A Rehabilitation 20 Years in the Making, Clinton Hill Is Now Soaring

“I love this neighborhood,” said Rondo Moses, looking out his backbedroom window on the third floor of a building at 430 Clinton Ave. in Brooklyn. Beautiful brownstones line Vanderbilt Avenue in the foreground. The Williamsburgh Savings Bank, Brooklyn’s most famous landmark, towers in the distance. Mr. Moses lives in the Clinton Hill Historic District, renowned for its mid-19th-century mansions, row houses, and early 20thcentury apartment buildings. Clinton Hill is bordered on the east by the Fort Greene Historic District, which is anchored by Fort Greene Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Together, the two neighborhoods form one of the largest and loveliest historic sections of New York. They also now comprise two of the strongest housing markets in New York — an extraordinary change from 10 years ago, when apartments went begging. As an example, the renters living in Mr. Moses’s one-bedroom condo — which would now sell for around $425,000 — had refused to buy it for $38,000 in 1993.On a summer Sunday afternoon, the neighborhood is utterly quiet, which is important to Mr. Moses, a management consultant for the Palladium group, who often works at home. Yet a short walk away are excellent restaurants and stores on DeKalb Avenue and a useful service strip on Fulton. “I don’t have to go into Manhattan. I even get my hair cut here,” says Mr. Moses, a hip, young African-American, who has lived in renowned places, including Cambria Heights in Queens; Cambridge, Mass., when he was an undergraduate at Harvard, and Charlottesville, Va., when he was studying for his MBA. “I’ve been around, but this is about as good as it gets.”Indeed, the many couples, some with babies in tow, patronizing the open houses for recently renovated apartments on Clinton Avenue seem to agree. A 917-square-foot apartment with two bedrooms across the street from Mr. Moses just sold for $589,000. A couple considering a pretty, 1200-square-foot garden apartment priced at $785,000 mused that “$100,000 might be a lot of extra money to pay for a little green,” but it was still far cheaper than Brooklyn Heights.A professor of sociology at Long Island University’s downtown Brooklyn campus, Jan Rosenberg, attributes the area’s rebirth to “strong institutions, wonderful housing stock, and the downturn in crime — which is the most successful urban policy ever devised.” The institutions — LIU, Brooklyn Tech, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Pratt Institute, St. Joseph’s College — are indeed strong, and the housing is spectacular. But in 1990, the 88th precinct was a war zone, with 19 murders, 54 rapes, and 1,536 robberies. Today murder is down 95%, rape is down 87%, and robbery down 80%. As a result, says Ms. Rosenberg, “People are now willing to invest, and you see the results in renovated housing.”Indeed, Mr. Moses is eager to buy an adjacent unit at 430 Clinton, though he will have to pay far more than the $153,000 he paid for his own unit in 2001, when the 48-unit, six-story building went condo, after a troubled history of multiple owners and receiverships, two foreclosures, near abandonment, and eventual rescue by a determined group of investors.The investors were led by a lawyer, Marc Leavitt, who says that of his four development ventures, two were roaring successes, and two were utter failures.Though 430 Clinton was in terrible shape in 1982, lacking basic amenities like a boiler, it was partially occupied. To rehabilitate it, Mr. Leavitt’s investors had to work out an arrangement with the remaining tenants to move from apartment to apartment (“checker-boarding”) while they renovated units and restored systems. Essentially, the tenants paid no rent during renovation and very low rents subsequently, which became part of the problem when they were offered exceedingly low inside prices to buy their units. Only three of the eight original pre-1984 tenants, chose to buy. Camille Denson, a daughter of an original tenant, who bought her mother’s two-bedroom apartment for $42,000, called the neighborhood “a mini-Manhattan, but better.” Her husband, Rashidi, who grew up in neighboring Bedford Stuyvesant, said, “This neighborhood changed my life.” Of the tenants who refused to buy, Mr. Leavitt just shrugs, “It’s fine with me. I have their units to sell when they move on. Look, I’m grateful that our attempt to condo the building in the 1990s failed. Prices have tripled since then.”Still, the building’s tenement heritage is clear for any prospective buyer to see: The public spaces and hallways are institutional-looking, even grim. The walls are painted an easy-eyes green that clashes with the travertine marble floors. The staircases pass public windows that overlook a dispiriting public courtyard shared with the building next door. (Both buildings are “dumbbell” tenements, with internal air-shafts that met the requirement that all rooms had to have access to air.) A condo owner, Lorne Lieb, who is chair of the building’s Public Space Use Committee, said a survey of owners showed that creating personal storage for the tenants was the top priority, with renovation of the hallways a close second. “I knew that the building had just been converted from a rental when I moved in,” says Mr. Lieb, a documentary filmmaker. “But the public spaces were not offensive to me, though many of my neighbors definitely dislike the color and the style of the walls. Every day you walk by beautiful homes outside in Clinton Hill. Then, you only spend a few minutes in the hallways until you get to your apartment, which presumably you’ve made beautiful.”Mr. Leavitt argues that the rescue of 430 Clinton was one of three rehabilitation projects that turned Clinton Hill around. The other two were the neo-Gothic Cathedral Condominiums at 555 Washington Ave. and the brownstone conversions by architect Stephen Jacobs on Gates Avenue. The decision by the Diocese of Brooklyn in the mid-1980s to sell Cathedral Prep sent shock waves through the neighborhood. Developer Blannor Realty, which bought the property in 1985, hired architect John Gilles to convert the school into 54 apartments and lofts, keeping many external architectural details. The spectacular apartments were finished in 1987 and offered for sale at prices between $125,000 and $200,000, just as the stock market crash occurred. “We all lost our shirts,” muses Mr. Leavitt. “That building saved the neighborhood, even if we couldn’t save our investment.”

A Rehabilitation 20 Years in the Making, Clinton Hill Is Now Soaring

A Rehabilitation 20 Years in the Making, Clinton Hill Is Now Soaring

More from the New York Sun

Roni Ben-Hur’s Stylish Latin Jazz Entente

Finding the Altalena

The Rent Freeze Case Moves to Manhattan

‘60 Is the New 50:’ Rule Change Turns NFL Placekickers Into Long-Distance Bombers

Koenigsegg Brings its Race Car Back to Life

‘Operation Economic Outcast’: Bessent Aims At Iran But Plan Has Scant Details, Vague Deadline

Congresswoman Condemns Hasan Piker After He Says Jews ‘Singularly’ Supporting Israel Invite Violence, As Senate Candidate El-Sayed Backs Streamer’s Free Speech Rights

California Attorney General Calls Off Settlement Talks With Paramount as Hollywood Pressure Builds To Resolve Merger Lawsuit

More from the New York Sun

Roni Ben-Hur’s Stylish Latin Jazz Entente

Finding the Altalena

The Rent Freeze Case Moves to Manhattan

‘60 Is the New 50:’ Rule Change Turns NFL Placekickers Into Long-Distance Bombers

Koenigsegg Brings its Race Car Back to Life

‘Operation Economic Outcast’: Bessent Aims At Iran But Plan Has Scant Details, Vague Deadline

Congresswoman Condemns Hasan Piker After He Says Jews ‘Singularly’ Supporting Israel Invite Violence, As Senate Candidate El-Sayed Backs Streamer’s Free Speech Rights

California Attorney General Calls Off Settlement Talks With Paramount as Hollywood Pressure Builds To Resolve Merger Lawsuit