Disappearing Soon: A Stately House on 9th

Just up the street from 203 9th Street, where work is under way for a new five-storey building, plans have been filed for a new, mixed-use medical office/apartment building.  If approved, the building, a seven-storey, thirteen-unit building, will replace a large freestanding frame at 217. The developer is Praim Singh, & the architectural firm will be South Slope-based Peter Gee.

Above Third Avenue, the blocks of 9th leading up to the park are broad and stately.  The blocks between Third and Fifth once contained a number of large, freestanding wooden houses, but today only two remain - 217 (for now), and Second Empire 271, the William B. Croynyn House, which was later occupied by the owner of the Higgins Ink Factory.  Today  271 is a music school and private home, famous in the neighborhood for its bright blue exterior. When I first moved here, there was another imposing Second Empire beauty at 225, but it was demolished in the late 80s.  You can see it, at left, in this Sperr (who else?) photograph of Third/Fourth, taken in 1930.  You can also get a partial view of 217, cut off at the edge of the picture.

NYPL

217 and 225 both appear on the 1880 Bromley map of Brooklyn, along with another large wooden house in between the two. The other houses seen in the Sperr picture above 225 are also shown on the 1880 map, and remain on the block today.

Here's the same stretch of the block in 2015.

217 was at one time headquarters to the Federal Republican Club of the 8th Assembly District, formed in 1872 by Union army survivors of the Civil War.  The building last changed hands almost twenty years ago, and is being developed by its longtime owner. According to a story in The Daily News, in 2010 Mr. Singh and his wife, Thackoordai, were indicted on fraud charges. 

 A couple who own $12 million worth of real estate conned Medicaid into accepting their application and received $9,000 in free medical care, the Brooklyn district attorney charged Wednesday. 
Praim (Roger) Singh, 55, and his wife, Thackoordai Singh, 55, who own 16 properties in Brooklyn, face a minimum of seven years in prison. 
They are charged with falsifying their Medicaid applications - claiming they did not own any property, businesses or bank accounts and subsisted solely on Praim Singh's $225weekly salary.                                                                                                                                          (Daily News)

In recent years, Mr. Singh appears to have sold at least some of his many properties.

Homebound

Subway Kvetch

Why (and when) is the Queens-bound F train skipping the Fourth Avenue station?  I'm pretty sure there were service notices about this in recent weeks, but right now there's not a sign to be seen. Twice over the past few days, I've found myself watching a succession of F trains chugging through the station on the central tracks. If a train could give the finger, the bypassing F would be doing so. Yesterday, sick of waiting with a rapidly growing platform crowd, I ran down to the token booth to see what was going on. The friendly lady in the booth was surprised.

"Oh, they didn't put any notices up or make any announcements?"

Well, no.  A notice would be very helpful.  Service announcements at the station, and on the MTA website, would be pretty useful too.  I'm guessing the trains are going skipping Fourth at off-peak hours only, but there are NO SIGNS. Anyway, if you find yourself effed at the station, take the G to Smith & 9th & transfer from there.

While we're at the Fourth station, how are those subway renovations coming along? In February, the MTA announced that "it hoped to be finished with general construction by mid-March, weather permitting."  Hoping is all well and good, but as autumn rolls along, there's still work to be done.  In December, the windows on the northern side of the station archway were uncovered, bringing commuters a brighter, cleaner, and bigger platform space.  We didn't get the views we wanted, but it still looked pretty nice.  No such luck on the southern side of the archway.  The windows are still boarded up, an exit is still blocked, and work seems to been ground to a halt.  And how about the subway entrance on the western side?  I'm perfectly content with its mildly grungy looks (still the lottery ticket sign at the empty newsstand booth, still the puddles forming at the entrance when it rains) but surprised it hasn't got any attention.  I'll admit that much of the work at the station has been completed, but really, what a sad, piecemeal sort of effort this renovation's been.

Four years on, as deadlines have come and gone, we're still waiting.

And then there's Smith and 9th ...

Greco

Police Await Warrant at Fifth & 12th

Around lunchtime today I noticed a police car stationed at Fifth & 12th. When I returned along Fifth a few hours later, it was still there.  I asked the police why they were there, & they told me they were guarding the white Infiniti that was parked at the corner.  South Slope News reported today that the car was linked to three arrests made this morning, and updated its story with further information from the NY Times.  According to the Times, the car is connected to Monday's fatal shooting at Manhattan nightclub Motivo.  Suspect Dalone Jamison was one of those arrested this morning, when the car was spotted by the police.

“They had information on who he might be hanging out with,” the official said. “They had a license plate number” of a car they believed he was using. The police said the gunman had fled in a dark-colored BMW after the shooting. 
On Monday, the department learned the license plate had been picked up by several license plate readers that the police maintain around the city. They tracked the vehicle to Brooklyn. Then, around 10 a.m. on Tuesday, a Warrants Squad officer spotted the car around 10th Street and Fifth Avenue, the official said, in the Park Slope neighborhood. 
Mr. Jamison was with two other men inside the car, the police said. “We identified him right from the club,” the official said. 
“We knew who we were looking for.” 
The other men with Mr. Jamison were questioned on Tuesday, the official said, and the authorities were seeking a warrant to search the car.

I've no idea how long it takes to obtain a warrant in these sorts of circumstances. As of 8:00 this evening, the police are still at the corner, and the car is still parked in front of Jo, Brian & Joseph's Key Food Market *.

*The 'Key' is gone at Jo, Brian & Joseph's.  Observe the sign in the top photo. 

The Empty Horn

I was walking up Fifth the other day, and I noticed that Paul's Fruit & Vegetables, at no.41, appears to be have closed.  I always liked the store, with its fading, hand-painted sign up above its green and white striped canvas awning. Vestiges of older times.  Whenever I passed I was relieved to find the place still hanging in there. Now there's an anonymous new-look storefront, with the brown paper treatment in place. The building itself is a treasure, a dormered, pitched-roof frame that appears on the 1880 Bromley map of Brooklyn.

A wooden building is something of a rarity on this stretch of Fifth, now overshadowed by Atlantic development.

Happily, it doesn't look like the building's going anywhere right now, but I'm sorry that Paul's has departed.  There'd been a vegetable/grocery store right at that spot since at least as early as 1921. Next door McMahon's used to be O'Connor's, a timeworn gem of a bar.  You can see 41 from a side angle in this Google view from 2007,

and here's a picture of Paul's from 2013.

While digging around, I found that Montrose Morris wrote a piece on this Fifth Avenue block (Dean & Bergen) earlier in the year. As usual, MM's article is thorough & informative. She pays particular attention to 41, and - great coincidence! - discusses the work of PL Sperr. You can read her Past and Present Brownstoner piece (with Sperr photograph included) right here.  As Morris notes in her article, 41 was a smaller building originally. 1880s maps show the original, pitched roof structure set back from Fifth Avenue, but the 1916 Hyde map includes an addition at the front of the lot, used for commercial purposes.

Happy Turn of NY

Welfare

An extract from Frederick Wiseman's 1975 documentary, Welfare.  The film, which played yesterday, is part of a retrospective, Wiseman's New York, currently running at the Museum of the Moving Image.  Excuse the subtitles.  You can also catch a New Yorker review here.

Unrecognized

Percy Loomis Sperr (1889 - 1964)

Just who was Percy Loomis Sperr?

Sperr’s thousands of photos span twenty years, they explore every major street, every neighborhood, every bridge, every highway, every building, virtually every corner of the city. Despite offering us an unequaled view into 1930’s New York, nobody seems to know who he is. Other than an occasional photo credit, his name is never seen. He has no wikipedia page, no newspaper bio, nothing, and yet a search at the New York Public Library website for ‘Sperr” turns up 17,813 photos shot by him.

The work of photographer Percy Loomis Sperr, available in the NYPL archives, has been become an increasingly frequent presence on this blog, and is often the only resource I can find to reveal the look of local Brooklyn streets in the 1930s and 40s.  Sometimes, especially in the photos of the early 1940s, his work shows us streetscapes in flux, as planner Robert Moses tears apart the fabric of the city's design, but often it uncovers corners of the borough seemingly suspended in the nineteenth century. Among his many subjects, the ones I love the most reveal the lost dignity of blue-collar life - of marine supplier, & dry goods store, of modest wooden rowhouse or stand-alone frame, of streets pre-dating the planned sameness of brick and brownstone development.  They show us the original beauty of houses still standing today, masked now by vinyl or stucco, their porches and cornices long removed. And they show us the legacy we've lost - early wooden houses that have gone (and continue to vanish) with barely a murmur of regret.

I found the photo above on Todd Berkun's history blog, LI & NY Places that are no more.  It accompanies an article on Sperr's life and legacy - a wonderfully informative piece.  Sperr, a cripple since childhood, moved to New York in the early 1920s, with hopes of establishing a literary career. According to Berkun, he was no great camera enthusiast, but, initially at least, used photographs as part of his writing process.  His photographs sold, but his stories did not.

Reluctantly or not, Sperr traveled throughout the city, taking thousands of photographs.  In 1945, as photograph sales dwindled, he changed course, and set himself up as a second-hand bookseller in his home borough, Staten Island,  "selling discarded books of poetry and comic books at three for a dime."

Berkun's article emphasizes the importance of Sperr's legacy, and calls for his work to receive wider recognition.

Why Sperr’s name continues to languish despite his work being available on one of the most prominent reference institutions in the world is hard to say ... Perhaps the name Percy Loomis Sperr doesn’t convey the image of a great artist. Perhaps the NYPL has not marketed his works to date. They may have not presented or exhibited any of his photos to the public as of yet. I think once they do the response will be overwhelming.

Centre Street

Two 1940 Sperr photographs (NYPL) show Centre Street looking towards Hamilton.  The houses seen in my picture are at right. And here's a Google Earth shot of the street.

The Bottle

Links

Natural Gas Not the Cause of Deadly Brooklyn Explosion, Officials Say (NY Times)
Man, 21, critical, after being struck by car while crossing street mid-block in Brooklyn (Daily News)
The man was walking across a three-lane portion of Third Ave. near 22nd St. in Sunset Park with another man when he was hit by a green sedan in the center lane around 3:30 p.m., witnesses and police said.
Greenwood Cemetery Landmark Designation Has Mixed Support (NY YIMBY)
The Historic Districts Council’s Cinnia Finfer suggested that designating some structures at the cemetery, such as the chapel, would be a better plan...
...The New York Landmarks Conservancy’s Andrea Goldman agreed that the chapel, built in 1911, and the Hamilton Parkway gatehouse, dating back to about 1876, should be landmarked.  This sentiment was echoed by tour guide Henry Matthews and Mark Hendricks of the Municipal Art Society. 
From this point, the commission will hold public meetings, at which time it will consider either prioritizing designation for some items by December 2016, removing items from the calendar by voting not to designate, or removing items from the calendar by issuing a no action letter.
In a Brooklyn Chinatown, One Chance to get the Shot - Yunghi Kim's beautiful photographs, taken in Sunset Park (NY Times)
Boo-zers, Murders and a Ghost Box: The Brooklyn Paranormal Society "Investigates" Prospect Park (South Slope News)
As the team organized their (low-fi) equipment, boo-zers began to ask Cecil questions about being a psychic. Cecil was very clear when she began to explain the variety of psychics, including clairvoyance (clear seeing, or psychic vision), clairaudience (clear hearing, or psychic hearing), and clairalience (clear smelling or psychic smelling, sometimes also called clairscent). 
“How does being a psychic affect your daily life? Does it happen when you’re in Chipotle?” asked a boo-zer. 

Another Day, Another New Building

Plans have just been filed for a five-storey, fourteen unit residential building at 213 20th Street (NY YIMBY).   This will replace 213 and 215 (seen above). The buildings sold in August for $1,500,000 apiece.

20th

Big City of Dreams

On a clear fall day I took a short, perfect city walk. Down 14th from Fifth to Hamilton, over the canal and right on Centre Street, left on Smith & right on 9th. Back up 9th, over the canal again, and home. A truck-sighting nirvana.  The Ridin' Dirty, with a barely covered siren lounging on the side of her lime green cab. The holiday ghouls, Kruger cousins, under the Gowanus on a Russo grille.  More than enough cement trucks, drums churning, churning, churning, to turn the whole damn borough into one giant foundation. And this one, that I chased along Smith.  Everywhere it went it brought poetry.

Contribute to the Borough Park Relief Fund

Here's an opportunity to help those affected by last week's Borough Park explosion.

The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City has launched the Borough Park Relief Fund, in partnership with the Boro Park Jewish Community Center,  the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, American Red Cross and The Salvation Army, along with Council Member Brad Lander and other Brooklyn elected officials, to support the individuals, families and businesses affected by the recent building explosion in the area.

The new fundraising drive will help address a variety of costs to those impacted by the gas explosion and collapse of a building on 13th Avenue, in Borough Park, Brooklyn on October 3, including relocation, lost and damaged effects, funeral and medical expenses.

The relief fund builds upon the strong initial support provided by first responders, city services and grassroots organizations. First responders from the New York City Police Department, Fire Department of the City of New York, and the American Red Cross provided critical assistance immediately following the explosion. The Mayor's Office of Emergency Management established a resident support center at the Borough Park branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, where individuals and business could receive assistance with City services, including finding temporary housing.

Locally based organizations and neighbors in the Borough Park community gave additional support to those in need. Masbia, a nonprofit soup kitchen and food pantry located in the area, donated food and supplies for displaced families. Neighbors near the site of the explosion brought hot coffee and stood by families and first responders.

New Yorkers can also send checks payable to the Borough Park Relief Fund by mail to:

Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City
253 Broadway, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10007

Two More Fifth Ave. Buildings Leaving Soon

This one comes as no surprise.  Two months ago, I noticed that demo plans were filed for 643 Fifth (18th/19th).  The property last sold in April for $2,250,000.

A block down from Eagle Provisions, boarded up, but with some of its signs still intact, more indications of change appear. 643 Fifth, which used to house Torres Tattoos (moved up the avenue a while back) & most recently, the short-lived I Want a Breast Pump (nobody did, apparently), is destined for demolition. This side of the block really typifies an older, lower-scale piece of Fifth Avenue retail, but it will be soon broken up by something taller. The building was sold in the spring for $2,250,000. The buyer? 5th Ave Condo LLC. So at least we know what we're in for. 

I wondered at the time about next-door 645, which sold in May 2014, to 645 JC Coin Realty LLC, and had an inkling that the two buildings might share a common fate.  And so it came to pass.  A record of sale appeared today on ACRIS, with 645 flipped to 5th Ave Condo LLC for $2,000,000.  I guess we'll learn of the buildings' replacement soon enough.

Earlier (with a look at the buildings in 1941) : On the Avenue

Links

Art Fills Empty Fourth Avenue Subway Station Retail Spaces (DNAinfo)
Mrs. Haroy, the Scandinavian fin whale, comes to a stinky end in Coney Island (Brooklynology)
Boat Captain Dreams of Gowanus Canal Teeming With Life, Not Pollution (DNAinfo)
Map: South Slope and Greenwood Heights Are Real Neighborhoods, Locals Say (DNAinfo)
Where One Neighborhood Begins & Another Ends (Brian Lehrer, WNYC)
Neighbors call in on the Slope/South Slope/Greenwood HeightsSunset Park debate.  I bite my tongue.
Proposal to bring back the B71 (Brooklyn Paper)

Models of Development

Here's the scene at 203 9th Street, where a five-storey apartment building is set to rise. Permits were approved last December for an alteration, with less than 50% of the existing building to be demolished, and work to be performed in less than 50% of the building.  Without a demo permit in place, & without conforming to plans, everything except for two walls was torn down. $30,000 plus in fines due, three open violations.  Work continues.

203 before alteration  (Google Earth)


While we're on the topic of shoddy building practices, let's take another look at 657-665 Fifth Avenue.  Just as they were last time we looked (August), the stop orders issued in March are still in effect, and remain unposted .  We're guessing some major financial glitch is keeping this "game changer" project stalled.  The only action here right now is an accumulation of garbage collecting on the sidewalk.  An ECB ticket was issued today.

Giant Sale

R.I.P.

My deepest condolences to the family, friends, customers and employees of Francisca Figueroa, who died in Saturday's gas explosion in Borough Park. Her body was recovered from the wreckage of the collapsed apartment building yesterday, and will be formally identified shortly. The cause of the explosion has not yet been identified, but is possibly related to the removal of a gas stove. According to press reports,  Ms Figueroa had recently lost a case against her landlord in housing court, and was in the process of moving out.
Francisca Figueroa's Park Slope beauty salon, Franchezka Unisex, at Fifth & 12th, has been a fixture in the neighborhood for twenty years. If you go to visit the corner there today, you'll hear countless tributes from passers by. There's a growing memorial at the shuttered salon, and at all hours, knots of people gather to pay their respects.  It's a heartbreaking scene.  Ms Figueroa leaves behind a grieving family of relatives and friends.  Ms. Sara Diaz (godmother to Ms Figueroa's youngest child), described her as

" ... a devoted mother to her three children — Lecha; Jose, 22; and Helen, 26 — and said she was a dedicated worker at her salon ...
“She was a good person, a caring person, a workaholic,” she said, standing with her husband, Frank, at the intersection of 13th Avenue and 42nd Street opposite the wreckage. 
She said Ms. Figueroa had been on the phone with her sister when the explosion happened. 
“I think her sister had another call and she told her, ‘Hold on, Francisca,’ ” Ms. Diaz said. “And when she came back to the phone there was nobody on the phone.”

Update: 12/7/15

Tenant Set Fatal Brooklyn Explosion, Official Says (NY Times)

An explosion that killed two women and leveled a building in Brooklyn in October was intentionally set by one of them using gasoline that had been poured on the stairwell, a New York City official said on Friday. 
Investigators have determined that Francisca Figueroa, a tenant in the three-story building, set the fire, according to the city official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak publicly about the case. 

This is an especially tragic & hard-to-conceive verdict for the families, tenants & all others who suffered losses of loved ones and homes in the Borough Park explosion.   A terrible ending.

Continuity

Square Stores (65 years in business) has been closed for a few days, but a woman at next-door Fifth Avenue Diner (43 years) told me that it should be back open this week. I hope so. This block of Fifth, on the west side between 8th & 9th, has stayed much the same for decades.  In addition to Square Stores & the diner, there's Smith's (83 years), the last blue-collar bar on Fifth, & next to Smith's, Tip Top Gift, on Fifth since at least the early eighties, with what looks like its original sign intact.  The Chase bank at the corner, hardly an institution to wax lyrical about, is a bit of a baby. It replaced a Manufacturers Hanover Trust in '86, and stands on the site of the old Michael's.  That leaves only the deli in the middle of the block, which has been around in some sort of grocery incarnation or other for many years.  I wonder if any other stretch of businesses around here has stayed so essentially intact.. Across the avenue, the block's seen change, but hey, the liquor store's a peer of Smith's, & defying closure the great Record & Tape Center (44 years), has been on Fifth since '65. The block's got the lock on staying put.  For now, for now.

Fourth & Prospect

As part of Gowanus Open Studios 2015 (October 16 - 18), artist Miguel is creating a mural at the underpass by the Prospect Ave. station.  This is a perfect spot for mural action.  No permission has been given as yet for the wall on the western side of Fourth.

Luxury

Local residents will surely remember the partial collapse at 288 16th a couple of years ago.. The back wall of the building collapsed, leaving this precarious situation:

Brownstoner, 9/27/13

At the time of the collapse, no permits were in place for the alarmingly botched gut reno. One assumes the building is repaired by now, as it's on the market, converted from a five-family to two separate units, 288 & 288A, with the original building lot split into two.  At 288, there's still a full vacate order in place.  A bureaucratic delay, perhaps, but a bit of an inconvenience, you'd think, if you were selling a "gorgeously renovated" home.  288 changed hands in December of 2012 for $1,400,000, nine months prior to the collapse, and today the two houses are listed at $2,395,000 each. These are very narrow homes - not much over twelve feet at the widest.  The 2,500 square footage given in the listing seems over-optimistic at best.

Green

At the Station

Man-Oh-Manichewitz

Yesterday UFCW Local 1500 released the results of this week's auctions of the remaining, unsold A&P owned stores.  While the future of many stores remains in limbo - left unauctioned or with bids on them adjourned - the Gowanus Pathmark now has a new owner.  No Stop & Shop, Food Bazaar or Key Food here though.  The 12th Street store, along with a Pathmark in Borough Park, has been bought up by Manichevitz (sic).  Is this the Manichewitz?  If so, what are its plans for the stores?  In 2014 the company was acquired by a branch of equity firm Bain Capital, and The Tablet reported its plans to expand into a wider, mainstream market.  Do these involve a move into supermarket ownership, or are other uses on the cards?  Food production?  Distribution?  Bigger development plans?  If the purchased stores do remain supermarkets, how will this affect the stores' current employees, and how will the customer base change? Whatever the outcome, the sale is likely to surprise & alarm both workforce & shoppers at the 12th Street Pathmark.  It should concern all of us who live nearby.

As the story of the A&P bankruptcy evolves, how are the beleaguered company's top brass faring? Very nicely, in fact.

While the supermarket chain begins the process of auctioning off as many individual stores as possible Thursday, it also filed court documents that revealed which executives received salaries, bonuses, consulting fees and other payments totaling nearly $13 million in the year prior to A&P filing for bankruptcy. Nearly $4 million went to salaries, expense reimbursements, holiday pay, car allowances and other similar payments while $6 million was deposited into a trust held specifically for the benefit of five senior managers:

$2.5 million for a consulting company owned by Chairman of the Board Greg Mays, who also received an additional $2 million in board/consulting fees; 

$1.5 million for Chief Restructuring Officer Christopher McGarry; 

$1.5 million for President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Hertz;

$250,000 for Chief Financial Officer Tim Carnahan; and

$250,000 for Chief Strategy Officer Nirup Krishnamurthy.

Additionally, Terrence Wallock by himself and along with Dawn Wallock, both listed as directors, received $135,000 in board/consulting fees. A portion also went to bonuses with McGarry and Hertz each receiving $225,000 in 2014, Chief Merchandising Officer Eric Kanterman getting $100,000 and Carnahan receiving a $50,000 sign-on bonus.  (LoHud Journal News)

Update - 10/14

Not much in the way of news, but the buyer is Manichevitz Family LLC.  The LLC was incorporated three weeks ago, and has a Borough Park address.  This seems to suggest that the buyer has no connection with Bain Capital/Manischewitz.  Still, workers I spoke to at the store are convinced there is a bigger real estate company behind the nominal buyer.  For now, all remains conjecture.

99 Cents

12th Street Pathmark Auctioned Yesterday

According to the retail website Coupons in the News, the 12th Street Pathmark supermarket threatened by the A&P bankruptcy was one of a group of A&P-owned stores that was up for auction yesterday.  The remaining unsold stores will be auctioned today. Am hoping to hear more on this soon.

Earlier:
Pathmark to Close
Pathmark Updates

New at Fifth & 10th

There's a new store sign up at 463 Fifth, at 10th.  State of the Art Gallery is replacing the Boost Mobile store, which moved next door.  The website shown on the sign isn't up and running yet, so we can only guess at the nature of the business.  Children's art classes?  Picture framing?  We'll find out soon enough.  The LLC has a Borough Park address.

This is not much of a panorama, but the Bagel Factory bench is a good spot for elderly schmoozers to hold court.  It's a regular social scene, both here, and at the other Bagel Factory farther down the avenue.  Love it.

Far from Home

Brooklyn, 1939

Here's the map I mentioned the other day. It's in the 1939 WPA Guide to New York City, an indispensable book for anyone interested in city history.

Quite a different looking set of neighborhood boundaries then.  Windsor Terrace?  Kensington? Prospect Heights?  Carroll Gardens?  Nowhere to be seen.  Of course, time changes names and neighborhood limits. And they're all open to debate.  Really you live where you & your peer group think you live, more or less.  You make your neighborhood. Over on the Windsor Terrace-based Container Diaries, one Roll Call commenter writes that "Back then," in the 50s & 60s, "it wasn't Windsor Terrace. It was Park Slope," & another writes that "Farrell's is what makes Park Slope special." Clearly boundaries felt different then, but how do younger Windsor Terrace natives feel about them today?  Windsor Terrace isn't one of those recent neighborhood re-brandings, like Cobble Hill, or newer still, Greenwood Heights. The (smaller) Village of Windsor Terrace was incorporated back in 1851.  I am far too new a Brooklyn resident to see much of Windsor Terrace as Park Slope (though to me, the cut-off's hazy), but I'm long enough here to believe in a Slope that goes well beyond the expressway.  And talking of that expressway, was its construction, in the 50s and 60s, part of the process that changed the common conception of just where Park Slope and Windsor Terrace began & ended? Thanks again, Mr, Moses.

I'd be happy if Park Slope were either bigger or smaller.  If it were smaller, I wouldn't be in it - the South Slope part, that is - and that would be just fine by me.  Liberating, in fact!  Park Slope could be a more concentrated landmark brownstone nexus, with its boundaries shrinking to the south & west. Or, if it were bigger, and went all the way down to 39th, just as it's depicted on the WPA map, that would be OK too. How much more diverse & appealing a community it would be, and how much less snotty rarefied in connotation.  Dreams, merely dreams!