The NY Times reports: Jacob Goldstein, the longtime chairman of Community Board 9 and the unofficial mayor of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was driving his little red Ford Contour through the neighborhood the other day, honking at acquaintances. Several times on every block, he braked and gestured at a newly risen, salmon-colored apartment building, or a plywood fence protecting a construction site.?This community?s exploding,? Mr. Goldstein, who is Hasidic, said with satisfaction. ?The young people are having kids. My kids are having kids. They need places to live.?
Over the past two years, community expansion has fueled a building boom: a spate of new condominium buildings, almost all of them aimed at Orthodox buyers.
Although there are no precise figures on the number of new buildings, a spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings said that last year the agency issued more than five times as many permits for new construction in Community District 9 as it had five years ago. (Citywide, the 2002 figure was 3 percent higher.)
J. J. Katz, the principal broker at Heights Properties, a local real estate brokerage, said he knew of about 50 new buildings aimed at Orthodox buyers. ?Even two years ago,? he said, ?there was only one building project going on at a time.?
(Source: NY Times)
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4 Responses
bli ayin horah
Kudos to the developers.These new developements are in accordence with the rebbes wishes not to abandon crown heights to the natives.
Additionaly, since every town in the world already has a shliach of the rebbe, the rest of chabad folks need a place to live. Where better than crown heights?
kein yirbu.if one looks closely at neighborhoods that harbor yeshivos and beth yaakov’s you will see expansion in terms of housing. they are inter-related.williamsburgh,far-rockaway,5-towns, monsey, monroe,crown hieghts, queens(in a broad scale)can measure their relative success to the amount of jewish religious schools in the neighborhood.
kain ayin hara, one practical result of a frum way of life is that we (the frum world, regardless of divisions) will be the majority of Klal Yisroel again in a matter of decades.
Now if only Moshiach would come…