Häagen-Dazs, hall boys, historic homes: this week's Brooklyn real estate roundup

This week's Top Rental Listings around the neighborhood (Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Gowanus)

Jun 21, 2025

∙ Paid

Whether you’re planning your open house weekend, or just want to keep a pulse on the local real estate market, we’ve got you covered! This week’s rental listings are focused on 2-3 bedroom apartments.

Top Real Estate News

Here’s a quick roundup on real estate news happening around this part of Brooklyn:

The founders of eco-conscious wallpaper brand Trove - Jee Levin and Randall Buck - just listed their Brooklyn Heights duplex at 220 Columbia Heights for $4.29M, showcasing bespoke interiors, a private garden, and original 1860s details. They bought the home in 2013 for $1.87M and are upsizing nearby after more than a decade of design-driven living. [The New York Post]
Allyson Lubow via The New York Post
The Dubois Bunche Public Policy Center at Medgar Evers College is intensifying efforts to combat deed theft and foreclosure among Black homeowners in Brooklyn, offering over 100 hours of workshops on financial literacy and legal support. Amid ongoing gentrification pressures that threaten to displace longtime residents, New York City’s Black homeownership rate remains low at just 31%. [BK Reader]
Actor Michael Shannon’s cozy Brooklyn home, located in a converted church in the Red Hook neighborhood, offers a soulful retreat filled with Venetian plaster walls, antique rugs, and personal heirlooms. He recently gave Architectural Digest an exclusive tour, showcasing how interior designer Colleen Newell helped transform the space into a meditative, artful sanctuary that reflects his unique style and history. [Architectural Digest]

Stoop of the Week

This week’s stoop of the week is the location of Häagen-Dazs, on the corner of President St & 7th Ave.

“Uniformed Hall Boys?" Ya mean there were once uniformed hall boys in there!?!? Ah, the things we can no longer enjoy. :)

(Apartment house at No. 820 President St, #ParkSlope, #Brooklyn)” - @brownstonedetectives

Few references are still available online about hall boys - here is the text from Wikipedia about hall boys with more of a British focus:

“The hall boy or hallboy was a position held by a young male domestic worker on the staff of a great house, usually a young teenager. The name derives from the fact that the hall boy usually slept in the servants' hall.
Like his female counterpart, the scullery maid, the hall boy would have been expected to work up to 16 hours per day, seven days per week. His duties were often among the most disagreeable in the house, such as emptying chamber pots for the higher-ranking servants. In the absence of a boot boy, he also cleaned the boots not just of the family members but also those of the butler and those of the visitors. The hall boy also waited on more senior servants when they took their meals in the servants hall. He slept on a fold-down bed in the hallway connecting the servants' quarters.” - Wikipedia

“They [uniformed hall boys] were available to carry packages from carriages to the apartments for female residents, post mail, and do other sundry errands.” - Daytonian in Manhattan

“Hall boys were like the male equivalent of the scullery maid, meaning the lowest ranking member of staff. They did the dirty grunt work, such as emptying chamber pots and so on. They also literally slept in the hallway, hence their name.” - r/DowntonAbbey

~~~

Though the name sounds European, Häagen-Dazs proudly got its start in Brooklyn.

Their first location is located in Brooklyn Heights (120 Montague St) which re-opened last year.

“To jump-start their business, Reuben offered free ice cream samples to bodegas and grocery stores. Seeing how much love their products received, their daughter Doris opened the brand’s first brick-and-mortar shop in Brooklyn on Montague in 1976. By the 80s, the brand had become a nationwide franchise with sales of about $115 million annually.” - Brooklyn Paper

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This Week’s Must-See Property Rentals

Whether you’re planning your open house weekend, or just want to keep a pulse on (or take a peek at) what the real estate market looks like, here are our real estate listings for this week focusing on property rentals with 2-3 bedrooms.

I use StreetEasy as the listing source to recommend properties that I would live in myself, and have searched within the boundaries of Park Slope and surrounding neighborhoods (Gowanus, Windsor Terrace, Prospect Heights). All prices are per month, and only listings in the last 7 days are shown - except where there are price drops. All sales jargon has been magically removed ✨

Photo credits: Streeteasy listings