Pinpointing Biggie's Crib
A reader steered us to the photographs from a 2003 exhibition at the Robin Rice Gallery in the West Village. The photographer Micheal McLaughlin took a number of atmospheric black-and-white photos of Brooklyn scenes and landmarks, including the childhood home of Biggie Smalls and the Brooklyn Heights apartment of Truman Capote. We know that Capote’s…
A reader steered us to the photographs from a 2003 exhibition at the Robin Rice Gallery in the West Village. The photographer Micheal McLaughlin took a number of atmospheric black-and-white photos of Brooklyn scenes and landmarks, including the childhood home of Biggie Smalls and the Brooklyn Heights apartment of Truman Capote. We know that Capote’s place was on Willow Street and we’ve always been under the impression that Biggie lived on St. James Place in Clinton Hill. Can anyone i.d. the exact address of this apartment building?
BKLYN: Micheal McLaughlin [Robin Rice Gallery]
A bunch of the real old timers in my area called an entire swath of Brooklyn “Bed-Stuy,” and considered Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Stuy Heights areas within, not unlike Strivers Row or Sugar Hill in Harlem.
FG Wanksta, you can revoke my ‘ghetto pass’ if you please. But you still need to check your geography.. No matter how you slice it, St. James is not in Bed Stuy. Period.
A previous poster pointed out that RE brokers stretch boundaries for marketing purposes. I’m just pointing out how Biggie stretched the boundaries for ‘marketing’ purposes also.
Its just ironic how for some folks “Bed Stuy” is a badge of honor and for others “Bed Stuy” is a badge of shame. I guess it all comes down to marketing.
it was on Carlton just above Dekalb. .. he moved there after getting with Faith Evans, but shortly after he got picked up by the mainstream (bad boy) and got paid. I heard he moved out to Northern New Jersey after that.
Is it true that Biggie then ended up living in a condo in Fort Greene later on? I’ve heard that it was on Carlton Ave in a loft bldg. I just assumed it was the brick one near Myrtle. But not sure if any of this is true or not?
Yeah, Downing is Clinton Hill, at least where the movie was filmed, but who outside of Brooklyn has heard of Clinton Hill? Much cooler to give shout outs to Bed Stuy during the movie. lol
Something I saw that made me almost laugh if it wasn’t so lame and depressing – I was watching a B.I.G. documentary on VH1 behind the music and they described where and how he grew up. Then they showed some guy describing how he was part of Biggie’s pre-celebrity posse of “hustlers” and how cool it was etc. Sad thing was, I recognized the guy as one of the regulars who still hangs out on Fulton Street “keepin it real” in 2005, or whenever I saw the documentary. I gotta say, some of those dudes are out there everyday, in all sorts of weather, early in the morning, plying their trade. They’ve got a serious work ethic. Makes me wonder what they could have done with their lives with such dedication if they made a few different choices, and had a few more opportunities…
People generally refer to Classon as the Bed Stuy border, though brokers are pushing it back to Franklin and Bedford, so the blocks of Lefferts Place, Fulton, Gates, Greene, Dekalb, Willoughby etc. that are west of Classon and East of Vanderbilt are Clinton Hill. Clearly people have used these boundaries loosely in the recent past, just as the brokers are doing now. Doesn’t really matter. Some did (or do it) for street cred maybe, some alter the boundaries for real estate marketing purposes. Who cares really.
As for 11238 – that zip spans parts of Ft. Greene, Clinton Hill, bits of Western Bed Stuy and some of Prospect Heights, so you can’t use that as a way of defining the borders of a neighorhood.
I don’t think anyone is doubting that St. James Place was pretty rough back in the day, but I have always thought it was funny that Biggie would say he was from Bed-Stuy. The name Clinton Hill just doesn’t sound as frightening – even if it was. Also, what about Block Party – it was stated everywhere that it was filmed in Bed-Stuy. Isn’t Downing in Clinton Hill?
i remember vividly the days when fort greene and clinton hill were way rough. definitely as late as the early 90s. back when fort greene used to get fat on brooklyn heights marks.
just ice hailed from fort greene.
nativegal – peep this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CEEhY4B2YU
i remember vividly the days when fort greene and clinton hill were way rough. definitely as late as the early 90s. back when fort greene used to get fat on brooklyn heights marks.