Wrestling with Fort Greene's Transformation
In a first-person piece in The Times this weekend, artist Nelson George laments how Fort Greene has changed since he and his black artist contemporaries put down roots in the leafy brownstone neighborhood more than two decades ago. We’re interested to hear how the essay struck readers. What we thought was missing from the article…
In a first-person piece in The Times this weekend, artist Nelson George laments how Fort Greene has changed since he and his black artist contemporaries put down roots in the leafy brownstone neighborhood more than two decades ago. We’re interested to hear how the essay struck readers. What we thought was missing from the article was an acknowledgment of the current generation of black artists and intellectuals in the neighborhood and how they feel about the composition of the neighborhood. A mention of a place like Madiba where the diversity of the area is on full display, for example, would have added some valuable context for his discussions of the clientele at the Brooklyn Moon. Then again, this wasn’t meant to have been anything more than one man’s coming to terms with the changes around him. Thoughts?
Fort Greene: Strangers on His Street [NY Times]
Photo by niznoz
As a white “frat boy” type living in fort greene I think I probably experience the most overt type of racism. I’m not really complaining or comparing to treatment blacks get so please spare your ranting. I often play basketball on the playgrounds in the neighborhood and am subject to being called names like whitey and snowflake, and generally given little respect. I experienced a new form of immasculation this past weekend – a guy put a move on me that left me practically on my @ss, got up in my face and then kissed me on the cheek. In general I find it amusing, if not somewhat annoying.
That’s a great idea iz, but that would be a weird date. Me, sitting on a bench and Boofer standing 5 feet away, clutching her purse to her chest.
Denton, for a second there, I thought you were suggesting that white people should follow white store owners around the store when they’re following African American customers. Now there’s an idea!
SOOOO not over it (though I love both troy and boofer’s responses and think you two should go on a date in Ft Greene park). ANYWAY, I can’t be sure but I might have been the woman who’d averted her eyes when passing Nelson George. If he’s tall and really handsome in a kind of worn in, intellectual way, then yeah, Nelson, I’m that woman. See, the problem with good looking middle aged guys is that they’re tempting, and I’m not single, but wish I was.
I’ve had men avert their eyes from me too — usually when their women are nearby — and it’s a sheepish reaction, not wanting trouble. Could that have been it?
Because it really stretches the imagination that a woman in Ft Greene is averting her eyes from people of color. If that is true, that girl must have some serious bruises all over herself bumping into shit, for all the averting she’d have to do, even if she’d just moved there an hour ago. Fort Greene is still, despite all the worry from Nelson to the contrary, a black community with a bunch of salt and pepper thrown in there in the form of lookie-loos and newbies, thanks in great part to all this fantastic press from such places as Brownstoner, Timeout NY, the NY Times (Nelson, you’re part of the problem, buddy!). And, apparently, france!!!!
Has anybody read “There Goes the Hood” by Lance Freeman?
Great book about gentrification in Harlem and Clinton Hill by an African American architect who teaches at Columbia. He grew up in Harlem and lives in Clinton Hill.
He alludes slightly to the importance of Clinton Hill as the place to be for young artistic black professionals.
My only criticism of the book is that in an effort to understand all aspects of gentrification, good and bad, he underestimates how often renters are displaced.
It’s one of the most interesting books I have ever read.
The funny thing is that if you’re white (like me) but are aware of this behavior by many white people and find it annoying you can compensate in the other direction, as I do. In fact it just goes to show how silly the whole thing is. I wonder how many generations before we look each other in the face to determine who we are looking at/dealing with rather than dealing by skin color.
I know if I’m walking down the block, and I’m thinking of crossing, and at the same time I see three African American kids or a couple of construction workers coming, I go, oops, better wait until I pass by else they’ll think I’m a racist who judges them by their skin color, or who perhaps is afraid of them.
No one mentioned the other thing my skinfolks do, that’s often commented on, the snapping of the car locks. Used to do the same there, not snap until the coast was clear.
What a way to live, right?
I won’t get over being followed around the store (and I have seen it done to white people too); absolutely the worst way to enjoy you’re shopping experience, especially when you don’t enjoy shopping as it is.
French magazines always have articles about Brooklyn and how unbelievably fabulous it is.
This week, Madame Figaro hypes the Stuart & Wright boutique in Fort Greene. You may have seen the store. It’s the one in the old drycleaner’s space with the old sign near Habana Outpost. Everything is $400. The article says “Follow the path of Jonathan Lethem over the Brooklyn Bridge…”
over it