At Crossroads of Big Development, Vinegar Hill Perseveres
BY KATE GOODLOE – Special to the Sun
May 31, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/55546
With development in DUMBO encroaching their neighborhood from the west and a busier Brooklyn Navy Yards emerging to their east, residents of Brooklyn’s quaint Vinegar Hill are trying hard to preserve the sleepy atmosphere of their eight-block neighborhood.
“The neighborhood doesn’t look the way it looks because people forgot about it,” a 12-year resident of the neighborhood, Nicholas Evans-Cato, said. “It looks the way it looks because people have fought for it.”
Originally known as Irish Town, the neighborhood was home to immigrant workers at the nearby Navy Yards. Its name comes from a 1798 battle of the Irish Rebellion and much of its housing was built in the 1830s and 1850s, in either the Greek Revival or Italianate styles.
Its homes are some of the last remaining brownstones in the area, which saw much of its original housing ripped down to make room for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and housing projects like the Farragut Houses during the 1950s..
The neighborhood doesn’t share roadways with the Navy Yards, saving it from much of the traffic other neighborhoods will see during the commercial expansion there.
The city has committed $200 million to upgrading the 300-acre Navy Yards, which were closed in 1966 and reopened five years later as a city-owned industrial park. Now the Navy Yards’ vacancy rate is around 1% for about 4 million square feet of manufacturing space. Another $250 million in private investment in the works would create upwards of one million square feet of new building space, according to the president of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, Andrew Kimball.
Just outside the yards, the development corporation is also planning to raze some historic but rundown mansions on Admiral’s Row to make room for a new retail complex, including a 60,000 square foot supermarket intended to serve the surrounding neighborhood.
But residents who fear encroaching development say their bigger concern is to the west, with the increasing appetite for condos in DUMBO spilling into Vinegar Hill.
Condos began appearing two years ago, and the development at 85 Hudson Avenue was one of the first. Some potential buyers were turned off by the area’s industrial feel, brokers say, but many were sold on the easy access to Manhattan — just one stop away on the F train. Now, a one-bedroom that went for $486,000 in the building two years ago is under contract for $549,000, says Steve Gerber, a broker with the Corcoran Group.
More projects have followed, with mixed results.
After a much-hyped stint on the condo market, The Developers Group took their project at 99 Gold Street rental in April. Now, they’re asking $2,000 a month for 700-square-foot studios and $5,500 for two-bedroom penthouses.
Nearby, the Vista development on Front Street has sold out its 31 units. Prices there ranged from $370,530 for a 537-square-foot studio to $724,914 for a two-bedroom, 1,173 square foot penthouse.
Council Member David Yassky, who represents the neighborhood, said one of the main issues among neighbors is preserving the cobblestone streets, which are often patched with asphalt when city worker come to do repairs. “If you do that enough times, you’ve lost a street,” Mr. Yassky said.
Mr. Yassky also supports the creation of a historic district in neighboring DUMBO, which he says would have a trickle-down effect in Vinegar Hill by discouraging development that does not match the style of the neighborhood.