Waiting for the "Renaissance"
Text by Dexter Webb, photography by Vikram Sura


The brownstone houses on Fort Greene's chestnut tree-lined avenues are some of Brooklyn's hottest properties.

or the past 25 years, Laverne Cockrun has dreamed of owning one of the brownstones across the street from her apartment on Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

A mother of two and manager of a neighborhood fast-food restaurant, Cockrun lives in the Walt Whitman Houses, a 1,637-unit apartment building named after the legendary poet.

The building was built in 1944 along with the Raymond V. Ingersoll Houses two blocks away. Both lie within one of the main crime zones in Fort Greene, according to police statistics, a fact not lost on Cockrun.

"It could be better for us, a better environment," she says of the housing project. "We have to face drugs, guns, fights and cops’ harassment."

Recently, Cockrun’s dream of owning one of her neighborhood’s prized brownstones has been slowly slipping away because of the high property prices in the area.

Over the past five years, Fort Greene has seen a commercial and residential explosion, mostly the result of pressure on urban living space in Manhattan, says Rex Curry, associate director of the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development.

Between 1995 and 2000, the price of a Fort Greene brownstone increased from an average of $250,000 to $800,000, with some costing as much as $1 million, according to local real-estate agents.

Average rent prices have also soared from $500 for a studio apartment to around $900. A one-bedroom apartment once rented for around $750 now goes for between $1,200 and $1,500, real-estate agents say.

"Forty-five years ago, you could get [a brownstone] for a bit of nothing," recalls Rosalind Williams, president of Walt Whitman tenants association, who moved from Harlem to Fort Greene in 1963.

 




Waiting in the shadows: The Walt Whitman Houses on Myrtle Avenue, yards away from the prized brownstone district.





What is a brownstone?

A brownstone is a 19th Century style of architecture, named after the core building material used during construction. Depending upon the developer, the structure consisted of either pure brownstone or a mixture of brownstone, brick and limestone. The difference in mixing techniques accounts for the variation in color.