1. How would you describe yourself regarding your age,
ethnicity, education, employment, and family status?

I am a 51-year-old, white--half Jewish, half Protestant--female
professor of English at Long Island University-Brooklyn.  I hold a Ph.D. in
English Education from NYU. I am married and have one seven-year-old son.



2. When and why did you move into the neighborhood?

My husband and I moved to Prospect Lefferts in 1996. We had been living
in Park Slope and more or less stumbled on Prospect Lefferts, although
once we had seen some houses here, at the suggestion of a realtor who
also lives in the neighborhood, I recalled having visited friends, now
neighbors, on Maple Street may years previously.   Apart from much more
affordable prices compared to Park Slope and other Brooklyn
neighborhoods, we were attracted to the diversity of age, ethnic groups, and
longtime and newer residents.  There is less class diversity--inevitable
perhaps in a single family zoned area--but moreso than in other areas of
the borough.  We very much liked the feel of the neighborhood, and that
original sense has been born out over the past 10 years as we have
gotten to know people, sent our son to the local nursery school, and become
involved in neighborhood organizations of various sorts.

3. Please tell me what you feel are the best and worst
things about the area?

The best aspects of the neighborhood are the genuine friendships that
have developed for us as well as our son with neighbors on each of the
blocks that make up the heart of Prospect Lefferts (Lincoln, Maple,
Midwood, and Rutland); the ethnic and other kinds of diversity; the beauty
of the houses and gardens; the proximity to the Botanic Garden,
Prospect Park, the B line into Manhattan, and other amenities; and, more
immediately a few years earlier in our lives but a long time, continuing
force and presence in the neighborhood, the Maple Street Nursery School. 
Another very interesting experience for me has been working together
with other residents in a group called Prospect Lefferts Voices for Peace
and Justice, which formed shortly after 9/11, along with many other
neighborhood groups across the city, and has remained active ever since,
bringing forums to Prospect Lefferts on issues such as the war, racial
injustice, and third world debt,  and publicizing city and national
demonstrations in an effort to build them in diversity and size. The worst
things about the area are lack of good public schools, food and other
kinds of shopping (we go into Park Slope or Windsor Terrace usually to
shop for groceries), and the contradiction between the relative ease of
life on the blocks of the neighborhood known also as "Lefforts Manor"
and the surrounding streets that are poorer and blacker and more
crime-ridden.  On the other hand, while many residents would like to see
Flatbush Avenue transformed into a more middle class shopping district,
perhaps like Fifth Avenue in Park Slope or Fort Greene, the existing
shopowners are very interesting and diverse, and I would hope that there
would be a way to improve the neighborhood for everyone, including, perhaps
most of all, them and the people who live in the apartment buildings
closer to the park.

4. What do you think the future of the neighborhood
will be, and why?


As I said in response to the previous question, I hope the neighborhood
will develop in ways that accommodate all residents and keep prices
affordable enough not to become a more exclusive, less diverse community. 
But I can seen the trend go in the opposite direction, with prices
rising absurdly high, not comparable to Park Slope (nor will they ever be)
but recently breaking the million dollar mark and promising to go
nowhere but up if the real estate bubble stays in tact. It would be terrific
if some combination of forces could work together to improve the public
schools so that people who live here, at least those I know, could send
their kids to a local neighborhood school instead of schlepping to Park
Slope's abundant good public schools or shelling out money for a
private education.  Again, what I would hope is that such an effort could
improve local schools for all children, including those who, sadly to my
mind, are currently enrolled and condemned to the scripted curriculum
mandated for failing schools on the Chancellor's list.