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Brooklyn in the Year 2000:Beauty Due to Brownstone RevivalBY PETER D. SALINSInformal predictions of New York City%u2019s future, most of them pessimistic, and many of them wrong, are staples of the media and cocktail party chatter. What most such forecasts lack are a sense of comprehensiveness and a concern with the spatial or physical arrangements of the city. We read about changes in crime rates, population, racial distribution, rising taxes, housing, the economy, family income and myriad other variables, but few analysts-professional or not-have tried to add it all up, or tried to tell us what the city will look and feel like as a result of all these changes.On the whole, this will be an optimistic picture of the city%u2019s future. While the city is bound to undergo further significant changes in its ethnic and racial makeup, in my opinion, these changes will in no way unfavorably affect New York%u2019s , income or class structure.Slums in certain parts of the city will grow but will be offset 1 by the architectural restoration r and new construction which will > flourish in other neighborhoods. In sum, while the face of New York may change a great deal over the next three ( ' decades, most of this change will benefit the city%u2019s once and future residents.One of the most interesting developments of the last decade to affect the future of New York City and other older northeastern cities is the so-called %u201c brownstone revival.%u2019%u2019 In their search for space and elegance at affordable prices near the center of the metropolitan area, more and more young, urban, upper-middle-class fam ilies have turned to the large and often neglected stock of nineteenth-century townhouses that are usually located within a five-mile radius of the central business district.The market for %u201c brownstones%u2019 %u2019 (a term commonly used to refer to attached, formerly single-family, masonry townhouses of late nineteenthcentury vintage, regardless of their surface material) has its locus in a very specific subsector of the m etropolitan housing market, namely young families, usually with children, who have outgrown their apartments but too %u201c sophisticated%u201d to settle for the singlefamily house in the suburbs. Often the decision to buy a brownstone also involves a decision to renovate or restore a structure that in spite of its intrinsic charm is either deteriorated or architecturally maimed. Both the income required to purchase and renovate a hundred-year-old townhouse, and the particular taste in living that finds thehmumstnno v*/gy n f | if a attractive restricts the market toupper-middle-income professionals. These considerations suggest that the demand for brownstones is somewhat esoteric but nevertheless it is growing at a more rapid rate than most other sectors of the metropolitan housing market inasmuch as affluent young professional fam ilies are a %u201c growth%u201d sector of the metropolitan population.In the New York metropolitanof pioneering families pick up badly deteriorated structures in undersirable neighborhoods at low prices; (b %u201c speculation%u201d when urban real estate brokers get wind of and exploit the local renaissance, driving up prices as the demand for the area increases dramatically) (c %u201c certification%u201d when the New York C ity Landmarks Commission designates a neighborhood as a %u201c historic%u201d landmark; and, (dof that borough%u2019s revival movement, and the revival timetable for each other area in terms of the %u201c cycle%u201d will be largely a function of its distance from these two neighborhoods. Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope are themselves in the %u201c consolidation%u201d phase and will see little further alteration in population or appearance. Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill are toward the end of theirarea the neighborhoods that are likely candidates for the brownstone revival are to be found in profusion only in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Some of these areas have always been fashionable (for example, the Upper East Side, Greenwich Village, Murray Hill, Brooklyn Heights) and therefore will continue to be maintained but need not be %u201c revived.%u201d The future expansion of restored brownstone neighborhoods is therefore going to be in areas that are, or have been until recently, minority-occupied slums. Typically neighborhoods afflicted by the brownstone revival go through a cycle of: *a 1 %u2018diocovery%u201d during which a number%u201c consolidation%u201d as the rate of acquisition and restoration gradually abates until nearly the entire local housing stock fits at least marginally into the architectural spirit of the area. Needless to say, this process entails the displacement of the indigenous inhabitants of the neighborhoods affected. The pace at wmcn areas move through the cycle is determined to a large extent by the ethnic and class complexion of the native populations and the ease with which they can be displaced.The original nuclei of the brownstone revival in BrooklynRrnnWIv/n M oinhtc anri Park w w . j .. . %u2022 ~ - 0 . %u2022,%u2014 %u2014 %u2022%u2014 %u2022 %u2014 %u2022 *Slope. These are the epicenters%u201c speculation%u201d periods, having been certified as landmarks a few years ago. They should be well consolidated as completely revived neighborhoods by the end of the decade. Carroll Gardens and Fort G reeneClinton Hill having been %u201c discovered%u201d most recently-shouid reach their %u201c consolidation\stage ioefore i99u. SeuiuruStuyvesant and the townhouse area of Williamsburgh have barely been %u201c discovered,\even though the former area already has been given landmarks designation.The speed at which BedfordStuyvesant is absorbed by the brownstone revival is definitely being affected by its position inthe heart of the Central Brooklyn ghetto, and it can be expected to reach its consolidation phase probably no earlier than the end of the century. While Bedford-Stuyvesant, like all other Brooklyn brownstone areas, will see its present residents displaced by more affluent newcomers, the racial composition of the area will not be affected significantly, Bedford-Stuyvesant, like West Harlem in Manhattan, w ill be increasingly occupied by affluent black counterparts to white families that have fueled the brownstone revival elsewhere.The consequence of the brownstone revival for Brooklyn is especially significant. Because much of the west central portion of the borough is dominated by brownstone neighborhoods, by the end of the century Brooklyn will be home to the most extensive collection of restored nineteenth-century townhouses in the United States, outshining Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and New Orleans. The 4characteristics of the population of these neighborhoods will provide an anchor of affluence, status and general stability for Brooklyn, insuring it a certain via b ility regardless of what happens in other parts of the borough.Brooklyn will on balance, be looking a lot handsomer. The continuation of the brownstone reviv'd alluded to earlier in Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Carro'i Gardens, Park Slope, Fort G:eene, Bedford-Stuyvesant . ,d parts of Williamsburg will make of west central Brooklyn, the largest district of picturesque nineteenth century housing in the country.DowntownBrooklyn will undergo at least a physical renaissance. Its greatly reduced role as a retail center will be more than offset by an expansion of public office activity and its university complex (New York Polytechnic,Long Island University, Brooklyn College, St. Johns, New York City Community College and, perhaps ultimately, Baruch College). Prim arily through public sector in tervention, most of this activity will be taking place in new structures giving a fresh and wholesome face to Fulton Street and Flatbush Avenue from the Manhattan Bridge to Grand Army Plaza.Peter D. Salim Is Chairmanof the Department of UrbanAffairs of Hunter College ofthe City University of NewYork. This article Is excerpted from Salln's article, %u201cNewYork in the Year 2,000%u201d thatappeared in %u201c New YorkAffairs,%u201d Vol. 1, No. 4,c a 1 t v t a UtplUljH) 17/t,1974, PHOENIX, Page