October 9, 2025

3 Greene Street. Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photo: Corcoran

This week, I felt like visiting some sprawling mansions, so I headed to Ditmas Park. And I was not disappointed — so if you have $8,000 to $10,000 to spend on rent, you are in luck! If not, don’t worry, Sunnyside and Ridgewood provided some cheaper alternatives. And then, because I can’t resist, I looked around my neighborhood of Bed–Stuy for some Victorian-era brownstones.

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$2,600, 1-bedroom: Not a mansion, but mostly inoffensive and well-priced.

$7,000, 4-bedroom: Kind of ugly, but sprawling! If I were the president of the Department of Interior Design, I’d make gold-leaf and gray materials (fabric, wood, stone) illegal.

$8,000, 6-bedroom: Nothing ugly about this (also sprawling) Gilded Age mansion with perfect floorboards, natural light, and labyrinthine floor plan — something to salivate over.

291 Westminster Road Photo: The Agency Brooklyn Park Slope

$10,000, 6-bedroom: Another fabulously … sprawling, Gilded Age mansion with even more space, as if that were possible?

$2,150, 1-bedroom: Obsessed with the offensively ugly rubble wall in the kitchen. So ugly that it’s cool, I say. And cheap!

$2,450, 1-bedroom: Nicely maintained prewar apartment with a sunken living room and an unexpected update to the kitchen.

43-34 49th Street Photo: MNS

$3,150, 1-bedroom: Perfectly suitable prewar one-bedroom that’s not much to write home about. Unless you live here, in which case, you won’t need stamps, heh heh.

$4,800, 2-bedroom: Nicely renovated two-bedroom with exposed beams that give it that nice Scandinavian feel.

1722 Norman Street Photo: Weichert Properties

$3,200, 1-bedroom: If you must live in Fort Greene, then you must pay Fort Greene prices. I don’t make the rules?

$2,750, 1-bedroom: I feel like you don’t see a lot of floor-through one-bedrooms at this price point in Bed–Stuy anymore. There’s some charm to this ground-floor apartment — plus, the backyard is yours.

$2,900, 1-bedroom: In one of my favorite, very squat brownstones. True gut job with gray floors, which is unfortunate.

$2,995, 1-bedroom: Particularly charming one-bedroom with a painted white kitchen and a lot of nice antique furniture (that I don’t think comes with the place, alas).

654 Lafayette Avenue Photo: Compass

$3,200, 1-bedroom: Victorian-era brownstone sandwiched between two new developments. Ya hate to see it.

$3,250, 1-bedroom: Sexy ground-floor apartment with a flashy kitchen. Feels kind of like a therapist’s office, which, depending on your relationship to therapy, is either a good or bad thing.

139 Hancock Street Photo: Corcoran