The tree came down in the early afternoon on Tuesday. "It did some damage to the two houses across the street. There were many other trees and limbs down in the neighborhood, some cars crushed, but that was the biggest I saw," Mr. Lamb writes.

Jacob Vogelman and Jessie Streich-Kest.

Tragedy struck last night in the Ditmas Park section of Brooklyn, as the daughter of a prominent local activist and her friend were crushed by a fallen tree and killed.

The female victim was Jessie Streich-Kest, the daughter of Jon Kest, executive director for New York Communities for Change, according to a spokesman for the family. Council Member Mathieu Eugene identified the male victim as Jacob Vogelman of First Street in Brooklyn.

Neighborhood residents said the victims were out last night walking a dog when a tree was uprooted from the sidewalk and trapped the pair beneath its weight. They were discovered on Ditmas Avenue near East 18th Street early this morning.

"Jessie was an amazing young woman who was known and loved by many NYCC members, staff and allies," said Jonathan Westin, the spokesman for the Kest family, in an emailed statement. "Jessie loved life and was deeply devoted to social justice."

Ms. Streich-Kest, 24, was a teacher at Bushwick High School for Social Justice, the spokesman said. She attended Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn, and belonged to Facebook networks for the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University and New York University. She had previously done activist work with New Yorkers for Clean, Livable & Safe Streets, and engaged in protests against horse-drawn carriages.

Mr. Vogelman, a friend of Ms. Streich-Kest from middle school, graduated from SUNY Buffalo with a degree in theater design, according to his LinkedIn page, and was currently studying at Brooklyn College. According to the Ditmas Park Corner, he attended Goldstein High School near Manhattan Beach.

Pat Atia, who lives across Ditmas Avenue from the scene of the accident, told The Observer that the worst of Hurricane Sandy lashed Ditmas Park yesterday between the hours of 8 and 9:30 p.m., when she could hear trees whipping in the wind. "I knew something was going to give," said Ms. Atia, who had a large tree felled on her lawn. "If I would have known someone was out there, I would have done something," she said.

A New York Police Department spokeswoman confirmed that a male and female were found dead at the Ditmas Park location, but wouldn't confirm the names of the deceased until the victim's families were notified. There have been 12 storm-related deaths in New York City, the spokeswoman said.

The Ditmas Park Corner reported that the dog, Max, a white pit bull mix, was taken to an emergency veterinary hospital.

The place where a seven-bedroom Victorian wonder would run you under $100,000. Now they're all well over a million, at least the nice ones, but it's still bliss.

SLIDESHOW: This Is What Ditmas Park Is All About. >>

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

Indeed, Ditmas Park, just across the park from Park Slope, feels more like an upstate suburb than a neighborhood off the Q-train. Particularly looking out from a spacious and airy one-bedroom apartment on the market for $259,000, it can seem ripped from a broker's fantasy.

But Ms. Augustin said it can be difficult luring clients to the neighborhood with a reputation that ranges from rough to obscure. She’s sold to some French clients as well as to new arrivals from California, but “more people should come,” she said.

On Sunday, there were few buyers exploring the neighborhood, which in addition to the famed Victorian mansions features bright one- and two-bedroom apartments in sensible co-op buildings that are luring young families with sub-$300,000 prices.

Well, most of the time. A young couple with a stroller sped by on their way to the train. They’d just been to an open house, where the Victorian mansion was “burned out,” said the husband.

“Stuff was strewn everywhere,” his wife added. “We just turned around and left.”

At one time, Ditmas was “’sketchy,’ as they say,” says broker Jan Rosenberg, who moved to the neighborhood 25 years ago when crime was bad.  Then, she said, it turned into a NORK. A what? A “naturally occurring retirement community,” she explained.

But, today, Ditmas has become the place where 30-something hipsters go to dye their hair back to a normal color and have a couple of kids along the way.

The one-bedroom apartment for $265,000 that Ms. Rosenberg was showing, also at 415 Argyle Road, had a young couple and a single woman come by to look.

Ms. Rosenberg’s friend, Kristina “Stina” Hamlin, a young woman with loose curls, a flowing sundress, tattoos and a young toddler, who lives in the area, also came by. “It’s a pocket of bliss,” said Ms. Hamilton, who moved from Los Angeles and works as a real estate agent. She heard about the neighborhood through friends and is currently renting in the area. “There are lots of families,” she said.

At 2022 Beverly Road, there’s even a sleek, newly renovated pre-war building, brightly anticipating the changing neighborhood. But during Sunday’s open house, the broker was not around.

At an L-shaped studio at 1616 East 18^th Street, painted in a pale shade of eggplant, Minta John said it had been quiet for a few months. "People are waiting longer to buy," she said.

But Ms. John insisted they don't know what they're missing. “It doesn’t even feel like you’re in Brooklyn,” she said.

lkusisto@observer.com 

-Matthew Schuerman

The neighborhood, which is on the other side from Manhattan of every other Brooklyn neighborhood your friends live in except Ditmas Park, won the Curbed Cup in a landslide, beating out trendy Dumbo and Manhattan's own Lower East Side.

But the author admits that some local zealots may have piled on to give the neighborhood its 37 percent share of the 400-some-odd votes.

And there's plenty of internecine Brooklyn mudslinging in the comments.

Not making the top four (only they are itemized), even among Curbed's rather sophisticated readership, are neighborhoods like Nolita, Williamsburg, Chelsea, and last year's beauty queen, Fort Greene.

- Tom McGeveran

The Press, if you've read it in the last year or two, has been modeling itself after a demented, occasionally brilliant, Moscow weekly called the eXile; the nihilism didn't work as well in this somewhat better-functioning democracy, and the paper wound up being totally irrelevant, except when it offended Anthony Weiner.

Given the quotes in today's story, the new regime seems to be something of a Russ Smith restoration. Siegel, a Brooklyn native and holder of the world's last, thickest Brooklyn accent, ran the Sun's editorial page for a while and is the founder of the eccentric, interesting New Partisan Web site. He's smart and serious, and despite being to the right of most New York political types, knows his way around city politics, being the son and collaborator of Giuliani analyst Fred.

Harry also holds the distinction, as I recall, of forcing the generally anti-regulatory Sun into strict enforcement of the smokefree workplace rules.