Windsor Terrace- An Inner Brooklyn Neighborhood with a Small Town Feel

Windsor Terrace was originally developed in the mid 19th century as a small village maybe a 100 modest cottages. The village remained rural in feel until around 1900, when row houses began to be built throughout the area, at first along Prospect Park. The rest of the neighborhood filled in during the 1920s as the neighborhood was soon to be connected by the New York City Subway. Interesting the neighborhoods surrounding Windsor Terrace (Park Slope and Kensington) were already built out by this time. The neighborhood is a mixture of single-family homes, duplexes, rowhouses and incrementally throughout the decades larger apartment buildings. Many of the new occupants of Windsor Terrace were Irish-Americans, many of whose families remain there. To this day Windsor Terrace has the feel of an isolated neighborhood with a quiet small-town feel.  Gentrification came to Windsor Terrace in the 1980s as families who could not afford the prices in Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope moved in. The neighborhood has stayed in a similar state since with the exception of recent multi-family housing around Machate Circle at the SW corner of Prospect Park.

Overall Windsor Terrace is a solid urban neighborhood from most angles although less dense than most Brooklyn neighborhoods at around 45K residents per square mile. There is a modest commercial district along Ft. Hamilton Parkway and a more complete one along Prospect Park with a decent amount of mixed-uses throughout the district. Windsor Terrace has solid retail amenities but has less stores and shops than surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods and lacks walkable access to a hospital or doctor’s office. But the Windsor Terrace is in demand thanks to its convenient access to Prospect Park, great schools, safe environment and convenient access to Dwtn Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Click here to view my Windsor Terrace Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

• Excellent ADA and sidewalk infrastructure with few missing ADA curb cuts.
• Great density at 45K per square mile but this is actually on the lower side for Brooklyn.
• Attractive Pre WWII architecture including a nice mix of 2-story brownstones and brick rowhouses and large apartment buildings.
• Other than some limited autocentric uses along Coney Island, the SE extreme of the district Windsor Terrace has great urban form and streetscaping.
• Solid tree canopy throughout most of Windsor Terrace.
• Very safe community with limited amounts of blight.
• Excellent access to Dwtn Brooklyn , Lower Manhattan, and Midtown being only 30 & 40 minutes by subway.
• Good generational diversity and lots of families here.
• Good bike infrastructure with plenty of dedicated bike share stations but could use some more dedicated bike lanes esp. north to south routes.
• Solid walkable school options with well rated public schools across all age groups and good # of private and charter school options.
• Great park access being located in-between Prospect Park and Greenwood Cemetery. Also plenty of smaller parks within the neighborhood.
• Good cultural amenities including a good # of restaurants, bars, & cafes and several art galleries. Also a couple local performing arts theaters, and a Cinema. Good access to better cultural amenities in neighboring Park Slope.
• Okay # of rentals . Pretty limited for Brooklyn standards and generally very expensive. Studios are very limited. 1 beds lease btwn 2.4K-4K, 2-beds btwn 3-5K, and 3 & 4 bed rentals are very limited. Decent amount of the rental supply is dedicated affordable rentals or rent stabilized as 3/5s of rental product lease under 2K.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Modern infill is very limited but that doesn’t take away from the urbanity of Windsor Terrace.
* Prospect Expressway cuts through the neighborhood. Connectivity would excellent if it wasn’t for the highway.
* Majority white neighborhood with ok racial diversity. Economic diversity is a bit better.
* Solid retail amenities but below average for Brooklyn. Amenities include several medium and smaller supermarkets, several drug stores, a couple hardware stores, a handful of boutiques/clothing/gift stores, a local bookstores, a couple bakeries, several gyms and dessert joints, a local public library and post office, and several churches.
* no major hospital and limited medical centers and doctor’s offices here.
 * For sale housing are pretty expensive but not as expensive as the Inner Brooklyn neighborhoods but less housing diversity. Really no studios for sale. 1-bed condos sell btwn selling btwn  400K-850K, 2-beds condos ranging btwn 500K-2M. 3-beds btwn 1M- 3M. 4 beds range anywhere btwn 1.2M and 3.2M.