Surveying Census Stats on 2 Brooklyn Blocks

The Times has a story in which it conducts informal surveys of three square blocks in the city where the Census Bureau said population had decreased and building vacancies had increased. The article looks into whether officials are justified in claiming that the Census undercounted New York City’s population, and a couple of the blocks spotlighted are here in Brooklyn. One is home to the Venetian, the opulent Avenue P condo. According to the story, the block “recorded an increase of 65 vacancies, to 70 from 5, and a decline in population of 57, to 283 from 340. One reason for the increase in vacancies was the construction of the Venetian, a 33-apartment building on Avenue P that replaced a row of one- and two-family homes. Occupancy started early last year, and the ornate building is still about one-third vacant. But that would account for fewer than half of the vacancies recorded by the Census Bureau on the block, which is home mostly to immigrants from Russia and Syria.” (There’s a neat map of the block accompanying the article.) Meanwhile, on a Sheepshead Bay block that the Census reckons lost 153 residents, there’s also a 43-unit new condo that’s not completely occupied. However, Theresa Scavo, the chairwoman of Community Board 15, says it’s likely the case that many of the neighborhood’s Russian immigrants did not respond to the Census: “How do you get a decrease in population when 10 years ago the buildings were not as crowded?”
Survey Hints at a Census Undercount in New York City [NY Times]