The Week That Was in Ft. Greene and Clinton Hill

The news was breaking nonstop last week, and Fort Greene Patch was there to cover it all.

The week began with our real estate columnist’s tour inside of a 19th century mansion on DeKalb Avenue, which has loads of throwback amenities like a working organ and powder rooms. Thinking about making a bid? The asking price is only $2 million. 

On Tuesday we reported a follow-up to last week’s exclusive that two vacant, NYCHA-owned townhouses would soon be going on the market. The housing authority also owns two other properties on the same block of Waverly Avenue that are occupied, but the residents there are stuck in a bitter catch-22. The city admits it doesn’t have the money to fix their dilapidated buildings, nor will it sell the properties to a new owner that could repair them — unless the current residents move out. Bureaucracy at its finest.

Hump day brought bad news for local cyclists: a proposed bike lane on Washington Avenue will not extend into Clinton Hill. The lane will only stretch from Eastern Parkway to Dean Street in Prospect Heights, linking up with the popular route into Downtown.

That evening we received a dispatch from our drinking columnist, the Secret Sipper. He’d discovered his new favorite watering hole: Mirrors on Grand. He said the bar evoked the Clinton Hill of yore without rejecting all the swift changes that have occurred over the last decade.

And lastly, we reported on the Red Apple supermarket finally coming to Myrtle Avenue and Ashland Place. Locals are hoping the grocery store, which is owned by the billionaire behind the Gristedes chain of supermarkets, will be affordable priced. No grocery store has been in that area of Fort Greene since 2007, when an Associated was bulldozed to make way for the building that will — at long last — house the grocery store this summer.