« Wednesday Links Curbing Illegal Curb Cuts by Targeting Self-Certification »
December 26, 2007
Dumbo’s Growing Pains
Is Dumbo a victim of its own success? Yes, according to some of the people quoted in yesterday’s Times article about the neighborhood’s transition from a dingy artists’ enclave in the late ’70s to its current incarnation, a new historic district that lures what one longtime Dumbo dweller calls “antiseptic yuppies” to pricey condos like 100 Jay Street. Although plenty of neighborhood businesses welcome the area’s cachet and influx of affluent residents, others aren’t as pleased by its transformation. Some residents, however, have made peace with the changes. “The worst thing you can do in New York is fall in love with a neighborhood,” said Cara Lee Sparry, who moved to Dumbo in ’92 and runs Superfine. Sparry said she has been pleased by new amenities and suggests that Dumbo may have won the gentrification lottery, becoming a place where “cool” and condo coexist.
District Trying to Forge a New Identity [NY Times]
BREAKING: Dumbo Designated as Landmark District [Brownstoner]
Photo by TomVu.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.brownstoner.com/mte/mt-tb.cgi/3327
Comments
I love Dumbo but sometimes i feel like it's a little too pristine and cute for its own good.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 9:32 AM
Natural cycle of things. As in Darwin's evolution theory.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 9:33 AM
That's it. NY is OVER. If Dumbo is a cool hood then one might as well move to the suburbs, because thats what it is THE SUBURBS. Geez NY is so full of lame people.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 9:35 AM
Yes, DUMBO may not be the cool, edgy, artsy place it was 5-10 years ago, but it's still a long way from the suburbs. Have you been to the suburbs recently? I recently spent a weekend out there, and let me tell you - as much as you may miss your old DUMBO, it's still way better than Lawrence, or white plains, or Englewood (NJ). Trust me. If you really want to feel better about what's happening to your favorite NYC neighborhood - go spend some time in the burbs and come back. You'll realize how much worse things could be.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 9:47 AM
The true death of Dumbo was when they built the J condo and that other pice of crap monstrocity around the corner. Nothing kills a communuity like poorrly designed, out of context, enormous bulidings. While housing shortage is a real problem in New York the solution does not lie in building a lot of tall crappy buildings. There is no reason why the buildings placed in those lots could not have been "normal" scale buildings that were designed by architects with some amount of skill and intelligence. Developer greed facilitated by Doctoroffs "vision" is the reason that our neighborhoods of Brooklyn are being destroyed and assaulted by these out of scale upper middle class housing projects. It needs to stop!
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 9:56 AM
Self-absorbed people will protest when they become inconvenienced by any changes in the hood. I heard it from non-creative type old timers in Carrol Gardens, old moneyed Bklyn Heights and now artsy DUMBO. The world just doesn't revolve around you.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 10:01 AM
Revisionist history - People may not like DUMBO as a neighborhood now but to lament its "change" is just ridiculous. DUMBO wasnt a real neighborhood prior to 1998. Sorry but a couple of workshops and a few dozen residents does not a neighborhood make. And once people started really moving to DUMBO it was more or less the same demographic of people who live there now.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 10:18 AM
C'mon 9:47, it's not so bad here in lower Westchester. And I would not trade in the incredible sunlight that drenches my house, the privacy my 60-foot lot affords me, and the ability to park two cars on my property, for a dark attached row house and the accompanying 30-minute parking space searching adventure.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 10:43 AM
Dumbo is basically one big traffic jam under the Brooklyn bridge, overlooking the projects and the BQE. Why this is a desirable place to live has always been a mystery to me.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 10:49 AM
If you complain about the progress in DUMBO now, you must be the same person who complained about things lacking 15 or so years ago. Like the heat in the bldg and garbage pick.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 10:50 AM
thats why you live in the suburbs.
and NYC is one big fucked up pile of shit rolling down a really big hill. Its never over it just hits some bumbs along the way.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 10:50 AM
I guess the season of charity and love has passed the posters on this site by? It isn't great we live in a city where our biggest complaints are whether a neighborhood is cool enough or whether a suburban home is better than an urban mini-mansion? Consumerism = fetishizing buildings and "vibe" over developing connections and relations with those people around us.
I have had a lovely holiday so far. The bf and I walked our dog to Fort Greene Park yesterday, marveling out how quiet and peaceful the streets were. We wondered where all the kids were - only saw one family in Underwood playing with new scooters. Later we picked up my son and headed to Vermont. Spent the morning mucking out my father's horsebarn (woke up to see the moon setting over the western ridge).
Peace out.
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at December 26, 2007 12:06 PM
The hipper you make of a neighborhood, the more attractive it is to those who want to ruin your love for it. Pioneering means paving the way for the future generations. When you're pushed out, you've done your job.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 1:01 PM
Have to say I'm with 10:49. I've always wanted to like Dumbo but for all the hype there's just not much to it.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 1:08 PM
Hey 9:47 it is the Suburbs. million dollar propeties kids in strollers nannys. range rovers. expensive stores. lame restaurants. smells like the suburbs to me.
Peace to all.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 6:15 PM
I remember dumbo just a few years ago nothing being there really. I agree with 6:15, it is the suburbs. I have no idea why this area got ridiculously expensive. Is it because of a fucking starbucks or high-end furniture stores? I would never live there.
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 7:17 PM
All ye unfaithful complaineth about old DUMBO's demise. I should be complaining for all of you have forsaken the purity of this place. Long before ye came it was all serenity to live and work in this sweet wondrous kingdom by the bridge. Now, I must move on. And you shall witness.
-jehovah
Posted by: guest at December 26, 2007 7:19 PM
Go back and re-read your Karl Marx. Capital decides all. Geographically, Dumbo is a TINY neighborhood. To have it make economic sense Walentas had to build HIGH and build CLOSE. So, a tiny neighborhood packed tight. Disparaging people who can afford it is ridiculous--are they lesser human beings for being able to pay $5k for a two bedroom rental? What bums me out are the for-sale-politicians (Marty Markowitz-- "Blessed are those who bought early" ) who say yes to every development without providing extra schools/transportation for the thousands of newcomers. Most of us who have lived in Brooklyn for 20+ years came here for the breathing space. Increasingly, that seems gone and soon so will people like me, pocketing my profit but sad, too, for the disappearing feel of a sparsely populated neighborhood not too far from Manhattan. Then again, grow up. Because change is the only constant....
Posted by: Cobblekrill at December 27, 2007 12:35 AM
and NYC is one big fucked up pile of shit rolling down a really big hill. Its never over it just hits some bumbs along the way.
You obviously don't know the nyc from the 80's and early 90's.
Posted by: guest at December 27, 2007 9:54 AM
Post a comment
Please be patient while your comment is published. It may take a moment.