NY Times Spotlights Dyker Heights, Suggests Gentrification
The New York Times’ “Living in” real estate feature, which aims to impart a sense of the community to prospective residents, turned its gaze to Dyker Heights last week, calling it a “place that people deeply care for.”
While a significant chunk of the article focused on the famed Dyker Heights lights, it also looked at some of the year-round virtues and even some of its changing traits:
It remains a stable, relatively affordable enclave in a borough that has grown almost too popular for its own good, Ms. Manto said. And although Fort Greene, Downtown Brooklyn and even Bay Ridge next door have become way too pricey for the non-six-figure-salary set, it is her opinion that “when you work for the city, you should be able to live in the city.”
She left a job as a TV ad buyer after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to pursue her dream of teaching. Her husband, following a similar path at that time, became a New York City police officer.
The fact that Dyker Heights is not just another part of hipster Brooklyn makes it all the better, she added. In such areas, cocktail lounges and artisanal boutiques are usually the signal that gentrification lurks just around the corner. “I would say that kind of thing isn’t happening over here,” Ms. Manto said, before catching herself. “I mean, at least not yet.”
So is Dyker Heights getting gentrified? As the home of the upper middle class and homes that “evoke the Mediterranean,” I’d say it’d certainly be a different kind of gentrification that in northern Brooklyn.
Regardless, cue the much deserved gushing over the area’s beautiful homes:
Perched on the slight ridge responsible for the “Heights” part of the name, these homes, which often evoke the Mediterranean, typically sit on roomy, tree-shaded lots measuring 80 by 100 feet. Even in the summer, they can seem lavishly decorated; a waterfall gurgles at a home at 11th Avenue and 83rd Street, surrounded by white goddess-like figures.
Recent home sales in the neighborhood have averaged $956,300, the paper reports. Definitely the kind of real estate steals that spur gentrification, right?