Clinton Hill

Clinton Hill is a wealthy Brooklyn neighborhood that in recent years has attracted upper middle income single professionals and young families. Crime is very low, with many luxury apartment buildings being built and high end cafes/restaurants having moved into the neighborhood. The area is serviced by the C and G trains, with Barclays Center a ten minute walk away with over nine subway trains to get you anywhere throughout the city. Myrtle Avenue, Fulton Avenue and DeKalb Avenue has many quaint restaurants and bars. Lafayette Avenue is a big tree lined street, which the New York City marathon uses as its annual route.

Clinton HIll, ah, what a destination! With its grand, late 1900 brownstones and townhouses, and brilliant mansions on Clinton Avenue, this neighborhood is great. It is hip, but not a hipster mall in the same sense Williamsburg is. It has a strong sense of community without having the overbearing structure of Park Slope. It's close to, even bordering Bedford-Stuyvesant, but its overall feeling is much more different. If I could compare it to any Brooklyn neighborhood other than it's sister, Fort Greene, Boerum Hill would seem like the obvious choice.

Located in Central Brooklyn, Clinton Hill has been experiencing tremendous growth and change during the past few years. While the town was once known for being poor and run down, the residents of this lovely town have worked with the city to bring culture and businesses here to spark growth and attract more residents. Home to the Pratt Institute, Clinton Hill has a wide variety of housing options. There are buildings in almost every imaginable style and there are gorgeous mansions that add to the neighborhood's elegance. As a result of all of the improvements in the neighborhood, developers have been investing in Clinton Hill as well. New housing developments offer modern affordable housing. Residents have a lot of reasons for choosing to live in Clinton Hill. There are plenty of shops and restaurants on Myrtle Avenue, the town's main artery. There are numerous and diverse choices on other streets as well. A food co-op for residents has been planned and many residents work together on a community garden. There is a community organization that gives legal assistance to residents. That isn't to say that this is a perfect neighborhood; it still has quite a way to go. The town's public schools are barely mediocre and there are still a lot of robberies. The transportation options are inconvenient, making it a poor choice for people who have to commute to Manhattan every day.

This neighborhood has become very gentrified in the past few years, thanks in part to neighboring Pratt. The Brooklyn flea is in this neighborhood on Saturdays, and on weekends the area around Atlantic Ave is busy with shoppers and brunch goers. This neighborhood is much nicer in the areas that border Prospect Heights and Fort Greene - over by Bed-Stuy is not where I would want to be living or hanging out.

I checked out this neighborhood in my recent search for a new apartment and found that there were a lot of newly renovated apartments on slightly questionable blocks. These apartments tended to be overpriced - after all, this neighborhood is still being gentrified. While there are a lot of trendy restaurants opening up in Clinton Hill, the neighborhood still shows signs of its old wear-and-tear.

Of course, there are exceptions - real estate closer to Atlantic Ave, especially in the western portion of the neighborhood is much nicer and perhaps worth paying higher mortgages and rents. In addition to having prettier apartment buildings, the nicer part of Clinton Hill is lined with tall trees and close to some really cool places on Atlantic Ave.

Highlights of Clinton Hill proper include Urban Vintage, a coffee shop with a really unique atmosphere, and Pilar Cuban Eatery, an inexpensive cafe offering some real deal Cuban cuisine.

Clinton Hill is an extremely hospitable Brooklyn neighborhood. Places like Soda Bar offer brunch, and there are plenty of shops, restaurants and the like around to keep locals occupied.

Actual living space in the neighborhood seems to be of a higher standard than surrounding areas; I have a few friends who live down there and their apartments are every bit as spacious as a Brooklyn living space should be. (My Bushwick apartment, on the other hand, would fit nicely into a former LES tenement building.)

The neighborhood encompasses the Pratt Institute, so there are a lot of students in the area. But the rents are what you would expect from such picturesque neighborhood - not very low, yet still affordable.