Living with Meaning in Crown Heights
Gabe Burkett was graduating from an MA program at Columbia the week he and his boyfriend, Eric Booker, moved into this Crown Heights apartment three years ago. They both lived in Harlem at the time, but they had lots of friends in Brooklyn. For Burkett, an architect at Leong Leong, which designs cultural spaces like the new LGBT center in LA, and Booker, a curator at the National Academy Museum, the apartment checked off all the boxes: it’s a rent-stabilized building on a quiet residential block a short walk from Franklin Avenue and Prospect Park. Burkett’s mother is an antiques dealer, and he shares her eye for design. She gave him the Eames chair in the living room, and he found many of the midcentury modern pieces at thrift shops. “It’s less about decorating than about living with things that are meaningful,” Burkett said. That includes items picked up on their travels, like Michoacán pottery they brought back from Mexico, paintings by their friend Daniel Zender, and a collection of postcards they keep on a desk in the bedroom. They like to entertain friends or meet up at spots around the neighborhood, like Barboncino for pizza and Gloria’s for Caribbean food.
All photos by Seth Caplan.