What’s Your Favorite Corner?

Nicole Francis is a dynamo. She probably does more by 9am than most of us do in a month, and in her 16 years living in Beverley Square East, she’s certainly done more than we could hope to do in an entire lifetime. And it seems like she’s taking on more projects every day.

Right now, for instance, she’s trying to reinvigorate the BSE neighborhood association, and as a push in that direction, she hosted a Gardening Forum for the neighborhood recently. Nicole has also been involved in the effort to “complete the quilt” of landmarked Victorian Flatbush neighborhoods, and helped a group of six of our neighborhoods successfully achieve the Historic Distric Council’s Six to Celebrate honor. As part of that, she’ll be leading a biking tour of the area this fall–though you can join her for a ride most Fridays with the Ditmas Rides group.

If you don’t know her through any of these initiatives, maybe you remember her shop Cortelyou Vintage, which occupied the space now filled by Sycamore, or you’re familiar with her work as a financial planner, or you recently sold her a beehive.

Or maybe you’ve been in contact with her about greening Newkirk Plaza this Saturday. Working with the Friends of Newkirk Plaza and the Flatbush Development Corporation, Nicole helped raise funds for and organize this weekend’s event, which will bring trees and flowers to the new planters on the Plaza. If you’d like to help out, send her a note to RSVP at spankytomato68@gmail.com.

For someone who knows every inch of this area, how does she pick a favorite corner? After thinking it over for some time, Nicole chose East 19th Street and Avenue H, specifically the house on the northwest corner.

“It’s a Tudor-ish house, but has this stone patio that overlooks a huge but somewhat neglected yard,” she said. “In the past I have seen both a clawfoot tub in the yard and a live black bunny just outside of it. I imagine that back in the early 20th century there were ladies in long white cotton dresses playing croquet at parties and men in hats and three-piece suits smoking cigars. Anyway, I do love Fiske Terrace, and that is a house that I romanticize for reasons unknown.”