The Face Of Gentrification Is . . . Heath Ledger

Heath and Jennifer Connelly are driving up prices:

There’s a certain breed of New York celebrity who’s too cool for uptown, but craves a brownstone block. They seek leafy streets with the scale of the West Village, but shy away from the throngs and the spotlight.

Meet fame on the down-low — celebs who live in Brooklyn.

The roster of Hollywood A-listers, music-industry powerhouses, authors and artisans who reside in the Borough of Kings is top-notch.

Wander over to the Grand Army Plaza subway station in Park Slope and you might catch Jennifer Connelly looking “beautiful and fragile, with no makeup on and dressed in jeans, a brown sweater, and sleeveless green vest,” as one fellow Brooklynite described her, as she takes her eldest son to school weekday mornings.

Over on Atlantic, see Heath Ledger — who, with Michelle Williams, is raising a daughter, Matilda, in Boerum Hill — ducking into a deli Sunday morning for bottled water.

Later in the week, Williams may pop by Smith Street lingerie store Andie Wee while actors Emily Mortimer — spotted having trouble finding her wallet in Cobble Hill’s Pacific Green grocery — and Alessandro Nivola push a stroller along the sidewalk outside.

. . .

While hardly a new phenomenon — there’s always been a diaspora of celebrities eking out low-profile lives in nearly every part of New York — Brooklyn has outgrown its edgy, destitute-art-student reputation of years gone by. It has come into its own as a magnet for some of the most sought-after talents in the entertainment industry.

Yes, can’t wait for “A Beautiful Mind II: The Really Senile Years.”