Role Reversal: People Getting Priced Out of Brooklyn, Settling for Manhattan

May 11, 2015 — We've been hearing for some time that Brooklyn is getting ridiculously expensive — Manhattan-levels of expensive. Just a month ago, Brickunderground reported that the price difference between Brooklyn and Manhattan is shrinking, while we remembered days of old, when people who couldn't afford to live in the Big City had to settle for the consolation prize: a decent apartment in Brooklyn. Well, it's starting. People in Brooklyn are getting priced out and moving to… Manhattan. Who'd have thunk it? The New York Times reported that "five years ago, Eric Kabakoff and Christina Lewandowski bought a one-bedroom in a new condominium in Gowanus, Brooklyn, with the idea of moving to a two-bedroom in the same building after a while." After being outbid on two apartments there, "the couple realized their $750,000 budget was not going to be enough." Gosh, that's not even an entire million. In a case of "go figure," they found places in their (rather ample to many of us) budget in Manhattan, and settled for their consolation prize: a two-bedroom co-op a block from Central Park in Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side. A block from the park. On the Upper East Side. Let that sink in, because when prices in Brooklyn get so high that a place a block from Central Park on the Upper East Side is a bargain, you know we're done for.

Photo by Rik Lee