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Brooklyn College is hosting a panel this week called “Bed Stuy in Crisis,” about race in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. “Many believe Bed Stuy is in fact dying” as “black renters are being forced out and black homeowners are tempted to sell” while “optimists say many middle class blacks are also moving in and will help make Bed Stuy a special multiracial venue,” says the writeup for the event.

The panel will be moderated by Brooklyn College journalism professor Ron Howell, who penned the controversial essay “Goodbye, My Bed Stuy.” Speakers include Richard Flateau, a Bed Stuy native who owns Flateau Realty Corp. and chairs Community Board 3’s Economic Development Committee; Mark Winston Griffith, a community organizer and executive director of the Brooklyn Movement Center; Brooklyn College professor emeritus Jerome Krase, a sociologist and activist who wrote “Seeing Cities Change: Local Culture and Class“; Judge Betty Staton, a former family court judge who helps Bed Stuy renters being illegally forced out of their apartments as president of Legal Services NYC; and Lupe Todd, a longtime neighborhood resident and the communications director for Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson.

The panel will take place on Thursday from 6:30 to 8 pm at the Glenwood Lounge, located on the second floor of the Brooklyn College Student Center at Campus Road and East 27th Street. Take a look at the flyer for a full description and more details on the speakers.


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. i’m the token white person on the panel majorhints, so of course i was there. i have enjoyed reading the comments here which although mostly way off the mark at least clearly mark the reasons why bed stuy and other once stigmatized residential communities are ‘in crisis.’ the people of bed stuy whom i have known and worked with over the decades struggled to maintain their neighborhood during onslaughts small and large but all racist… just one thread to note and then i’ll go back being another stereotypical ‘white person’ (although someone is certain to attach ‘liberal’ somewhere in the absurd appellation). for decades residents of bed stuy, homeowners, business people, entrepreneurs, et al could not get loans or insurance for their property or efforts. yet at the same time there was a huge fha mortgage scandal from which they also suffered. then it was absentee landlords milking buildings and when the milk ran out, they torched them. then it was urban renewal or rather ‘negro removal.’ more recently, it was the sub-prime lenders that inflicted more damage. now money is flowing back in but selectively along a front line of increased rents and other local costs which make it almost impossible for many in the working and middle class to remain in places they struggled to maintain against all odds. yes, there is a crisis but as the white person noted at the meeting, one person’s crisis is another person’s opportunity. if you want to read a little part of this common story, an imperfect draft one of my books about a similar neighborhood is on line: https://www.academia.edu/202785/Self_and_Community_in_the_City

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