Closing Bell: Brooklyn Flea + Urban Arts Festival
It’s been a busy week behind the scenes at The Flea, what with last night’s community meeting and all. The meeting was conceived as a listening session for neighborhood concerns but word leaked out and a number of supporters showed up and it ended up feeling more like a referendum on the market. For a…
It’s been a busy week behind the scenes at The Flea, what with last night’s community meeting and all. The meeting was conceived as a listening session for neighborhood concerns but word leaked out and a number of supporters showed up and it ended up feeling more like a referendum on the market. For a couple of longer reports, you can check out Racked, Gawker or Reclaimed Home. Senator Velmanette Montgomery, Councilmember James and Borough Prez Marty Markowitz by proxy all stepped up to the plate on behalf of the Flea; the suggestions ranged from the incremental and addressable to the not-so-reasonable and deal-breaking. There’s a big NY Times story about it slated for this weekend, so keep your eyes out. The two themes we (and others) kept coming back to were community-building and the importance of nurturing small businesses. Along those lines, we hope that everyone who comes out to the Flea this weekend will also make it over to nearby Myrtle Avenue between Emerson and Grand where the first day of the Brooklyn Urban Arts Market will take place; the four other days are August 10, August 24, September 7 and September 21. The open-air market will feature live music, visual art performances, food from Myrtle restaurants, and about 50 local, primarily home-based artisans, vendors, and entrepreneurs selling fashion, art, accessories and more. The event runs from 12 to 7. First timers attending the flea may want to check out the Flea Blog first and get these essentials under their belt: Flea hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday; it’s located at 176 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn. Closest trains are the C and G to Washington/Clinton. Or you can take any of the number of trains that go to Atlantic Station and make the 10-minute stroll up Lafayette Avenue from there.
Update: The New York Times article, by a reporter who took the time to sit down with us and was smart enough not to get himself kicked out of the community meeting, is here; a Daily News article by a “reporter” who was stuck chewing his cud outside the meeting is here. The most amazing part of the News article is the cherry-picked quote from Councilmember James that gives the impression that she’s against the market when she has championed it from the beginning. Some quality journalism.
Yes, I agree. There were people here long before the French and Dutch, but not the people now claiming this is as their rightful neighborhood are nuts, or need to read a history book.
I lived near the Flea in Clinton Hill from 1989 until 2007. The community has changed a lot, from a working-class African American neighborhood, a safe and affordable place for working families to raise their kids, to a Yuppie nabe where working class families could never afford to rent.
Sure plenty of African Americans have cashed out, selling their houses. But for every homeowner there were a bunch of tenants, and the apartment buildings have been cooped and condoed, and the 4-family brownstones have been converted to a triplex and a little apartment to help with the taxes.
I think the people who complained at the church reacted very emotionally to the Flea as an icon of gentrification. They are barking up the wrong tree and their tactics are counterproductive. But I can understand their resentment.
I’m curious as to who the old guard at QAS is. Often, as neighborhoods change, the old guard in Catholic churches are the last remnant of the white population, most of whom come back to the church from where ever they have moved to. They don’t live in the community, and drive, or are driven in. They are often senior citizens, and some (not all) have deep resentments toward those they feel have taken over and ruined their old neighborhoods. Is this the case here?
The Catholic Church has had to do a lot of internal re-arranging due to changing ethnic and racial shifts in urban parishes. Very often the clergy are the only white faces in the church. I have no idea what the racial or economic mix is at QAS. Unfortunately, some of the anti-Catholic statements, which only represent the opinions of those who made them, will probably be picked up as further evidence of the godlessness of the New Brooklyn. I hope this situation can be remedied before it really gets nasty. That does no one any good.
“There is a great deal of animosity and resistance to these changes waiting for a place to be heard, waiting for a venue.”
Yes, that’s the real issue at hand, IMHO. The stated small concerns are merely proxies. All that resentment comes pouring out at the Flea because it’s visible and tangible.
Hey The When .
There were people here LONG before The Dutch and French.
But here we are full circle. No?
The times they are a changing. I keep waiting for the Dutch and French to return, Brooklyn is rightfully theirs.
My most memorable experience of racism (towards myself) was walking past a four year old girl who shouted at me “Die cracker,” while her mother and friends looked on in obvious approval. This was a block fm my home of ten years in Clinton Hill. This was not an isolated or unusual exchange. The community meeting and issues concerning the flea market became a story of interest due to the gentrification happening in Brooklyn, it is because it is organized by a couple of white men and not by, for instance, one of the local churches. I hv since left Brooklyn, and returning to Fort Green/Clinton Hill I find it shockingly white and moneyed. So many of the businesses and residences hv changed hands. No wonder the churches membership is dwindling. There is a great deal of animosity and resistance to these changes waiting for a place to be heard, waiting for a venue. It was unfortunate both for the church and for the flea market that their meeting became the stage for some of this drama to unfold.
I live a few blocks away – I’ve got no problem with the Flea at all. It’s fun – it brought biz to my stoop sale, I even bought a few things at the Flea too. Reading about the complaints makes me think I’ve been attending the wrong flea. Noise? Trash? Lots of people on the side walks? Come one – there’s more trash, noise and people in front of our building any school day of the week than on any Flea Sunday. Like another poster stated, the area is spotless on Mondays. And no parking available to parishioners? Maybe I’m missing something again, but if you have to drive to Lafayette and Vanderbilt, you probably don’t live nearby.
gman- I can only go by what Eric told me. That said, I still can’t in good conscience put this on them. I think they acted responsibly and wanted to wait until they heard for themselves what the issues were.
But I also want to thank NOP for a beautifully stated piece on what the “old guard” may be feeling and I can understand that feeling of being besieged and losing the home and community you fought so hard to keep during all the bad times. But with St. Joseph’s and Pratt in the area, CH/FG was never so isolated as Bed-Stuy, nor, I don’t think it fell on hard times the way Bed-Stuy did (and I’m sure MM can answer this much more confidently than I) – and there was always a greater mix.
Yet QAS really doesn’t seem to care about what might be good for the community at large. It is my understanding that in Bed-Stuy and in CHN, it is the “old guard” that has been in the vanguard of trying to improve the neighborhood. And i think would love to see this kind of event here.
And I think the churches here are more active as well. Concord has a very active social program in the community, as do a number of the other area churches. They perceive themselves within the context of the community. My feeling is that QAS is just the opposite. Otherwise why have secret meetings? And more importantly, why work against something that benefits not just newcomers, but members of the local community and minorities? QAS’ resentment of the flea is on the order of cutting off your nose to spite your face and the “within the first 10 minutes the monsignor expressed regret that there were so many supporters there as he had hoped that it would only be a forum for grievances.” really says it all.