Closing Bell: Gentrification Indicators
Over on Nostrand Park, they’re trying to put together a list of indicators that your neighborhoods being gentrified. The author suggests three (including coffee shops and blogs) and luckily no one’s mentioned flea markets yet. Other suggestions? Photo by rymerster
Over on Nostrand Park, they’re trying to put together a list of indicators that your neighborhoods being gentrified. The author suggests three (including coffee shops and blogs) and luckily no one’s mentioned flea markets yet. Other suggestions?
Photo by rymerster
What people always fail to realize, or choose to forget, is neighborhoods were de-gentrified before the were ever gentrified.
Take East New York. East New York was a huge working class Jewish neighborhood for a long, long time. If white people start moving to ENY will the “gentrification” word will be dropped? What about the fact that it once was a nice, safe, respectable, “white” neighborhood?
Red Hook, Fort Greene, Williamsburg, all these places were safe working class neighborhoods or primarily white; Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish, etc, for years before they became known as “fringe” or “bad”.
What if white people moving in is not “gentrification”, but more of “reclamation”?
At least one restaurant that makes reference to the local origons of its ingredients.
God, I am so easy to please. Yes, Rob, you’re surprised that there were no bakeries and drycleaners? Over on Fulton Street, there was NOTHING. It was Mad Max. Just nail places and beauty parlors and barbershops and bodegas with sour milk. That was half of the buildings. The other half were empty. A lovely drug rehab place on Fulton and Washington. Like Tinarina says, crack vials and condoms and even now, your spent bullet. There used to be a drycleaner on Fulton – a guy who stuffed your clothes with the equivalent of half a tree of tissue paper and used fumes that took 2 weeks to air off. And I got stuff back with cigarette burns. So it was back to Brooklyn Heights to the nice lady who cleaned my clothes in my other life. Now the man of the year is Rolando, the new drycleaner on Fulton near Clinton, who hails from Washington Heights, and is good, nice and cheap!
Donatella–totally right on about getting a real dry cleaner. For our early years here in CH, our only choice was the combo dry cleaner/numbers joint. The clothes suffered. And I would add (in the “early gentrification” category):
Dramatic reduction in empty crack vials/used condoms on the sidewalk.
Removal of bulletproof partitions at liquor stores and Chinese restaurants.
Slow uptick in restaurants that have seats and a bar.
Dumpsters on every block, at least until recently.
ugh this thread had me thinking for a bit… came back.. lots of what everyone said, myself included!, was totally kinda sorta racist, classist, etc etc etc. but that is how we are forced to things when neighborhoods change so fast. you can call it gentification all you want, but there is SO much white flight going on in the neighboring suburbs these days… all those fraidy cat empty nesters who were afraid of the city are now cashing in and coming back because um eh uh ooooooh our secluded suburbs are becoming too non homogenous. i grew up in a mostly non white hood in jersey so that’s why ‘the things that white people like’ (props to that site) has always made me lol. cuz they are things i normally, eh, dont like at all. i feel like cuz people who can spend money will go where they want, i will be forced on the yoga mat out of the city like the rest of us unfortunate people because you NOW all of a sudden deem city living is cool. BARF! 🙂 some of us knew it all along. smoe of us even were teased growing up for thinking getting a drivers license was outdated and lame. oh well. it only matters how much is your wallet i guess, not how passionate people were about the cities they live in and grew near.
*bfly*
you know your neighborhood is gentrifying when…
-the local Chinese restaurant now has tables.
-the local Spanish restaurant has cuisine from Spain.
-the local Chinese restaurant doesn’t serve Spanish dishes and vice versa.
-the local pizzeria refers to a plain pie as the “Margherita”, and doesn’t serve slices.
-mixed breed dogs are referred to as a combo breed like Labra-doodle, instead of mutt.
-there is a dog run, instead of dogs running wild and rummaging through your trash.
-when people tell you they’re “gonna kick your ass”, they don’t mean it in the ironic sense.
-the local bar is where you go to hang out, instead of hide out.
-the local bodega stops serving customers through a plexiglass window with an attached rotating lazy susan contraption, between the hours of 11:00PM and 5:00AM. They simply close at 10:00.
nobody mentioned thai restaurants???? shocked.
Starbucks and pizzerias that charge 3.00 dollars or more for a slice of pizza.
Those were great links Santa, thanks. I did not live in NY in the 80s, so I appreciate that. If you know of any links for Brooklyn, I’d love to see.