What's Happening?

The reconstruction underway at 830 Eastern Parkway is sure a curious sight. Workers appear to be adding a fourth level to this ornate three-story brownstone between Kingston and Albany Avenues. Every other home on this block of early 1900's houses is three stories high. Looking closer, steel floor beams cut across the existing window frames. Obviously, the brownstone front will be demolished and the resulting structure will sport a new look. What's going on here?

Hipsters in Our Midster

Picture Of The Day:Stroll Down President Street Doctors Row

Picture of The Day

Can anyone share with us the history of this building?

Brower Park Museum Growing Fins

In the midst of a $46 million renovation scheduled for completion in Spring 2008, the new Brooklyn Children's Museum will reverse its most recent look. Located at the northwest corner of Brower Park in the heart of Crown Heights' landmark district, BCM was established in 1899 at the Adams House in what was then Bedford Park. An award-winning 1977 redesign successfully achieved a "minimal presence on the street," with one of two stories underground. The new design already stands out. Workers recently began installing 540 curving plywood fins that will cover the exterior walls. Ultimately, 80,000 1" x 1" daffodil-yellow porcelain tiles will cover the fins, giving the expanded Museum "an undulating appearance."

Links:

Brooklyn Children's Museum site:

www.brooklynkids.org

Brower Park history:

www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=190

Eastern Parkway Strolling in Season

With the warmer weather has arrived the spring strolling season along Eastern Parkway, the geographic spine of Crown Heights. Conceived in 1866 by Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, the celebrated designers of Central Park, Crown Heights' grandest street was built between 1870 and 1874. Olmstead and Vaux coined the term "parkway" to describe their vision of a landscaped road built specifically for "pleasure-riding or driving," sketching out a 55-foot wide carriage drive between two pedestrian malls with four rows of trees stretching more than two miles. Originally adorned chiefly with American Elms, the parkway now offers a lush landscape of more than 1,100 trees in 24 separate varities. Many were planted in rememberance of veterans of World War I, and today feature iron plaques with the names of fallen servicemen. According to the New York Department of Parks & Recreation, the 1915 building of the IRT prompted the removal of "many original trees, pavement and light fixtures."

Small Payment For Small House

473 Maple Street

$475,000

Sunday Links Of The Day

Bergen Street, $999,000
Uncertain Fate Of Old Brooklyn
Is Crown Heights Nicer Then Park Slope

Crown Heights Still Hot

"Early 2007 Reports Indicate Softening in Some House Prices....W’burg, Park Slope, Bay Ridge, Crown Heights Are Still Hot"

By Dennis Holt Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Brooklyn — New data on Brooklyn home sales in 2006 and 2005 published by Halstead Property and a report from HMS Associates on the first quarter of this year both show the continuation of a Brooklyn boom. However, red flags may have been raised early this year.......And although the period reported covers only about 90 days, the rise in house prices was not uniform. Five neighborhoods showed increases — Williamsburg, Bay Ridge, Park Slope, Crown Heights and Boerum Hill — while five others showed declines — Greenpoint, Carroll Gardens, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn Heights in Sheepshead Bay.

Click Here For The Full Article

Crown Heights Real Estate Rise Continues

Crown Heights' fast-rising real estate values are challenging long-held perceptions regarding the quality of life the district's residential core. The homes at 1122 and 1116 Prospect Place, shown in these photos, were each built in 1901, measure 2,208 square feet, and appear to be in the same general condition (from exterior view). The home at 1222 (top) sold for $455,000 in 12/06; two months later 1116 Prospect sold for $690,887.

Landmark Designation Highlights Gems of Crown Heights

The recent grant of landmark status has placed a spotlight on Crown Heights as one of Brooklyn's most sought-after brownstone communities.

Long a hidden gem (locals recall the days when a Crown Heights residential real estate listing in the The New York Times was a forlorn dream), the landmark designation emphasizes the nabe's unmatched architectural jewels, which collectively showcase a quality and breadth not found in Park Slope, Boreum Hill, Clinton Hill or Fort Greene.

Diversity is also a hallmark of Crown Heights culture, as fast-arriving Manhattan ex-patriates add a new energy to the area's long-established Caribbean, Hasidic and African-American communites.

Strollers will find a wonderful array of architectural styles from the late 1800s and 1900s (including 1227-1235 Dean Street, designed by Albert E. White and 1149-53 Dean Street, designed by Axel Hedman)) to the six-story Art Deco apartment houses bult in the district's last wave of development, in the 1930s.

Trolly On Saint John's Place 1957

On The Footstep Of The Heights

www.forbes.com
by Matt Woolsey

It's far cry from where Jackie Robinson used to play.

The 15-story Richard Meier-designed On Prospect Park boasts a face of shimmering glass and buttresses the borough's finest architecture at the head of Grand Army Plaza--where the Memorial Arch, Brooklyn Museum and Brooklyn Public Library meet. It features 114 high-end units with heated stone floors and floor-to-ceiling windows. Some have views of all five boroughs, the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty.

A dip down Flatbush Avenue, toward the edge Crown Heights, is where Robinson played his first Major League game 60 years ago this Sunday. Ebbets Field no longer exists, having fallen under the wrecking ball in 1960. Montgomery Street and Bedford Avenue, which had previously bounded left and right field, respectively, now surround the Ebbets Field