My Life In Brooklyn

Living in Lefferts Manor (and therefore the historic district), provides a sense of comfort in knowing the overall look of the neighborhood will remain the same.

If there is anything I have learned from walking aound the neighborhood and environs a couple of hours daily, it is that the “Manor” and the “Historic District” are relatively small enclaves.  It only takes about 5 (or fewer) minutes walking from anywhere you live within the historic district, to an area that is not protected by rigid rules and regulations.

Honestly, this worries me.  Not as much for my own street, but when I see the many instances of demolition — houses being sold for the purpose of developing the lot — and ugly new contruction (I am guessing condos) taking place it bothers me.  Seeing what I believe to be houses and buildings that are in disrepair –but far from the point of needing to be condemned – slated for demolition is disturbing, because there are quite a few of them.  This methodolgy is not beneficial to the look and feel of the neighborhood in general.  I view the destruction of historic houses simply for land acquisition as a sad loss.  Replacing these houses by ugly new construction is a further transformation of the neighborhood into an area of tasteless architecture; geared toward contractor advantage rather than anything to benefit the current and future residents of the neighborhood.  Seriously, I do think we have plenty of very large apartment buildings here already.

While we all are deeply concerned about saving landmark buildings such as the Kings Loew’s Theatre, as well we should be, I truly wish there was a movement afoot to track some of the beautiful (wood frame especially) buildings that appear to be meeting a sudden demise via bulldozer to make way for modern brick boxes with Fedders slots.

I have been in some wood frame houses, and while they are not in so much demand as brownstones they are historic, detailed, have lots of woodwork, windows on all sides and frequently have a driveway and garage.  Well worth preservation efforts. 

If this demolition and rebuilding continues, Lefferts Manor and the PLG historic district will be maintained, but a few steps outside will look like a different world.  That is just sad.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 11:05 am and is filed under Brooklyn, Daily Walk, Lost Gems. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.