Anti-Gentrification Fliers Plastered Throughout Stuyvesant Heights in Bed Stuy
This morning one of our readers tipped us off to these fliers that were stuffed in car windows and stuck on front doors throughout Stuyvesant Heights in Bed Stuy. The fliers use racist imagery of watermelons and fried chicken, presumably to paint the investors who are buying up property in the neighborhood as racist. And…
This morning one of our readers tipped us off to these fliers that were stuffed in car windows and stuck on front doors throughout Stuyvesant Heights in Bed Stuy. The fliers use racist imagery of watermelons and fried chicken, presumably to paint the investors who are buying up property in the neighborhood as racist. And they urge homeowners “Shut it down Bed Stuy by any means necessary.” Presumably that means not selling their homes to investors.
Our reader thought the fliers might be a response to New York Magazine recent story that revealed the real estate business practices of a racist landlord-investor. He described replacing black renters with white ones and speculated black property owners in Bed Stuy would start “dumping” houses to buy in East New York.
The hashtag on the flier, #standupbedstuy, links back to Joshua Wiles. A little Googling reveals a schoolteacher of that name who lives in Bed Stuy who brought a lawsuit against some Hasidic businesses for allegedly discriminatory dress codes, and was active in Occupy Wall Street.
We’re not sure, but we think he might have been the same activist who was ejected from a Bed Stuy panel on gentrification last year for disrupting it. At the time, he vowed to start a campaign against “Brokeland Capital,” aka Brookland Capital, a prolific developer of condos in Brooklyn based in Bed Stuy.
We find the situation in Bed Stuy to be more complex than described in the fliers. Recent change in the area — remarked on by several speakers at Community Board 3’s last meeting, which we attended — is not only, or even primarily, due to longtime black owners of brownstones selling to developers. New-building development is limited, and mostly on empty lots and, to a lesser extent, wood frame houses and churches on oversize lots.
Elderly homeowners losing their homes to fraud, tax liens and all-cash flippers who don’t pay what the property is worth are some of the pressing concerns raised by community leaders and community groups such as the Brownstoners of Bed Stuy, who have educational programs to help homeowners. Also, now that their properties are worth something, black owners have the same right to benefit from a sale as anyone else, some might argue.
Click through to see more versions of the flier and a picture of them stuffed in car windows on Stuyvesant Avenue. What do you think of the fliers? Have you seen any? — Jim Rendon and Cate Corcoran
Generalizations of people and simplistic slogans are the fuel that keeps wars going.
One extreme comment arouses emotion, leading to an equally baiting response. It can go on like this forever. There are a number of ‘New York-based blogs’ where the topic of property and displacement is a weekly, and sometimes daily thing. The comments are angry. On the one side we have the “it’s genocide of a community” and on the other “it’s the free market, get used to it.”
I strive hard to keep a balanced view of reality, but unfortunately some people get a rise out of getting people excited and angry, to meet their own ends. Some of them even bother printing fliers with watermelon and chicken leg pictures.
As a recent home purchaser myself:
.. I see the point of the attempts to protect the vulnerable. It’s important to do that, and sometimes I wish the city would be more involved. So I can see the purpose of someone dropping fliers telling people to be vigilant. Yes, people, be vigilant.
.. but the race-baiting, the ‘agitprop’ is self-defeating. Like one other commenter above, I purchased a home recently. Guess what, I paid full market price, and boy did I need to be the highest bidder. Nothing fancy or tricky here. If anyone took advantage of anyone, the long list of payees during closing, from brokers to bank lawyers to title company people, well… I digress. But I did it with a lot of difficulty and time, and certainly not in cash.
.. yet a black person sold me their home. Not only did they not have to, they pushed hard to sell it – to anyone, not just me, and it just happened to be me. They had it on the market for a number of months, on the open market, where anyone of any color (almost everyone involved on both sides of the transaction was NOT white) could have bought. What happened was that the bank gave me a big sum of money now, telling me I could repay it later with a lot of interest, and I immediately gave that big lump of money to that black person who freely, eagerly, sold me their home. The seller actually retired after the sale.
So when I read comments from outraged individuals about the unseating of the community, where it seems as though there’s some nationalistic element who push back against people who are not their skin color, well, that pushes me to the other side. I lose sight of the fact that there are people that are vulnerable, because I’m too busy responding to a racist.
Not this time.
Folks, it’s not a race issue.
Head down to the lower part of Stuy Heights and check out Peaches or one of the latest hotspots. It’s full of upper-middle class black professionals. The types that don’t get displaced, but perhaps do a little bit of the displacing themselves.
You do have to remember this is the U.S., and philosophically the preservation of the free market is something that’s core to what is considered freedom here. Whether or not I agree or you agree with that, that is a fact. There are a million rent stabilized units in one of the most expensive cities in the world — not bad for a staunchly capitalist country. Head to any number of big cities in America, and your rights will be far less as a tenant. In many states, on your third day of non payment of rent your belongings are out on the curb. Not only does that not happen here, but we have rent stabilization.
To ask for Bed Stuy to remain black, or X community to remain Y, is too much to ask. It’s too much to ask of reality, and ethically, it’s extremely dubious and leads you to a path of terrible hypocrisy.
Do things the ethical way. Rather than toss out angry generalizations “the trust fund whites come into OUR neighborhood and don’t say hello”, be pro-active. Educate the vulnerable on predatory practices. The obsession over Hassids is another one. While some stories are true, to focus in on anecdotes in such a way as to suggest that EVERY brownstone sold is done so illegally, by guys with guns walking around with bags of cash to screw over senile old black folks… Come on now.
Don’t alienate people who would otherwise be your allies.
Especially when they just emptied their pocket books to buy in your neighborhood, and fix up a house that no one else had the interest or the budget to do. Some people pick up trash from the sidewalk, pay attention to what happens in their blocks, and meet their neighbors. I’m one of those people, and if you’re one of these people who supports these fliers, I hope I never meet you.
A word about the unfriendly whites (mentioned above). That’s not a color thing, that’s an age thing. Where I am, there are plenty of young, recently arrived white student-types who seem too nervous to say hello to anyone. They’re new to the city, they come from places where people don’t walk around, and many of them put on an air of superiority. But don’t go around saying “whites” this and “whites” that.
Remember, we’re not supposed to do that anymore. All X’s are Y. That stuff was pretty unpopular as the country grew out of segregation and as the new generations had more mixing. However, I feel that some people in some communities, in talking about preservation, dance a dangerous line with attempting to redraw neighborhood boundaries along racial lines. It’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? What if folks in Bay Ridge said the same thing (openly)?
Lastly, I’d like to say, I intensely support gentrification. I support displacement. I’d like rents to rise so that the young whites living all around me can’t afford to live here anymore, and the 3 am parties will cease, and the cig butts being tossed into back yard as well. I don’t care what color or race they are, as long as they are respectful.
Let the path of progress march ever onwards.
well said Soundhoner!!
.. and to clarify, when I say “don’t alienate people who would otherwise be your allies” I’m referring to people like myself or melissabraun above (not the mysterious Hassids driving around in vans who make NYMag articles.
People who believe in social justice will ignore your message when you start attacking people on the basis of racist, or using terms like our/their/my neighborhood.
That’s all.
Oh no. How do I edit and add paragraph breaks?
Dear Jim ,
your article is partially incorrect. The person you call kid that has been put at the door last year from one of the most deceiving event held in the neighborough was actually a very pacific person and totally right. I was at the event last year sponsored by Corcoran. First of all, how can you believe Corcoran is doing something good for the community when they all make money on real estate speculation? Second I was there too and it was supposed to be a democratic discussion about the future of the area and empowering the local residents, without discrimination of color and race.
It turned out to be something very different. The panel discussion where everybody was supposed to make questions was held with the best fascist and dictatorship methods: we had to write questions on a piece of paper and someone was filtering them. No question and answers. thats why that activist screamed “liars”! and He was totally right. Also the pastor of the church where the event was help …..suggested his parishioners to sell their property and move to south carolina because New York is not good. Really? This is obviously taking advantage of weak and uneducated people.
This type of gentrification is also called “displacement” and it is a very bad condition analyzed multiple times in the history of urban planning.
As far as the role of the ‘men in the minivan” they are criminal point blank. The police was looking for them because they went around Stuyvesant-Heights with a gun terrorizing old home owners with the hope to make them sell to them their houses. This is illegal. So this is not a problem of black and white but the speculation of a group of people, Corcoran , Halsted, The Hasidic Jews and the Pastors and whomever empower this exploitation of the middle class in one of the most beautiful neighborough in Brooklyn.
As author of many articles in international magazines and books and as an academic person you must review your sources before publishing an article. With all the respect.
InnovatingCity
Well said.
But why is there a sense of frustration when someone with more money wants to come and buy your home? If you can’t afford to repair your damaged stoop, have a leaking roof, a boiler that doesn’t work properly… The list goes on and on why is the “black community” in Bed Stuy annoyed that someone else is coming to buy that house and restore it? My neighbors are all long time residents, for over 25 years and there homes are the most well kept and if anyone came to their door and offered them money they wouldn’t sell because they don’t have to. What do you see as the solution here? For no one to invest in Bed Stuy except blacks or for homes in disrepair to stay that way forever? Other communities stand together not by resenting whites but helping each other YEARS before any whites came along, helping each other maintain their homes so they can pull equity out of it if need be. The economically viable black community that has owned for years wants the same as the economically viable white community purchasing homes in Bed Stuy; don’t forget that.
Please don’t make generalizations about people that you simply don’t know. For you to say the newbies (whites) want nothing to do with our communities is equivalent to me saying all the black people I see living in Bed Stuy are the same. Do you see how wrong of a statement that is? Please tell me how you see me and the many other “white” residents in Bed Stuy that take care of their homes, have bbq’s with their neighbors, attend the community board meetings, etc not wanting to be a part of our community. In the same way you probably don’t identify with every black person in your community, don’t sterotype and say every newbie is the same.
In addition, living in New York is MUCH more expensive than the suburbs so your argument doesn’t really stand. We’ve chosen this community bc of the beautiful housing stock and because personally I came from the suburbs and knew I didn’t want to raise my kids there. But houses for over a million that aren’t in the best condition for years of neglect, not in an excellent school district with one of the highest crime rates in the city….do your research and please stop judging the newbies, we all live in Bed Stuy because we love New York and the community we see around us, we’re not here to “take” that away from you or any of the long time residents.
No ethnic group “owns” a specific neighborhood in NYC. We simply lease it until social, economic and political conditions dictate otherwise. Neighborhoods change. That will forever remain a constant in NYC.
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I’m more interested in homeowners actively participating in the ecnomic change and growth in their communities. Why sit on the sideline and simple watch things unfold just to complain years later that you were shut out of the process? It doesn’t make any sense. See my comments below.
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Most people would be surprised to know that Bed-Stuy is the wealthiest black community in the USA. With over 9000 brownstones ( the vast majority being owner-occupied), there is no greater concentration of black wealth anywhere in this country. The problem with Bed-Stuy is that residents are “equity rich” but “cash poor”. Yes, Bed-Stuy is a low income community (primarily due to the multitude of public housing projects, Section 8 and rent stabilized/control multi fam dwellings) but in terms of networth (assets-liabilities) the community is extremely wealthy and sitting on billions of dollars in untapped home equity.
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Further, what’s happening in Bed-Stuy and other majority-minority nabes in Browstone Brooklyn (FG, CH, Crn Hgts, PLG, PH, etc.), is the largest transfer of wealth to black folks in the history of this country. Yes. That is correct. And guess what? It happened organically. No massive federal social program at the expense of taxpayers was necessary. No repriation initiation nor liberal guilt “free money” public policy plan was required. What happened? Middle class, hardworking black folks (civil servants, small business owners, etc) bought homes 40 to 50 years ago (often in cash because bank redlining prevented them from getting loans), preserved those homes and helped established a stabilizing base for communities long ago abandoned by the rest of the city. Theses nabes always had some of the best architecturally significant housing stock in Brooklyn. Only problem? Wrong demographics.
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Kudos to these people for maintaining the line and preserving a significant part of our city’s rich architecturally history. Some of the strong anti-gentrification rhetoric is simply based on people’s profound appreciation for Bed-Stuy’s storied past and recognition of the hardvwork that long time residents made in preserving their communities against long odds. No one wants to see these people get robbed of their legacy.
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On the flip side, I think it’s important that we collectively look forward as well. A racially, culturally amd dynamic Bed-Stuy is a noteworthy goal. If folks can sell homes purchased for $30k -$100k for $2mm plus, the more power to them; unless activists propose some miraculous method to finance their retirement or grandchildren education. Lol. However, no one should lose their homes through outright thief, deceit, manipulation or coercion. For those who want to stay in Bed-Stuy, whether you own or rent, the onus is on you to figure out how not to be left out, i.e., “shy mofos go hungry.”