By Kim Velsey 5/15 4:14pm

Brooklyn Vs. Queens

We hear a lot of people are thinking about moving there. (flickr, whiskeygonebad)

Brownstoner Queen’s New Editor Is Not Moving To Queens, But He’s Thinking About It

A few weeks ago, word got out that Brownstoner, the real estate blog that has not only chronicled, but embodied so many of the things that have transformed Brooklyn in the last decade (founder Jonathan Butler also started Brooklyn Flea and Smorgasburg), would be launching a new site: Brownstoner Queens.

“Certainly from the real estate market’s perspective, momentum has been building,” Mr. Butler told the Daily News when Brownstoner announced the new site. “As Brooklyn becomes more out of reach, more and more people will be looking at Queens.”

But how, exactly, would the site’s super Brooklyn-y ethos translate to Queens? (A colleague quipped that it should be called vinylsider.) When we learned that Roland Li, who has written for this paper’s pink pages and The Wall Street Journal, would be editing the site, we called him up to chat about his plans for Brownstoner Queens and the borough of Queens versus the borough of Kings. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/05/12 10:42am

The Mysteries of Brooklyn

So long, dear friend. (Crown Heights North/Flickr)

Goodbye Montrose Morris, Brooklyn Will Not Be the Same Without You

There was a time when the comments on Brownstoner approached those of the Brooklyn turf wars of yore. New York magazine even wrote an entire feature about it.

But lovely surprises were buried in there, and one blossomed into a beauty to rival the entire Brownstoner enterprise (all respect to the blog itself). That would be the thoughtful work of Montrose Morris, an anonymous longtime resident of Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights who knew the neighborhoods, their history and architecture, better than just about anybody.

Regular columns ensued, and they will continue. But they will not be the same. Montrose Morris is leaving Brooklyn. Read More

By Kim Velsey 4/05/12 11:40am

The Mysteries of Brooklyn

It's Not a Brownstone, but... (Brownstoner

Mr. Brownstoner’s Crown Heights Creative Hub is But the First of Goldman Sach’s Investments in the Hood

Over the years, Jonathan Butler has covered countless Brooklyn real estate deals and developments—and by extension, the delights and absurdities of living in the borough—for his blog Brownstoner.

Now, he can finally write about his own. Mr. Butler and his partners have paid $11 million for a former Studebaker Service Station on Dean Street in Crown Heights. They plan to convert the 155,000 square-feet of space into a commercial mixed-use development that will house artists and assorted creative types as well as a food hall—a $30 million project, to which Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group will contribute $25.5 million. BFC Partners, the developer behind Toren, is also involved in the deal, which was first written about in The Journal and then, of course blogged about by Mr. Butler on Brownstoner.

A promising first step—bringing Selldorf Architects on board to design the space, which should be interesting given Selldorf’s success with high/low projects in the past: Manhattan galleries and penthouses, a renovation of the Plaza’s famed Oak Room and designing a Brooklyn recycling plant. Read More