. As one investor says, Where else do you find a one-bedroom in the mid-$100s, or if you’re a couple with a couple of kids, a two-bedroom for $200,000? Have any readers snagged a deal they’d care to brag about? What are the nicest old co-op buildings in the area?
Note to City Dwellers: Steals Available Here [NY Times]
Photo by Rob Hoey.
The Times piece was a classic of what I call their “Biff and Muffy Take the Subway for a Big Surprise!” school of journalism. Suffused with a sort of patronizing, uneasy cluelessness…and just plain screamin’ wrong on the ever-contentious “defining a neighborhood” front. I don’t know ANYONE who believes that “Victorian Flatbush” is no longer “really Flatbush” because it has developed its “own identity.” Flatbush starts at Coney Is. Av. on the West, the southernmost perimeter of Prospect Park on the North, and then extends south to whatever one defines as Midwood, and east into whatever one defines as “East Flatbush.” My general impression is that East Flatbush is east of–well, Flatbush Ave.,or perhaps Bedford Ave. if one wants to be more extreme. However you define it, the rectangle they drew–and then failed utterly to bring to life–is a weird and arbitrary definition of the WORLD’S GREATEST NEIGHBORHOOD (she bragged, firing off several rounds of ammunition to celebrate).
ALSO: The poor dopey reporter got at least 1 fact unequivocally wrong, to my knowledge: Holy Cross School, cited as one of the nabe’s parochial schools, has ceased to exist under that name and is now called Flatbush Academy at the old HC site…
I think it’s great that Brownstoner is talking about another neighborhood outside of Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights and Fort Greene. Keep up the good work1
“Even the Black people who live in white Flatbush are West Indian, or their parents are”
1. There are still many Blacks all over Flatbush without parents from the West Indies.
2. What do you mean by “white Flatbush”?
As for the nabe, we call our small area the Ocean Heights part of Flatbush. Ocean Heights is: Cortelyou to Foster, Ocean Avenue to Flatbush Avenue. Being a native New Yorker, this neighborhood feels right to me. An old New York feeling-lots of pre-war buildings smaller and larger, families and all ages and a good mixture of ethnicities.
As for prices, I closed on a two story limestone with and english basement for around 500,000. at the end of 2005. The same ( identical) house in PLG or PPS goes for 7-1.2. So yes, you can get so much, much more for your money.
There are fewer cafes and restaurants as I would like however, this is changing. The Farm on Adderley is opening a new bistro on Newkirk Avenue & the jerk chicken at Fisherman’s Cove on Newkirk Plaza is excellent. I am very happy to be here!
12:32–I think of Flatbush as covering everything from Prospect Lefferts to Brooklyn College and Coney Island Avenue across to say, New York Avenue? I don’t know for sure, and I am sure there are as many opinions on the question as there are ethnic groups in Central Brooklyn. Of course if you live in Flatbush, you should be considered part of Flatbush. When asked, I say I live in Flatbush too. If we are looking at the larger area called Flatbush, and not just the tiny rectangle in the article, it is precisely the patchwork of ethnic enclaves within it that is its defining quality.
Um, 10:01, you’re an anonymous poster. Why would you “decline to reveal” the price you paid? Sheesh.
anyway, re Flatbush: yes, very much Caribbean but also great transportation and a short hop to the beach. I don’t think the Times article posited it as the next big thing, either. I see it as sort of like jackson heights: a neighborhood that won’t ever really gentrify but is an integral part of the fabric of the city, and good for that.
11:06 – I am humbled and take your point.
But let’s talk Flatbush, beyond the article. When people ask me where I live, I generally will answer “Flatbush,” although technically it’s Ditmas Park or Victorian Flatbush or whatever.
Are we no long considered Flatbush because of our eclectic ethnic make-up? Is it solely a housing stock issue?
What exactly is Flatbush these days?
Everybody who knows anything about Flatbush knows that it is primarily a West Indian neighborhood. Even the black people who live in white Flatbush are West Indian, or their parents are. The Jamaican economy would collapse without money being sent from this one neighborhood in Brooklyn. True knowledge mon.
I think the Times was trying to describe the parts of Flatbush that haven’t got that much RE attention. While they intended to exclude Victorian Flatbush they included part of it–West Midwood. They also included a small part of PLG that has a different ZIP code than the rest of the neighborhood.[Clarkson Ave].
While Victorian Flatbush and PLG are both parts of Flatbush they have a different feel than most of the area in the NYT article.