MSO OR BROOKLYN WEST
That article was ridiculous fluff. It could have been written by the agents. How about some real numbers. Are they looking for single family homes? The new apartments? Where else are they looking?
This is nothing new.
Yes, these are just real estate ads disguised as "news" articles. To be honest, when we were leaving Brooklyn, I would say only about a quarter of people we spoke to had even heard of Maplewood (no one knew South Orange), and that was usually because a friend lived there or had moved there. Most people we knew thought Brooklyn the center of the earth, and would never have dreamt of leaving. Among those who did leave or wanted to, it was always Montclair, Summit or here, primarily because they all have some sort of downtown, and are close by train to NYC.
The silliest part is how inaccurate it is. Maplewood is nothing like Brooklyn. People move here from Brooklyn because they don't want to live in Brooklyn anymore. Anyone who moves to Maplewood looking for a "Brooklyn lifestyle" (whatever that is) will be very disappointed. This didn't initially bug me, but now that it seems to be catching on, at least somewhat, it's starting to get more irksome. And I used to live in Brooklyn.
There's been a pipeline of families moving to Maplewood from Brooklyn since the late 1990's. The hype was the same then as it is now.
We made the move from Brooklyn to Maplewood in 1998. The first we heard of Maplewood was from a similar article. At that time, such articles were often "planted" by the Community Coalition on Race
imonlysleeping said:
The silliest part is how inaccurate it is. Maplewood is nothing like Brooklyn. People move here from Brooklyn because they don't want to live in Brooklyn anymore. Anyone who moves to Maplewood looking for a "Brooklyn lifestyle" (whatever that is) will be very disappointed. This didn't initially bug me, but now that it seems to be catching on, at least somewhat, it's starting to get more irksome. And I used to live in Brooklyn.
Agree. One of the reasons we left Brooklyn is because we no longer wanted to deal with Brooklyn--living in a cramped apartment--as "historical" as it was--people shouting outside of our window at three in the morning, navigating a school system where your options where a charter run by some banker or a severely underfunded public school, and paying exorbitant prices for everything from food to electricity to rent.
The exodus started before then as we came from Park Slope in 1990! (for many reasons relx just mentioned) We looked at so many towns - usually ones that someone from work lived in - but they all started with the letter M. "Honey, let's go look at houses in one of those "M" towns!" (Montclair, Maplewood, Morristown, Millburn, Madison, Mendham, Mountainside.... any way, glad to be in Maplewood all these years 
We used to live in Jackson Heights, where the most successful local realtor came up with "Jack Heights" as a mascot, and some inane allusion to Park Slope (something like 'more park, less slope' - ridiculous because we had very little park). I don't know how well it worked to convince anyone of any similarity
The Community Coalition on Race used to take direct credit for helping boost the home prices during the boom in the late 90's and early 00's. They stopped taking credit once the market crashed.
mjh said:
There's been a pipeline of families moving to Maplewood from Brooklyn since the late 1990's. The hype was the same then as it is now.
We made the move from Brooklyn to Maplewood in 1998. The first we heard of Maplewood was from a similar article. At that time, such articles were often "planted" by the Community Coalition on Race
yahooyahoo said:
The Community Coalition on Race used to take direct credit for helping boost the home prices during the boom in the late 90's and early 00's. They stopped taking credit once the market crashed.
mjh said:
There's been a pipeline of families moving to Maplewood from Brooklyn since the late 1990's. The hype was the same then as it is now.
We made the move from Brooklyn to Maplewood in 1998. The first we heard of Maplewood was from a similar article. At that time, such articles were often "planted" by the Community Coalition on Race
Frankly, they DID help the housing market at that time in M/SO.
And the market crash had nothing to do with them, so I don't see why they would take credit for it.
hankzona said:
Its somewhere between silly and stupid.
I disagree. It' somewhere between amusing and ridiculous.
One of the houses that ended up on the Brooklyn West bus tour is just down the street from us. It was heavily renovated (and thus looks goods) but was also outrageously priced. It's now 'Under Contract' and was only on the market for two weeks. One has to presume it us under contract for something close to the outrageous asking price, so I guess this strategy is working.
When we were looking, we did notice the large amount of people on Open House sheets that had Brooklyn listed as their current address. It was almost a turn-off because we had been living in Washington Heights (in the Hudson Heights sub-neighborhood, aka 'Suburban Manhattan' and part of the attraction of being there was that it was NOT Brooklyn!
The market was helped more by outside factors such as the midtown direct, the overall housing market, low mortgage rates. My point was that they were more than happy to take credit when times were good.
mjh said:
yahooyahoo said:Frankly, they DID help the housing market at that time in M/SO.
The Community Coalition on Race used to take direct credit for helping boost the home prices during the boom in the late 90's and early 00's. They stopped taking credit once the market crashed.
mjh said:
There's been a pipeline of families moving to Maplewood from Brooklyn since the late 1990's. The hype was the same then as it is now.
We made the move from Brooklyn to Maplewood in 1998. The first we heard of Maplewood was from a similar article. At that time, such articles were often "planted" by the Community Coalition on Race
And the market crash had nothing to do with them, so I don't see why they would take credit for it.
There have been a few on MOL who moved from Brooklyn to Maplewood or South Orange hoping to have a Brooklynesque kind of life and were disappointed and move back. Better to move to one of the towns if that's what you want.
So, in the author's view, after people "migrate" from Brooklyn to Maplewood or South Orange, where do they go next, a few years later? (Dumb question, I know.)
There was a couple that we knew through friends who moved here in 2003 from Brooklyn. They were the reason we heard about Maplewood, so we started looking and moved out here in 2004. Within 9 months they had encountered a few incidents - I believe the xenon lights were stolen from their car one night and there was an attempted break-in - and they moved back to Brooklyn saying it was safer. So yeah, it does happen.
Where in MW did they live?
ridski said:
There was a couple that we knew through friends who moved here in 2003 from Brooklyn. They were the reason we heard about Maplewood, so we started looking and moved out here in 2004. Within 9 months they had encountered a few incidents - I believe the xenon lights were stolen from their car one night and there was an attempted break-in - and they moved back to Brooklyn saying it was safer. So yeah, it does happen.
Before I became aware of the "Brooklyn West" syndrome, friends of mine from Brooklyn asked me to help them look for a nice town to live in NJ. I selfishly told them Maplewood because it would have been nice to have someone I was actually friends with live here. Turns out they did not care for Maplewood or South Orange, and wound up buying a house in West Orange. And shortly after they moved there, I moved out of Maplewood. Oh well.....
And, as an aside, 18 out of 20 people who looked at my house were from Brooklyn -- and the folks who lived in Hudson County wound up buying it.
ridski said:
There was a couple that we knew through friends who moved here in 2003 from Brooklyn. They were the reason we heard about Maplewood, so we started looking and moved out here in 2004. Within 9 months they had encountered a few incidents - I believe the xenon lights were stolen from their car one night and there was an attempted break-in - and they moved back to Brooklyn saying it was safer. So yeah, it does happen.
While statistically crime is obviously much, much lower, the experience of crime can be much more jarring emotionally here, as it seems to come out of nowhere. Just walking the streets in Brooklyn, you were constantly exposed on a daily basis to people who looked and acted like they could be criminals--homeless people, people having loud fights on their cell phones, teenagers who would curse loudly and act thuggish when in groups (had a rock, a snowball and a large box thrown at me on three separate occasions over the years), plus the random street noise, loud radios from cars, etc. It was definitely not a peaceful atmosphere, so dealt with the crime "feel" as part of the price of living there. In the last five years I lived in Brooklyn, there were two shootings within a block of our apartment, and at no time did I feel like I had to live the area in a hurry. Conversely, if there were a shooting in front of my house today, I would freak out for months. Even incidental crime in South Orange, where I live, bothers me, even if it is not anywhere close to me. I think we have expectations that a suburb should be safe, and for the most part it is, so when crime rears its ugly head, it is more upsetting than in a place like Brooklyn, where you got used to living in an environment where it felt like a crime could happen any minute--it was just the city being the city. When I was younger, I used to actually enjoy the lawless atmosphere of the city.
BubbaTerp said:
Where in MW did they live?
ridski said:
There was a couple that we knew through friends who moved here in 2003 from Brooklyn. They were the reason we heard about Maplewood, so we started looking and moved out here in 2004. Within 9 months they had encountered a few incidents - I believe the xenon lights were stolen from their car one night and there was an attempted break-in - and they moved back to Brooklyn saying it was safer. So yeah, it does happen.
College Hill area maybe? I can't remember exactly. I only went to their house once before they moved.
ridski said:
There was a couple that we knew through friends who moved here in 2003 from Brooklyn. They were the reason we heard about Maplewood, so we started looking and moved out here in 2004. Within 9 months they had encountered a few incidents - I believe the xenon lights were stolen from their car one night and there was an attempted break-in - and they moved back to Brooklyn saying it was safer. So yeah, it does happen.
You do understand that removing xenon lights from a car is not theft - it is a service to other drivers?
Just about everyone I've run into is coming either from within Maplewood, or Brooklyn, Hoboken, or Manhattan. I had a friend who is living in the city currently seek me out to ask about Maplewood, because he heard it was a town that was accepting of interacial relationships.
Obviously, the observation of one guy is as anecdotal as it gets, but I haven't experienced anything that would lead me to doubt the veracity of the article in terms of trends. Two friends who moved from Maplewood said that nearly 100% of their traffic was from Brooklyn. Why would this be shocking? Young families decide they need room, better schools, whatever, and make the move.
This is the migration! Suburban kids run off to the city after school, fall in love with other suburban kids, party, rock out in NYC or environs,get older, have kids, and move back to the suburbs (but not the burbs they grew up in! Heaven forbid! Much trendier!). Thus it has been, thus it shall be.
Rush nailed it. Go read the lyrics to "Subdivisions".
Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night
Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight
Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights...
That last line, friends, is Maplewood, with an added dash of cool.
As far as the crime goes- cite your sources. Maplewood's overall crime rate is very low. Are there towns with lower rates? Yes! But the difference between Maplewood and Millburn isn't enough to make you reject Millburn out of hand (aww ***** that's right Millburn has a higher crime rate).
www.nj.com/news/bythenumbers/
bobk said:
I know that this has been mentioned from time to time here on MOL, but maybe it deserves its own thread?
http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2015/10/nj_suburbs_dubbed_brooklyn_west_drawing_new_reside.html#incart_most-read_
I love all the old curmudgeons with too much time on their hands, making comments trying to tear down the millennials and their "values"... Oh nooo, they couldn't possibly truly value "diversity," they just have to live in the "diverse" towns because they can't afford to live anywhere else! If all the Brooklyn hipsters are moving to SOMa because it's the cheapest option in the area, that is truly news to me...
tjohn said:
ridski said:You do understand that removing xenon lights from a car is not theft - it is a service to other drivers?
There was a couple that we knew through friends who moved here in 2003 from Brooklyn. They were the reason we heard about Maplewood, so we started looking and moved out here in 2004. Within 9 months they had encountered a few incidents - I believe the xenon lights were stolen from their car one night and there was an attempted break-in - and they moved back to Brooklyn saying it was safer. So yeah, it does happen.
Testify, brother tjohn.
Jackson_Fusion said:
As far as the crime goes- cite your sources. Maplewood's overall crime rate is very low. Are there towns with lower rates? Yes! But the difference between Maplewood and Millburn isn't enough to make you reject Millburn out of hand (aww ***** that's right Millburn has a higher crime rate).
www.nj.com/news/bythenumbers/
Did someone complain about the crime rate here? I didn't. I said our friends left because they said Brooklyn was safer. I think you missed the irony in my post.
ridski said:
Jackson_Fusion said:Did someone complain about the crime rate here? I didn't. I said our friends left because they said Brooklyn was safer. I think you missed the irony in my post.
As far as the crime goes- cite your sources. Maplewood's overall crime rate is very low. Are there towns with lower rates? Yes! But the difference between Maplewood and Millburn isn't enough to make you reject Millburn out of hand (aww ***** that's right Millburn has a higher crime rate).
www.nj.com/news/bythenumbers/
Ridski- I could hardly miss it- perhaps I should have been clearer that the comment was not directed at you.
I am, as I imagine most are, acutely aware of folks from outside the area who are interested in learning more about MAPSO reading these threads. The comments under the nj.com article are insane, and this board sometimes has the opportunity to point people in the right direction to data so people can make their own determination. My comment was offered in that spirit.
The two towns have their problems, but crime isn't anywhere near the top of the list.
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I know that this has been mentioned from time to time here on MOL, but maybe it deserves its own thread?
http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2015/10/nj_suburbs_dubbed_brooklyn_west_drawing_new_reside.html#incart_most-read_