Crown Heights Development

[Archit_K]

Crown Heights
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Crown Heights is a neighborhood in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, located to the east of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. One of the best preserved neighborhoods of New York City, it is home to hundreds of stately neoclassical townhomes. Eastern Parkway, the main street of Crown Heights, is a copy of the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

Crown Heights is the worldwide headquarters of the Chabad sect of Hasidic Jews. A large African-American (mostly West Indian) population coexists with Haredi Jews in Crown Heights, not always easily.

On August 19, 1991, a car escorting the Rebbe Schneerson of Chabad ran a red light and ran over a seven-year-old African-American child, Gavin Cato. A private Hasidic ambulance came to the scene and removed the Hasidic driver, who had been assaulted by angry bystanders, on the orders of a police officer; a city ambulance arrived minutes later to treat Cato, who died of his injuries a few hours later. African-American residents of the neighborhood then rioted for four consecutive days, presumably because of unequal treatment of the victims, and attacked a total of 188 Hasidim, including killing a visiting rabbinical student from Australia by the name of Yankel Rosenbaum, 29 years old, who had come to continue study on the Holocaust. The person charged with killing Rosenbaum, an African-American named Lemrick Nelson, was acquitted. Claims that he admitted to having stabbed Rosenbaum were dismissed by the jury.

In addition, during the same rioting, a 67-year-old non-Jewish motorist who had apparently gotten lost in the neighborhood, Anthony Graziosi, was dragged out of his car and brutally beaten and stabbed to death, presumably because his full beard and dark clothing had caused his killers to mistake him for a Hasidic Jew. No suspects have ever been apprehended in his murder.

The turmoil proved to be a key issue in the next New York City mayoral election, contested in 1993 as a rematch between incumbent David Dinkins and Rudolph Giuliani, whom Dinkins had narrowly defeated four years earlier. On June 16, 1993, a huge rally was held outside City Hall in downtown Manhattan, the primary focus of which was out-of-control criminal violence in general (which the Dinkins administration was viewed by the rally's attendees as being indifferent towards) and continued bitterness over the events in Crown Heights from two years earlier in particular; and several speakers at the rally, including mayoral candidate Giuliani and a Brooklyn-based African-American community activist, Roy Innis, even went so far as to label the Crown Heights episode a pogrom. Giuliani won the election, and subsequent polls showed that a significant shift in the Jewish vote from 1989 was a major contributing factor in his victory.

[Archit_K]

Has anybody been to Crown Heights? Please post comments and pictures if available.

[Stern]

For ease of browsing it would be better if Crown Heights Developments were merged with Prospect Park & Vicinity (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=42320). I’ll keep this thread open nevertheless incase something more (a boom perhaps) develops.

[ltjbukem73]

developers group would wnat you to believe this is in prospect heights,b ut it's really in crown heights..

http://www.thedevelopersgroup.com/buildings/building.aspx?buildingid=1028&

481 Prospect Place
481 Prospect Place Brooklyn, NY 11238

OPEN HOUSE: Sunday 02/20/05 1pm-4pm



Open House - Sunday 02/20/05 1pm-4pm. Beautiful new construction located steps away from the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the Brooklyn Museum. Attractive hardwood floors lined throughout each 900-1300 square foot unit. Skylights illuminate all fourth floor units. Video intercom, free laundry room and storage room for common use. Steps away from the 2, 3 and 4 train.


address sq. ft. outdoor space beds baths price


481 Prospect Place, 1A 1277 2 2 $525,000
481 Prospect Place, 1B 1395 2 2 $550,000
481 Prospect Place, 2A 910 2 2 $385,000
481 Prospect Place, 2B 930 2 2 $435,000
481 Prospect Place, 3A 910 2 2 $445,000
481 Prospect Place, 3B 930 2 2 $445,000
481 Prospect Place, 4A 1274 3 3 $585,000
481 Prospect Place, 4B 1404 3 3 $610,000

[Archit_K]

For ease of browsing it would be better if Crown Heights Developments were merged with Prospect Park & Vicinity (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=42320). I’ll keep this thread open nevertheless incase something more (a boom perhaps) develops.
Thanks

[square feet]

I have lived here for 3 years. It is NOT a place to go window shopping, bar hopping, or dining ...for that you go to Park Slope or Prospect Heights which are both a good 5 to 10 min. walk away. It's hard to get decent groceries around here, and last time I checked, Fresh Direct was not serving this area. BUT RENT IS CHEAP, and apartmens spacious. Most housing stock here was built as proper dwelling units with formal living/dining/sleeping rooms.In my mind this makes it a great deal. Also, 2,3,4,5 trains get me downtown in 20 min.

[ZippyTheChimp]

LPC proposal for historic district designation for Crown Heights North

http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/press/06_20_06.4.pdf

Map (http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/maps/ProposedCrown%20Heights.pdf)

[scatman]

My uncle and aunt have a two-family brownstone on Lincoln place between Kingston and Albany. They've had it since the late-60s. They are retired and living in North Carolina now, but still own the property. I've been told that people are calling them everyday offering to buy the property from them. Offers are at the 700K range. However, they're still holding on.

I posted this here because I thought the crown heights thread was merged with this one! Peace.

[square feet]

the development boom now reaching to this naberhood.

the building is not approved yet but here are the stats from the DOB site so far:
area: about 80,000 sqft
height: 8 story (ground floor commercial)
no of units: 60

also, rumors:
starbucks
bank on corner (i heard chase)

[Fahzee]

LPC proposal for historic district designation for Crown Heights North

http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/press/06_20_06.4.pdf

Map (http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/maps/ProposedCrown%20Heights.pdf)

Crown Heights North Historic District is now official, as per a landmarks commission vote today.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Full Designation Report (http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/CHN_report.pdf)

Photos on pages 287-331.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Crown Heights North Celebrates Historic District Designation

by Linda Collins (linda@brooklyneagle.net), published online 05-25-2007

CHNA Plans Walking Tour and Garden Tea

CROWN HEIGHTS — The Crown Heights North Association (CHNA) will sponsor a Walking Tour & Garden Tea Party on Saturday, June 10, with a rain date set for June 17.

Organizers, thrilled at the recent historic district designation approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, will include historical architectural highlights as part of this year’s tour. The neighborhood has the distinction of becoming the 79th district in the city to receive the designation, according to CHNA co-chair Denise Brown.

“We will also be celebrating the cultural legacy that defines North Crown Heights as a vibrant community,” she added. “So come out and enjoy your neighborhood.”

The walking tour will begin at 1p.m. and will end at 4 p.m. with the tea party at the Bergen Street Community Garden.

The starting point for the walking tour will be at St. Gregory’s Church School, 991 St. Johns Place, near Brooklyn Avenue. Participants should meet there at 12:45 p.m.

Tickets are $20 and can be purchased beforehand or on the day of the tour. The ticket price includes the Garden Tea, which will feature light refreshments and entertainment.

Following the tour, Brown and the CHNA will begin focusing on the next phase in the historic district designation process.

“We are so excited and pleased that the commission voted unanimously in designating Phase I of Crown Heights North,” said Brown. “As such, we are further encouraged to move forward in securing landmark status in Phase II of Crown Heights North, which comprises approximately 800-plus buildings, and are prepared to again work closely with Community Board 8, elected officials, community residents and LPC in achieving this goal.”

For walking tour ticket information, please call Brown at (718) 756-1920 or Suzanne Spellen at (718) 953-3339.

— Linda Collins

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007

[antinimby]

Here Come the Babies. There Go the Jackhammers.


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/03/nyregion/mult600.jpg
In a growing Hasidic neighborhood, double strollers, followed by a construction boom.


By ALEX MINDLIN
Published: February 3, 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/nyregion/thecity/03mult.html)

JACOB GOLDSTEIN, the longtime chairman of Community Board 9 and the unofficial mayor of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was driving his little red Ford Contour through the neighborhood the other day, honking at acquaintances. Several times on every block, he braked and gestured at a newly risen, salmon-colored apartment building, or a plywood fence protecting a construction site.

“This community’s exploding,” Mr. Goldstein, who is Hasidic, said with satisfaction. “The young people are having kids. My kids are having kids. They need places to live.”

The southern portion of Crown Heights is the nerve center of the Lubavitch sect of Hasidic Judaism, and it has long been as much dormitory as neighborhood. The area attracts Lubavitch adherents from around the world, who tend to raise large families; households of five or six children are common. Everything but the Baby, a children’s store on the neighborhood artery, Kingston Avenue, sells more than twice as many double strollers as singles.

Over the past two years, community expansion has fueled a building boom: a spate of new condominium buildings, almost all of them aimed at Orthodox buyers. The new apartments typically have at least three bedrooms along with two sinks, two stoves and two kitchen counters — one for meat and one for dairy, to comply with kosher dietary law. Some buildings have so-called Sabbath elevators that allow residents to reach their floors on Saturdays without pressing a button, an action that is traditionally forbidden.

Although there are no precise figures on the number of new buildings, a spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings said that last year the agency issued more than five times as many permits for new construction in Community District 9 as it had five years ago. (Citywide, the 2002 figure was 3 percent higher.)

J. J. Katz, the principal broker at Heights Properties, a local real estate brokerage, said he knew of about 50 new buildings aimed at Orthodox buyers. “Even two years ago,” he said, “there was only one building project going on at a time.”

The largest new project is a nearly complete 94-unit building at 580 Crown Street, to be followed by one almost twice that size next door. Seventy of the apartments in the new building have four or more bedrooms, and a synagogue accommodating 150 people will be located on the ground floor.

Back in the car, Mr. Goldstein made a left turn, saw a young boy on the sidewalk, and honked. “One of my grandchildren,” Mr. Goldstein said proudly. “I have 17.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company