Brooklyn: Overdevelopment Leaves Hundreds Of Apartments Vacant

The Real Deal discusses stalled development in Williamsburg. For the record, I'm not trying to slam Williamsburg. I haven't been out there in the last few years, but we seriously considered it in both the late '90s and the early '00s and I liked it then.

http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/a-look-at-folding-construction-projects-in-williamsburg

Obviously much better than Long Island City, though the subway is a little hard to reach in spots. But a real East Village East.

Now on the cheap.

steve, it did feel a lot like the East Village, which is why i liked it. the family wouldn't let us move out there now, but anyone want to chime in with how the recent development has changed the neighborhood? much of it was on the waterfront, and that wouldn't affect directly the areas i had been interested in, but has it turned from East Villagey to Lower East Sidey?

I think with the right balance it could turn into a Hells Kitchen, sans the transport & theaters mais avec du waterfront. It seems like the place where people would sprinkle bad high-school French into their posh boarding school English.

I'd rather keep the focus on steve's original point--that there was massive overdevelopment in parts of Brooklyn and now it's hard (or impossible) to unload those units.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: any building in Brooklyn that has a doorman = idiotic (see, e.g., Elan Park Slope).

aboutready, there are always pros and cons obviously, but I think the development (specifically in Williamsburg anyway) has been good for the neighborhood. We're in that weird awkward-teenager phase at this point, I'd say, where it's pretty clear what the area will be, but we're sorting out the kinks in a very public fashion. For the most part, newcomers seem to genuinely care about the nabe and are conscientious about doing "too-much too-soon." It's generally a reasonably clean neighborhood, but for the early risers on weekends, cleaning up around the main bar areas is still playing catch-up (they do get to it eventually, thankfully). But the mix of people who actually live here is pretty great in my experience - the weekend visitors make it seem a bit younger than it actually is, for better or worse. It still very much feels like the East Village to me (in my opinion, a good thing). I sincerely hope it doesn't turn into Ludlow St. And for the record, though the waterfront development gets much of the press, that's not really where most of the change has taken place. I think Kent Ave is still a few years away from being an actual "destination."

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: any building in Brooklyn that has a doorman = idiotic (see, e.g., Elan Park Slope)."

Amen! Unfortunately, I don't see it going away completely.

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: any building in Brooklyn that has a doorman = idiotic (see, e.g., Elan Park Slope)."

why?