Apparently Brooklyn needn't always push itself to be something else, something conscious and anxious, something pointed toward Manhattan.... Brooklyn might sometimes also be pleased, as here on Flatbush, to be its grubby, enduring self.
I used to live in Pillgwenlly, and there was this old Italian pizzeria that used to be there with a really amazing character who ran it.
We can build new housing while preserving the quality and character of adjacent residential districts and ensuring infill development strengthens the surrounding neighborhood.
Where I'm staying, near Lafayette Street, Bowery, and Houston, you get different people with different spirits, and that's what I like.
My first impression of Beverly Hills was that it had a landscape of small houses built by famous architects, so I didn't want to make a big block or sculpture here; I wanted to make a community rooted to the place.
I lived in Park Slope, which is probably one of the most homogenized areas of Brooklyn. No offense to Park Slope.
Both my father and I remodeled our homes but were quite careful about preserving the history and unique character of the community.
The wrong side of the tracks is livelier.
It's such a great city, visually. You can't get that kind of look in Canada that you can get in Boston: the old-brick historical buildings, the winding streets, the old but funky neighborhoods like Southie and Somerville. You can't get that elsewhere. It's a very unique place in that way.
No offense to Bushwick, where all my neighbors greeted me on the street and there is a growing arts community and a curious beauty to its industrial zone, but Bushwick is no Williamsburg, even if the real estate agents would have you believe it is.
I don't look at what people do with their homes in terms of money, but the social and personal value of what they're trying to do and achieve.
A small house must depend on its grouping with other houses for its beauty, and for the preservation of light air and the maximum of surrounding open space.
