The Avalon Fort Greene is one of many high-rise luxury buildings in Brooklyn. (Cristabelle Tumola / The Brooklyn Ink)

From Woody Allen to “Sex and the City,” film and television have glamorized living in Manhattan. And for years, if you could afford it, Manhattan was the only place in the city to live. In a 2004 “Sex and the City” episode, one of the main characters decides to move to Brooklyn with her family for more space. This choice is portrayed as a great sacrifice. As she recalls all of her horrible Manhattan apartments, she wonders, half-jokingly:

“Why do I think living in Manhattan is so fantastic?”

“Because it is,” says her friend.

But the notion that Brooklyn living is only for bargain hunters is gone. Although Manhattan rents overall are still more expensive, in the last few years more areas of Brooklyn have began to catch up. Expensive Brooklyn areas, such as DUMBO and Williamsburg, are now comparable to rents in several Manhattan neighborhoods. And more people are choosing Brooklyn for its lifestyle than its rents.

“You see people going there because they want to actually live there,” says Andrew Barrocas, CEO of the real estate company MNS, “and they are willing to pay a premium in order to do it.”

Related: Why Brooklyn Foreclosure Numbers Could Get Worse

In January, the average Manhattan rental prices for studios, one bedrooms and two bedrooms in doorman and non-doorman buildings exceeded those in Brooklyn. But the priciest Brooklyn areas were comparable to, and even more expensive than some Manhattan neighborhoods, according to MNS’s January 2012 Market Reports, the only research on the city’s rental rates published on a monthly basis.

For example, the average one bedroom rental price in DUMBO was $3,584. The average one bedroom on the Upper East Side was $ 3,466 for doorman buildings and $2,562 for non-doorman. (More Brooklyn and Manhattan rental comparisons)

Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill are also neighborhoods that have comparable price points to Manhattan, says Samantha Behringer, a Prudential Douglas Elliman Associate Broker who handles sales and rentals in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In Williamsburg average rentals prices were $2,398 for studios, $2,960 for one bedrooms and $3,776 for two bedrooms, according to the MNS report.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO have been comparable with Manhattan for the last three to four years. And in the last two years Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill have accelerated in price, she says. In Boerum Hill one bedrooms went from $2,170 in January 2011 to $2,750 a year later, an increase of about 27 percent.

In Manhattan neighborhoods, such as Harlem, certain areas of the Financial District, Northern Manhattan and Midtown West, a renter can find a comparable or even cheaper apartment. Of those places, Harlem is probably the best known for affordable apartments, and was by far the lowest priced area in the MNS January report. Doorman building rents were $1,433 for studios, $2,023 for one bedrooms and $ 3,300 for two bedrooms. In non-doorman buildings studios were $1,398, one bedrooms were $1,793 and two bedrooms were $2,218.

But the far Upper East Side, typically east of Third Avenue, is another neighborhood that is a great choice for renters, says Behringer. Though it’s not as economical as Harlem, it’s one of the lowest priced areas in Manhattan. Many students live there, so there’s plenty of inventory and a large turnover, which slows down the market somewhat.

If you’re living in a more expensive Manhattan neighborhood like Chelsea, says Behringer, “a great option is to go a little further up and a little bit further east. That tends to be the trend.”

A mason working on the roofline of a condominium and townhouse development in 2008. Today, the neighborhood is one of the most expensive in Brooklyn. (AP)

But Behringer likes Brooklyn. She has lived in Fort Greene since 1997. “People thought I was a little bit out of my mind,” she says. It was a rough neighborhood when she first moved there, but she knew from working in real estate that the area had potential and would see future growth because it was so close to the city.

She was right. And in the last three years Fort Greene has become very expensive, says Behringer. “You can’t find a one bedroom here for under $2,000,” she says. “That’s not a bargain to me.”

Brooklyn’s best selling point is no longer affordable rents.

As pioneers like Behringer came over to Brooklyn, businesses followed, expanding the shopping and entertainment options. Today this growth continues, and is characterized more by independent business rather than chain stores.

People come for the residential feel that Brooklyn’s always had, and is lacking in most of Manhattan, but now there are more amenities. Behringer never hears people say they want to move back to Manhattan, and many want to stay in Brooklyn long term.

When Barrocas started in the real estate business 12 years ago, he used to encounter people that weren’t familiar with Brooklyn and didn’t know how close it was to jobs and life in Manhattan, but its proximity no longer seems to be an issue.

Convenience to Manhattan is an important factor in rental prices. But Williamsburg and Downtown Brooklyn have also benefited from the development of high-rise luxury buildings. These areas have fewer height restrictions, and there’s been a lot of development to meet demand, particularly in Williamsburg.

“It’s certainly, if not the fastest, one of the fastest growing neighborhoods that I’ve ever been involved with in the last 10 years,” says Barrocas.

In Williamsburg, the rental inventory consists of many condominiums that were bought as rental investments, says Behringer. And owners can charge a premium for them.

Rent only buildings are also being developed. The development company Avalon Bay already has a high-rise luxury building in Fort Greene, and is opening one on Willoughby Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn that will have about 800 units, says Behringer. People are willing to pay a lot for these amenity-packed Brooklyn buildings, and are quickly filling up the units.

Renters priced out of Williamsburg are now going to more affordable neighborhoods such as Bushwick, Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights, says Barrocas. 

For now Prospect Heights and Clinton Hill remain on the cusp of the more popular neighborhoods, says Behringer. But those places won’t stay on the edge for long, she says, and others, such as Bed-Stuy, could see a real turnaround in a couple years.

What You Can Get for $2,000 in Brooklyn and Manhattan

Brooklyn’s priciest neighborhoods are now on par with some of Manhattan’s neighborhood deals. All monthly rents are from January 2012. (Source: MNS Real Estate)

Speakers in favor of the establishment of Brooklyn’s third Success Academy school argued that it will serve high-needs kids in the neighborhood. Critics complained that it will overcrowd a building that already houses two secondary schools and a special education program. The debate became tense at times, and one man was ejected by police for using inappropriate language.

Read more at GothamSchools.

Millman said that she objected to the charter school proposal, and opening the center was one of several ideas that Cobble Hill residents were floating as an alternative to the charter school plan. City education officials however said that they have not been approached about other proposals for the site.

Xin Hui Lim / The Brooklyn Ink

Sixteen weeks into her third pregnancy, Lourdes Rivera-Putz’s gynecologist alerted her to a situation that, she would soon learn, would change the course of her life.

After a prenatal examination, the gynecologist called her up and said there was an unusually high level of alpha-fetoprotein in her blood, and went on to explain the significance of the anomaly: it could be a harmless temporary surge that would subside later. Or it could also indicate an increased likelihood that the fetus had chromosomal problems, such as Down syndrome, which would limit the child’s physical and mental development.

The gynecologist recommended that Rivera-Putz go through amniocentesis, a test that would give a clearer indication of the presence of any health issues. But the invasive procedure, which involves inserting a needle into the uterus, has been known to lead to miscarriage or injury to the fetus in some cases. “I was determined to have this child no matter what,” Rivera-Putz says. So she declined the test, and waited for the birth of her child.

Five months later, she gave birth to a boy, whom she and her husband, Frank Putz, named Jonathan. The elevated alpha-fetoprotein was a harbinger – Jonathan was diagnosed with Down syndrome.

“I suspected that Jon would be born with a disability,” she says. “It didn’t come as a surprise to me, but it was quite scary.”

Twenty-five years on, Jonathan has grown into a healthy adult who survived a chronic asthma, and surgeries for a congenital heart defect and an undeveloped ear canal. The genial young man greets people with smiles so wide that his eyes disappear into two dark crescents. Despite the Down syndrome, Jonathan lives a life similar to those without his handicap.

“I like girls,” Jonathan says sheepishly. He even tells his mother about the attractive girls he saw earlier on the subway. “But I am a little shy.”

He likes to draw too, and goes to the School of Visual Arts for art lessons every week. Jonathan may come across as a man of few words, but Rivera-Putz says that he is most comfortable expressing himself through his illustrations rather than through words. He most enjoys drawing The Muppets, especially Kermit the Frog.

Xin Hui Lim / The Brooklyn Ink

“Muppets are my favorites,” he says. “They make me smile.”

Jonathan can be witty in conversation. Asked about his dreams, he says he wants to be a firefighter or policeman. The answer catches his mother by surprise.
“I have never heard of that before!” she exclaims. “I thought you always wanted to be an artist?”

“I am an artist,” Jonathan replied with confidence, stressing the word “am.”

Jonathan’s transition into adulthood has been smooth. He is especially fortunate in that his mother is the executive director of United We Stand of New York, a community resource center she founded in 1990 after feeling both frustrated and helpless by the lack of assistance to families with disabled children. She and Jonathan are both scheduled to speak at the upcoming Alliance for Full Participation Summit 2011 about how people with disabilities can be meaningful members of their communities.

He may be optimistic and hopeful about his future, but Jonathan’s family quietly worries about another transition – the one that will take place as he, and they, grow older. “Jon has no cognitive skills to look after himself and survive on his own,” says Rivera-Putz, who is 56 years old. “What will happen to him when I am no longer there?”

Jonathan is not alone in facing aging with limited options and few resources. Rivera-Putz’s worry for his future echoes the fears of other parents in similar situations, and reflects a growing need to provide for a population of adults who a generation ago died young.

Down syndrome, characterized by an extra copy of chromosome 21 in the individual’s genetic makeup, is the most common genetic birth defect, affecting approximately one in every 691 babies. In the past, most people with Down syndrome died at an early age, often from complications arising from congenital heart defects, respiratory problems and weak immune systems, all common in people with Down syndrome. In 1983, the life expectancy of Americans with Down syndrome was 25 years, according to statistics provided by the National Down Syndrome Society.

But now, with increased awareness and improvements in medical and healthcare services, the average life expectancy of the Down syndrome population has risen to about 60 years. The growing number of people with Down syndrome surviving beyond adolescence and well into adulthood and old age is posing a new and greater challenge to parents and healthcare service providers.

There are more than 400,000 people with Down syndrome in the United States, according to the Down Syndrome Society. But no statistics are available on the proportion of the Down syndrome population that is aging, or on how quickly that segment is rising. Data on this segment of the Down syndrome population is scarce. Yet the issue of providing care for the adult and aging population of people with Down syndrome is gaining more attention among advocates. They are seeking more federal funding to address questions of where people like Jonathan will be, and who will take care of them when their parents are too old and frail, or when they have died.

In many cases, people with developmental disabilities are institutionalized in adult homes when their parents or guardians can no longer look after them. But accounts of abuse and negligence of developmentally disabled residents have generated deep distrust and ambivalence among parents. Rivera-Putz is also worried that these residential facilities, usually located in relatively remote areas, are reversing the very thing that schools and organizations have been striving to achieve: integrating developmentally disabled people into society. It also further risks isolating the disabled from those they love, and who love them.

“Very often, you wind up uprooting them from the environment that they grew up in, not by their own choice, but because other options are not available for them, and that is not fair,” Rivera-Putz says.

Alternatives such as adult foster care have limited spaces and frustratingly long waiting lists, Rivera-Putz adds. Even if the disabled do get a place in these communal apartments, there is no assurance of permanent residence. Highly disabled residents who are unable to take care of themselves and who become an inconvenience to others will be asked to leave and seek accommodations elsewhere.

With five siblings and a mother well acquainted with the resources available to people with Down syndrome, Jonathan is more fortunate than many others. “We have talked about this as a family,” Rivera-Putz says. “His older brother, a certified public accountant, has agreed to manage his finances in the future.” His sister, Amanda Haught, who also works at United We Stand of New York, has also promised to monitor his situation, and make sure his basic needs are met.

Ideally, Rivera-Putz and her husband would like to buy an apartment for Jonathan to spend the later half of his life, and also employ an attendant to take care of his basic needs. “We are still trying to figure out how to achieve this,” she says.

But for many others with Down syndrome, this is rarely the case.

“What about those without any sibling?” asks Rivera-Putz. “If I am already finding it so hard to prepare for Jon’s future, can you imagine how much more difficult this is for other parents?”

Jonathan’s long-term quality of life remains as a big question. But he is already running into a more pressing problem at his part-time job. He works as an assistant bookseller at Cobble Hill’s Book Court every Tuesday and Thursday, where he packs merchandise and arranges books. For this, he earns $40 a week, or $160 a month. At the same time, he also receives $430 in Supplementary Social Income (SSI) for his disability, but it comes with a proviso: his monthly income cannot exceed $85. Even after excluding the first $20 of his income, which is not taken into account in the calculation, Jonathan’s salary is still $55 more than the stipulated limit. To receive Medicaid services he requires, which in his case, is a home attendant, he has to give up the $55.

“We are still paying the $55 because we need the home attendant to do the chores and make sure that he has his meals,” says Rivera-Putz (the irregular and busy work schedules of both Rivera-Putz and her policeman husband mean that they cannot tend to Jonathan all the time).  But this also means that when his parents are no longer around to support him, Jonathan will have to fork out the $55 from his own pocket, and struggle to live with the paltry sum for the rest of his life (he will receive a larger SSI payment when he is no longer living with his parents, but an income ceiling remains).

“Jonathan wants to be a productive member of society,” Rivera-Putz says. “Yet at the same time, he is being penalized for working.”

As understanding of Down syndrome increases, Rivera-Putz says, a growing number of parents are worrying about the future when their children are still young. Many of them walk into her office when their children are only five or six years old. Some have even told her that they would rather their disabled children die before they do.

“Parents are very afraid,” she says. “They really don’t think there is anything out there, and they are afraid that no one is going to take care of their child with disability like they would.”

One of the vehicles in the Brooklyn Van Lines service that has gained popularity in the last year due to MTA bus cancellations. (Photo: Cristabelle Tumola / The Brooklyn Ink)

Weekday mornings Osmond Thorne takes commuters and children to school, but he is not driving a bus or subway train. He is behind the wheel of a 15-person commuter van.

The vans are a cheap and convenient way to get around Brooklyn, but they also skirt city regulations by regularly straying outside of their licensed routes to get more passengers.

A round of MTA bus cancellations last year led more passengers to depend on commuter vans such as Thorne’s Brooklyn Van Lines service. After the bus cancellations, many Brooklyn residents endured longer travel time to work and were stuck taking several subway lines to visit the Prospect Park area.

“By not having the service they are cut off not just to the rest of Brooklyn, but to the rest of the city and that’s very unfortunate,” says Jeffrey Zupan of the Regional Plan Association, an independent urban research and advocacy group for the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region.

Whenever the MTA has to cut costs, it’s the riders who suffer the most, particularly those who lose service in areas where there are few transportation options, Zupan says.

One solution was the Group Ride Vehicle program. In September 2010 the city’s Taxi & Limousine Commission gave private commuter van companies a special license to pick up passengers along five cancelled bus routes in Brooklyn and Queens. Thorne’s Brooklyn Van Lines was licensed to stop along the old B71 route, which served parts of Red Hook, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Gowanus, Park Slope, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights.

The program led to an increase in people using Thorne’s vans as an alternative to public transportation.

Dave Abraham, chair of Transportation Alternatives’ Brooklyn Committee, says before the Group Van Ride program many former MTA customers may have not trusted less official-looking van services.

Sarah Collins uses Brooklyn Van Lines to take her children to and from school. Collins lives in Red Hook and has been riding with Thorne since the beginning of last school year. During the ride to school, she chats with other parents among the sounds of their noisy children. “For day to day commuting it has been perfect,” she says.

Ty Jones also uses Brooklyn Van Lines to take her child from her home in Crown Heights to her babysitter in Park Slope. From there Jones can easily hop on the subway to her job in Manhattan.

This May, however, the TLC cancelled the last remaining van line because of “sporadic service they had been providing along the B71 route,” according to TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg.

The action didn’t diminish Brooklyn Van Lines’ business, however. The company still had its standard TLC license and continued picking up passengers along that route, despite rules, that according to Fromberg of the TLC, do not permit the vans to pick up passengers in much of the area of the former B71 route.

Brooklyn Van Lines still charges the $2 pickup and drop off fee that it did with the TLC program, with passengers negotiating what to pay if they want to go outside of the old B71 route.

Jones feels lucky that she was able to find a cheap mode of transportation when the B71 line was cancelled: “Without this service I would have to pay $10 each way for a cab.”

Andrea Vaughn, who has been taking commuter vans since December, also feels fortunate for their existence. When the B71 was cancelled her commute went from 20 minutes to up to an hour. She had to take two buses to her job at the Brooklyn Public Library’s central branch. Now it takes her only 15 minutes and she also has “some good conversation” along with her commute.

Vaughn has been telling people in her area about the commuter vans on the neighborhood blog she writes for, The Word on Columbia Street. “Word of mouth has been very strong,” she says.

Another commuter van rider who is also helping spread the word is Marta Heilborn. She takes a Brooklyn Van Lines van to her job in the Grand Army Plaza area. She recalled how she recently met a woman on the street who was complaining about having to take three subway lines to work. Heilborn told her about the van service she uses.

Word of mouth has helped Brooklyn Van Lines’ business grow. Thorne attributes some of this increase to the beginning of the school year. The parents who have been using his service since the last school year have been telling others about it.

As a result, Thorne hopes to soon add more vans to serve the old B71 bus passengers. In the meantime, with the cold weather quickly approaching, he is sure that more people will call him for a ride.

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A deal between the city and state requires the park to pay for itself.  The private housing was one of a few options explored. More than 100 people offered alternative funding sources at the hearing.

“This is the first time in the city or the state, there will be private luxury housing inside the borders of a public park. Once you put private houses inside a public park, that land is gone forever,” said Judi Francis of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund. One more public hearing is scheduled for next week.

On National Coming Out Day in Cobble Hill, the Brooklyn Community Pride Center hosts "Coming Out for Cupcakes." (The Brooklyn Ink/Joi-Marie McKenzie)

“Baby, baby, baby, where did our love go?” Diana Ross’ voice slides over the speakers in Re/Dress Brooklyn, a vintage clothing shop in Cobble Hill.

Three volunteers, wearing coordinated black T-shirts, greeted guests as they came in. While one urged them to pick up flyers promoting the Brooklyn Community Pride Center’s latest programs, another asked for a five-dollar donation. Brooklyn was the last borough in New York to create a center for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. It still doesn’t have a building of its own.

“Everyone just assumed we had one,” said Rachel Stern, a volunteer.

A young woman in a faded navy blue hoodie strolled in from Boerum Place. She took a blue sheet of paper from the rainbow of colored slips displayed on the table next to an assortment of caramel apple, sweet potato pie and pumpkin cheesecake cupcakes from Robicelli’s.

“I feel awkward,” she said to no one in particular. “But I did it.” She scribbled something on the blue slip and handed it to the volunteer.

“We need more people to use orange,” said Amanda, another volunteer from behind the table.

Last night, on National Coming Out Day, the center hosted “Coming Out for Cupcakes,” where people wrote down on colorful slips of paper any element of their lives that they’re too afraid to expose. Later, the sheets were arranged in a rainbow placed in the center’s rented space.

FDNY didn’t divulge any details about the event,  but bystanders claim that a dry cleaner’s shop was the cause of the incident.

No deaths or injuries were reported and Valentine’s day was unspoiled for the most part.

Firemen at the scene of an apparent fire on Court Street. Photos: K. S. Nikhil Kumar

Firemen preparing to leave the scene.