Park Slope, ‘Cradle of Candidates’

The Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn is known for many things: streets teeming with strollers, sweeping views of Prospect Park, historic brownstones. On Thursday night, voters learned that the area could also count three of the Democrats vying to be mayor among its many fans, though one has not lived there since the days when a rental cost less than $100 a month.

At a forum in Manhattan, several of the candidates pointed to the neighborhood, now a case study in gentrification, when they were asked about the last place they had rented.

William C. Thompson Jr., a former city comptroller who ran for mayor in 2009, said he paid $600 a month in rent for a home on Carroll Street in 1982. “Great apartment,” he said with a grin. (He now lives in Manhattan.)

Sal F. Albanese, a former city councilman, said he had lived in Park Slope in 1969 for $60 a month.

And Bill de Blasio, the public advocate, estimated that he paid $1,800 a month for a Park Slope apartment he rented from 1992 to 1998. He grew to love the area so much that he bought a home there with his wife when his second child was born.

Kenneth Sherrill, a former Hunter College professor who moderated the forum, joked that the neighborhood had become a “cradle of candidates.”

The two other mayoral contenders at the forum, Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, and John C. Liu, the comptroller, have different allegiances.

Ms. Quinn said she had paid $2,000 a month for a rent-controlled apartment in Chelsea that she lived in from 1992 to 2010. Mr. Liu said that in 1993 he paid $700 a month for a place in Queens, his longtime home.

While the candidates set aside rivalries in discussing neighborhoods, they turned fiercer in talking about the city’s finances.

Several criticized Ms. Quinn for not doing more to heighten scrutiny of the City Council’s use of earmarks, which its members award to community groups.

“They just don’t work in terms of a democratic society that requires transparency and fairness,” Mr. de Blasio said.

Ms. Quinn argued that she had improved oversight of the system significantly during her seven years as speaker.

“Transparency is the best thing you can bring to any system,” she said.