East New York Residents to Talk About Area’s Past and Mull Its Future
City Planning’s vision for a rezoned East New York Whither East New York? As Brooklyn’s waves of gentrification lap at the neighborhood’s shores, it’s a question on a lot of people’s minds, including eager developers, city planners looking to site affordable housing there, and wary residents looking at what’s happened to nearby Bushwick and Bedford…
City Planning’s vision for a rezoned East New York
Whither East New York? As Brooklyn’s waves of gentrification lap at the neighborhood’s shores, it’s a question on a lot of people’s minds, including eager developers, city planners looking to site affordable housing there, and wary residents looking at what’s happened to nearby Bushwick and Bedford Stuyvesant.
It’s also the question at the center of a panel discussion at the Brooklyn Historical Society tomorrow night, called “A Biography of East New York.” The assertion behind the discussion is that the neighborhood “is where NYC’s future is going to happen,” but that it’s also a place that is “by geography, class and race a far distance from the city’s centers of power and influence.”
To get a handle on what the neighborhood might become, the panel, moderated by Jarrett Murphy, the editor and publisher of City Limits, will discuss how East New York got to where it is now.
Panelists will include Michelle Neugebauer, executive director of the Cypress Hill Local Development Corporation; longtime neighborhood resident Patricia Worthy; Winston Von Engel, director of the Brooklyn office of the New York City Department of City Planning; and Brandon Gibson, the CEO of Light Rock Holdings LLC and a longtime resident.
Admission is $5 for non-members; doors open at 6 p.m. for the 6:30 event. Advance tickets can be bought here.
Image via NY City Planning
I lived in Cypress Hills during the mid 70s when it was a mix of White and Puerto Ricans. It was beautiful. All the kids played together and all the parents knew each others households. The 80s ushered in drugs, crime and major decline.
During the 80s I also lived in East New York, during the full throngs of the crack epidemic. It was a horrible time. Mothers were taking insurance policies out on their children so the could afford to be bury them in the event they were killed. Nobody lived in East New York by choice then or now. It has been the least desirable place to live for as long as I could remember.
In the 90’s, developers begun filling inn the many empty lots with poorly designed, out of character 2-3 family homes and selling it them for a premium. The stretch of Pitkin Avenue that runs from the Conduit to Pennyslyvania Avenue was no littered with newly built crappy looking residential houses mixed in with older mixed use buildings. And it was the corrupt politicians who gave away the land to shady developers for peanuts to allow this.
East New York needs this new development in order to attract growth and a new age. Gentrification should be the least of our worries. Modernity is the concern. If we could attract new restaurants, lounges and residents would that be such a bad thing?
The liberals who want to stop the mayor’s plan should try living in East New York for one year. Tell me howyou feel about new development if you survive that year
I lived in Cypress Hills during the mid 70s when it was a mix of White and Puerto Ricans. It was beautiful. All the kids played together and all the parents knew each others households. The 80s ushered in drugs, crime and major decline.
During the 80s I also lived in East New York, during the full throngs of the crack epidemic. It was a horrible time. Mothers were taking insurance policies out on their children so the could afford to be bury them in the event they were killed. Nobody lived in East New York by choice then or now. It has been the least desirable place to live for as long as I could remember.
In the 90’s, developers begun filling inn the many empty lots with poorly designed, out of character 2-3 family homes and selling it them for a premium. The stretch of Pitkin Avenue that runs from the Conduit to Pennyslyvania Avenue was no littered with newly built crappy looking residential houses mixed in with older mixed use buildings. And it was the corrupt politicians who gave away the land to shady developers for peanuts to allow this.
East New York needs this new development in order to attract growth and a new age. Gentrification should be the least of our worries. Modernity is the concern. If we could attract new restaurants, lounges and residents would that be such a bad thing?
The liberals who want to stop the mayor’s plan should try living in East New York for one year. Tell me howyou feel about new development if you survive that year