REMEMBER, you can't put perfume on a pig. MURDER INC. was started about 2 miles from Cobble Hill, And Judge CRATER disappered from that neighborhood. They are still looking for him, it's an open case.
The building at 347 Henry Street has two sections. One shorter tower on Amity Street has a red brick exterior that is not offensive. However, the taller tower on Pacific Street looks like a tin of World War II rations that have just been found in the cellar. It does not exactly fit in with a historical district.
So sad to see the Brooklyn of my youth being marred by the influx of big money and disgustingly tactless developments.
I feel most sorry for the hard-working dual-income families struggling to stay afloat, even at descent paying jobs, as they surely will not be able to compete with the deep pockets of the people moving in.
And what the heck is the Brooklyn Cultural District? Never heard that term. Seems very white and culture-less.
Goodbye cool Brooklyn. It was good while it lasted. Now you're a theme park.
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I shared a two bedroom on the third floor of a truly "vintage" Amity Street brownstone as a grad student from 1983-1986. My roommate and I each paid $400/month. We had six or seven locks between the front door and inside of our place. At that time, Atlantic Avenue still had a very distinctinctive Middle Eastern vibe. Carroll Gradens was always good for pizza, Italian bakeries and specialty food shops. CH was little grittier than the Heights, a litlte less family centric than CG but a great place to live. Even my many friends from Manhattan, who rarely ventured into the Borough, were charmed by the area.
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What they are also not saying is how many people are coming in to do all cash deals for these 1.5-6 million dollar plus properties — As half of a two income professional couple who has rented the same place for nearly two decades, I’ve watched as it became incomprensible to imagine ever owning anything. We’re not earning many multiples more now than we did — so where is this influx of cash coming from? Some of it is from flipping prior owner properties, some from family money, and likely a good amount from investors whose goal it is to drive up prices (btw - Is anyone truly looking at the source of these funds?) Those of us without these deep resources are told to move farther out, to the suburbs, or even out of NYC entirely. We were here to build this neighborhood — but it’s clear there’s no one to keep us here.
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Curious about the family moving into that skyscraper on Henry Street that were "attracted to Cobble Hill for its charm and proximity to the Brooklyn Cultural District." In other words, the very charm that this high-rise is helping to kill.
A shame that the neighborhood lost that fight. I look at this building out my window and it's grotesquely out of scale with its surroundings. Once one of these kinds of buildings go up, the damage to a neighborhood can't be easily reversed.
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Tear down all those old brownstones and build housing for workers. We can build charming and modern homes so mothers with strollers and groceries can take working elevators up to their floors. Why this failure of imagination?Just use eminent domain and build so workers can live decently and affordably.
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@landless: Affordable?! What's wrong with you? You mean: "Give it to them for free, comrade!" Also, "charming" is NEVER a factor, comrade; housing just needs to be utilitarian - concrete block construction will be fine.
Clearly, you missed your stop; you're looking for Russia.
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I grew up in Carroll Gardens. My mother was born in Cobble Hill - literally, in a brownstone on Cheever Place– and she and her sister and brothers attended PS 29. My cousins attended St. Paul’s Catholic elementary school. We shopped at the Court Street pastry store.
No one in my family could afford to live in Cobble Hill today.
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My God, you're right across from your neighbours's windows...no privacy, especially in warm weather with the windows open. And what if people congregate between the buildings and talk loudly or are making a cell phone call? Obviously designed and built when people knew how to behave. Can't imagine this working out well with a bunch of loud New Yorkers today.
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@Heike Korošec-From the early part of the last century until the 1970's my family lived in Cobble Hill and then owned houses in Carroll Gardens and Park Slope. People in these houses knew their neighbors very well. They hung out of windows and called down to people passing by to say hello or call a child home- yes- children could play safely up and down the block - and congregated on stoops and had parties right on the street. Everybody knew everybody's business- and it was considered a good thing!
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That is so offensive, and why would you presume NYers are loud & rude to one another, all staring into each other’s homes?
Cobble Hill is a wonderful community where families know one another, and support one another.
When I had the flu last week my neighbors watched my daughter for essentially two days straight. She would just pop upstairs to our home to change.
My kids walk to their local park to play soccer and basketball or walk to the Y to swim. We have bookstores, restaurants, movie theaters & subways close by.
I’m blessed & lucky to live here with other loud mouthed NYers
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As if Vienna is a city of detached homes on half-acre plots. Or Paris or Rome, for that matter.
A strange comment from a city dweller, whose dominant architecture is old attached mansions broken up into flats.
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I live in this area and I cannot wait to leave. It caters to one specific demographic, and if you're not part of a couple or don't have a family, it doesn't offer very much. It's also has almost no diversity and they roll up the sidewalks at 7pm. There are many more vibrant Brooklyn neighborhoods to enjoy. If you like spending time in your apartment or brownstone, this is the area for you.
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Not all neighborhoods are to everyone's taste.
Me, I prefer to live where there's not much nightlife, which tends to bring noise and litter. I can't afford Cobble Hill or Carroll Gardens, but that's okay.
As for diversity, probably Cobble Hill's families of color, like their white neighbors, enjoy spending time in their apartments and brownstones, and you don't notice them much.
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@B. You don't notice the diversity because there really is not much at all. But I agree that different people seek different things in their neighborhoods, and CH has changed over the years, which is why I'm leaving. To each their own.
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@DE I don't agree. I am a single woman who has lived on Congress Street since 1994, and count myself extremely fortunate to live here. There is local community theater, a local community chorus (both in nearby Brooklyn Heights), a large bookstore, 2 movie theaters, dozens of restaurants including Indian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Ethiopian, French, Mexican, Spanish, Middle Eastern, farm-to-table and American cuisine; and abundant food sources for the home cook, including a fabulous fresh fish store, 2 excellent butchers, 3 fresh produce stores, Trader Joe's and Key Food. Several Smith Street restaurants have live music; we have Cobble Hill Park and nearby Brooklyn Bridge Park for greenery and people-watching. There is an informal dog-owner network; a vibrant Buy Nothing community; and a smattering of great coffee shops, pizza places and burger joints. If I had a craving for late night life, the F train is 2 blocks away for a short ride to the Village or Broadway. I hope you find what you are looking for, DE - I'm happily solo in Cobble Hill, with all I could want within a walk down tree-lined streets, well-rested after a peacerful night's sleep.
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I lived in Cobble Hill for a 2009-2010. I lived on border of CH and CG. There was always a disconcerting burned smell on Smith St at Degraw St. It worried people. Also, the sidewalks in CH are all cracked up by tree roots. Not easy for running. lastly, the area (more CG) is littered with religious iconography (Virgin Mary, Jesus. St. Francis). If you want to live in NYC and forget that religion exists, CH is not a neighborhood for that. I lived in Williamsburg off Bedford Ave 2001-2006, and I felt like I almost never encountered reminders of religion. I myself prefer to live in a neighborhood without churches and such. Now, I live in lower Manhattan. I feel like I can jog (run) for 7 miles without seeing a single Jesus or Virgin Mary.
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@Anti-Marx What an odd criterion for what constitutes a good neighborhood.
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@Anti-Marx You may not have known that Brooklyn is known as the Borough of Churches. And the last wave of Immigrants in CG/CH were Catholic Italians...
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@Luder
I’m a militant atheist. Like Sartre.
To me, what constitutes a good neighborhood is a high percentage of doctorates. I grew up in a university town.
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Lived in Cobble Hill in from 1980-1982. I rented a two bedroom garden apartment in a row house on Kane St between Hicks & Henry for $225.00/mo until new owner doubled the rent & I had to move 😔. I loved it there.
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@Laglove I rented a two bedroom garden apartment on Kane between Hicks and Henry from 1986-1991. Perhaps it was the same apartment? The rent was $1000/month and considered a deal. How times change.
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I covered the hospital situation and the ensuing Fortis takeover for my paper, the Red Hook Star-Revue. I am unaware of any compromise between the developer and the community. Fortis offered a take it or leave it plan for a zoning change that would have given them an additional half million square feet of buildable space, which the community found unacceptable. Fortis refused to negotiate, and Brad Lander, the Councilman, heeded community wishes and told Fortis he wouldn’t support their plan.
So everything that Fortis is building is as-of-right, with no community input. The only reason they could do that, by the way, is that the Cobble Hill community carved their 150 year old hospital out of the landmarked area back in 1969, when nobody foresaw the death of valuable community institutions.
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Long Island College Hospital was founded in the 1850s or around then. In the 1960s several of my friends' fathers were already longtime physicians there.
Perhaps you mean that the addition was carved out of the historic area.
(And the garage was a playground where we used to play dodgeball.)
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@B. As I understand it, at the time the historic district designation was under discussion, the hospital already surpassed some of the LPC limits and they imagined that there was more growth to come. Fearing red tape, hospital administrators demanded to be carved-out or else they would fight the designation altogether. The neighborhood didn't want to lose its chance for legal protections so let them go.
**“The food is great, there are no bathrooms, it’s all-cash, there is no liquor license and you can’t bring your own wine,” Ms. Rathkopf, 55, said, clearly bewitched.**
That sounds like the worst restaurant in the world!
I have stopped supporting cash-only restaurants. There is only one reason they operate that way, and it is a reason I do not agree with.
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@Passion for Peaches Cash is KING
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@Passion for Peaches
Lillo Cucina has great Italian food. Most diners are regular. The owner greets everyone warmly in Italian. A meal for three people costed less than $50. The place reminds me of my vacation in Cinque Terre. This little restaurant is a gem. Sorry you feel so strongly.
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I lived a Cobble Hill Towers apartment from 2005-2011. Best neighborhood and apartment I've ever lived in. "Achingly pretty" is a spot-on description. Still miss it!
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I lived in one of the mews houses back in the 1970s. $375 a month and I thought that was a lot for three tiny floors. But there was charm-a-plenty (and one tiny bathroom).
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@Jeffrey Waingrow, to give some perspective, in the 1970s
the minimum wage was round $2.00/hr, according to Google (although I remember being paid $1.60/hour in 1975). A person earning an annual salary of $30k considered well off.
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In 1979 spouse earned about $6000 -- maybe $5000 -- a year as a teacher in a private elementary school.
That didn't last long.
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$4,028 for a two bedroom? In 1992 I rented a three bedroom 'floor through' on Henry Street for $850. We left Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens, in 2011 paying $2,100 for three bedrooms with a private garden. That's why I live in Jersey City now.
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Cobble Hill is expensive in part because it's so anti-development. Yes, the landmark blocks should be preserved, but there's plenty of room for new housing above the expressway, and on the non-landmarked blocks. It's criminal that a neighborhood with subway access so close to Manhattan is essentially able to outlaw new housing.
New housing should be the #1 priority of the next mayoral administration. I would go so far to say that the entire city should probably be blanket upzoned, so everyone contributes.
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@Osito Much of the development is now at the Fortis site or on the other end of the neighborhood down by Boerum Hill along the Gowanus. Even these developments will bring a crush of additional commuters that the F line can not abide. Morning commuters at the Bergen or Carroll Stops often wait as 2-3 packed trains pass before being able to board.
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@Osito For-profit private development cannot solve our housing crisis. These buildings only increase the cost of housing, and the small percentage of "affordable" units they bring at 130 percent AMI -- such as $2,200 a month studios -- is a cruel joke.
4
Lamenting “added height” and “obliterated” views, but also lamenting high prices. That’s cognitive dissonance. If the prices are too high, the buildings aren’t being built big enough. Engineered scarcity (by fighting every development) created this housing supply crisis.
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@Andy Deckman
Sorry Andy, but you are completely wrong. New buildings Must be for the rich only, because land and development costs are so high. More apartments = more apartments for the rich.
Only Government-subsidized housing can be affordable.
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@Andy Deckman: You're wrong. What this is comes under the heading 'demographic cleansing' - whereby the rich drive out anyone middle-income. That is the direction in which all of NYC is headed, with Manhattan, western Queens, and parts of Brooklyn at the forefront.
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@L Sometimes I feel that way but the 'demographic cleansing' is coming straight from Bill deBlasio and the 'progressives' in city and state governments. All of their policies are designed to destabilize NYC middle-class neighborhoods.
Bail Reform has caused robberies & burglaries to increases in middle-class areas. The breakdown of discipline in the public schools is a clear message to the middle-class to get out of town.
The forced placement of section-8 tenants in otherwise stable apartment buildings and the construction of homeless shelters in middle-class areas are more examples of this left-wing assault on the middle-class.
3
$3,200 for a 1 br. Wow. I paid $1050 in 2003-04. Raise your hand if your income tripled in 17 years.
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It’s going to be interesting when their taxes are adjusted. They pay much less than other homeowners in the city, even in Manhattan.
8
A lot of homeowners in Cobble Hill (and, for that matter, Carroll Gardens) are Italians who have been living there forever. Having their property taxes raised would be a real burden.
That doesn't matter to many New Yorkers, though, as well as those who pander to them, whose mantra tends to be that they want what other people have without the necessity of planning and working to get and maintain those things.
31
Taxes are taxes. I get a break because my grandfather was from Calabria? Anyone, anyone, who has owned for a few decades in Cobble Hill has acquired stratospheric equity. They’ve won the real estate lottery. Not going to shed a tear over a fairer tax system...
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They win the real estate lottery only if they or their heirs sell.
To many people, homes are homes, not investments.
That's why compensation doesn't atone for eminent domain, and that's why homeowners sweep their sidewalks and plant flowers in their front yards.
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