Living In | Vinegar Hill: The Little Town That Prices (Almost) Forgot

THE Brooklyn waterfront, once upon a time, was seen as a place where artists and artisans lived and worked, basking in cheap rents, old architecture and a sweet sense of isolation. But lately that reality has changed. Market-rate condominium towers and luxury conversions dot the Kings County coastline, their presence telegraphing a need for a higher income bracket.

 

Yet in Vinegar Hill, a hamlet within New York City if there ever was one, the old ambience is mostly intact. Nudged into a corner of the waterfront that seems, at least in part, forgotten by time, the place is a few blocks long and a few wide. Despite its handful of new developments, it still feels as secluded and unpretentious as in decades past.

 

"The longer you stay in Vinegar Hill, the harder it is not to know your neighbors," said Nicholas Evans-Cato, a longtime worker and renter in the area. "If you see someone who hasn't moved their car for alternate-side-of-the-street parking, you generally know who it is and you ring their doorbell."

 

Many locals are, in essence, living above the store. Mr. Evans-Cato, an artist, rents an apartment upstairs from his studio on Hudson Avenue, which he has operated since 1995, and a carpenter friend does the same. A friend who makes furniture lives a short walk from his own work space, as does Adam Meshberg, an architect and president of the local neighborhood association. People like to stick around, it seems, and others are noticing.

 

"Up to the mid-'90s," Mr. Meshberg said, "rents were low, and it was very, very, very quiet. Now we're in 2010, and it's coming on the radar."

 

For the most part, quiet still reigns along the cobblestone streets, save for trucks from the massive Con Edison plant on the waterfront or from the Damascus Bakery, which episodically infuses the area with the singular aroma of baking pita. These are reminders that industry still has a presence, as it did back when the neighborhood was a bedroom community for workers at the Navy Yard next door and in Dumbo's factories and warehouses.

 

Of all the issues raised by the waterfront area's increasing popularity, it is the truck traffic that takes precedence - especially its effects on the cobblestones, said Robert Perris, the district manager of the local Community Board 2. "It shows how much people are invested in the architectural character of the neighborhood," he said, "as well as how sort of sleepy it is."

 

In the last year or so, the Vinegar Hill House on Hudson Avenue, a restaurant that opened in late 2008, has focused a spotlight on the neighborhood. The last place to eat on the street was a diner that closed in the 1970s, Mr. Evans-Cato said. The restaurant's fare is creative and seasonal - right now, braised wild boar shank and pumpkin ravioli are on offer - and the owners, Sam Buffa and Jean Adamson, are both locals. In addition to approving critics, the place has garnered its share of regulars, happy for a nearby place to dine well.

 

"We figured that we would be busy enough, but we didn't expect this," said Mr. Buffa, who also lives above his business, having vacated a carriage house on the property to make room for storage and office space. "We get people who drive from the Upper West Side. I can't tell you how many times people just had no clue this was here."

 

WHAT YOU'LL FIND

 

The neighborhood was named not for any unusual wellspring of vinegar but for a 1798 battle of the Irish Rebellion (one historical theory has it that the name was chosen to attract Irish immigrants). It takes up all of 9 or 10 blocks, and residents most likely number no more than a few hundred.

 

They have something of a love-hate relationship with their neighbors in Dumbo, appreciating the many services and stores now ensconced next door, but disturbed by increasing traffic, by the shadows of new condo towers and, it must be said, by unwelcome evidence that Dumboites are walking their dogs in Vinegar Hill.

 

"As Dumbo changes, we change," said Mr. Meshberg, the neighborhood association head. "The more people moving into Dumbo, the more parking gets screwed up over here."

 

Hudson Avenue is the area's focal point, even with just the one public establishment in the Vinegar Hill House. The road is lined with pre-Civil War row houses. Around the corner on Evans Street, visitors encounter an even older structure: the Commandant's Mansion, an 1806 estate overlooking the East River from behind an imposing gate. (It remains inhabited today, actually, though not by a commandant.)

 

Moving west from Hudson Avenue toward Dumbo, sturdy-looking old town houses, with fine examples on both Gold and Front Streets, are interspersed with the occasional warehouse or factory. Vinegar Hill's new market-rate condo developments include one at 100 Gold Street, next door to the Dorje Ling Buddhist Center, with its bright yellow facade. And on York Street, across from the towers of a public project called the Farragut Houses, further housing construction is in its early stages.

 

Vinegar Hill may soon have stores to call its own, as the city is seeking a developer for a retail complex in the Navy Yard. The businesses would take the place of Admiral's Row, a much-loved but decrepit group of row houses; many preservation groups have cried foul.

 

WHAT YOU'LL PAY

 

Buyers expecting Dumbo-like prices may be pleasantly surprised; values generally soften as one heads east from the Manhattan Bridge and south toward the Farragut Houses. A $445,000 studio in Vinegar Hill, for example, might go for $550,000 at the J Condominium a few blocks away in Dumbo, said M. Monica Novo, a senior vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman.

 

Prices have come down since 2006 and 2007, but percentages are hard to calculate because of the low inventory of properties. Town houses don't often come on the market, but when they do they are significantly more affordable than comparable properties in nearby Brooklyn Heights or Fort Greene. Often, they also need work; prices start at about $1.1 million but can reach $2 million for a house in pristine shape, according to Steven Gerber, a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group.

 

"It's not going to be a Brooklyn Heights number" in price, Mr. Gerber said, "but if it does have a view and it's nicely done on the inside, that's not uncommon."

 

In terms of new and conversion properties that have sprung up, prices per square foot are staying in the $600 and $700 range, according to David Behin, a partner at the Developers Group. At 100 Gold Street, a 10-unit development, three units are now in contract, and prices for studios, one- and two-bedrooms range from $445,000 to $885,000.

 

Renters can opt for market-rate buildings like 99 Gold Street, where the Core Group Marketing is listing units from studios to two-bedrooms for $2,650 to $4,900 a month. Older units in town houses are seldom available. When they are, said Mr. Evans-Cato, a longtime renter, one-bedroom units start between $1,000 and $1,500.

 

THE SCHOOLS

 

Vinegar Hill is home to one school, Public School 307 on York Street. In 2009, 61.2 percent of third, fourth and fifth graders met standards in English, 78.3 percent in mathematics.

 

Junior high students can be zoned for the Dr. Susan S. McKinney Secondary School of the Arts, on Park Avenue in the upper part of Fort Greene near the Navy Yard. In 2009, 62.9 percent of students met standards in math, 54.4 percent in English.

 

One high school nearby is the Freedom Academy, on Nassau Street close to the Manhattan Bridge, where SAT averages last year were 413 in reading, 388 in math and 408 in writing, versus 480, 500 and 470 statewide.

 

WHAT TO DO

 

Outside of warm evenings at the Vinegar Hill House and community meetings of the neighborhood group, the neighborhood seems almost purposefully quiet. But busier areas aren't far away. Dumbo, Brooklyn Heights and Fort Greene all offer plenty of shopping and dining. The growing green spaces of Brooklyn Bridge Park are nearby, and a stroll across one of the bridges is always an option.

 

THE COMMUTE

 

Most residences in the neighborhood are no more than a 10-minute walk from the York Street subway station, the first stop into Brooklyn on the F line. The trip to Midtown takes 15 to 20 minutes.

 

THE HISTORY

 

Part of the original Dutch town of Breuckelen, Vinegar Hill was farmland until its purchase in 1784 by the Sands brothers, merchants and traders for whom a local street is named. They called the area Olympia, hoping to attract summer visitors from Manhattan; it was later known as part of Irishtown. The present name wasn't in the picture until the land was bought by John Jackson, a shipbuilder, who sold part of it to the federal government for use as a navy yard. Vinegar Hill soon grew into a small village of laborers and those who catered to them. (In 1822, nearly a quarter of all residents listed their occupations as tavern proprietors.)

 

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Copyright c 2010 The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission.  Photos should be credited as follows: Hiroko Masuike /The New York Times.