What's it Like in Crown Heights?
That’s what Brooklyn Based has been asking, and two Crown Heights residents—a relative long-timer and a newcomer—are answering. The 12-year resident pays $864.72 for a fourth-floor walk-up, likes the transportation options and the West Indian Day Parade, and doesn’t like the violence, not surprisingly. Still she feels safe. The three-year resident moved to a one-bedroom…
That’s what Brooklyn Based has been asking, and two Crown Heights residents—a relative long-timer and a newcomer—are answering. The 12-year resident pays $864.72 for a fourth-floor walk-up, likes the transportation options and the West Indian Day Parade, and doesn’t like the violence, not surprisingly. Still she feels safe. The three-year resident moved to a one-bedroom for $1,100. She finds the lack of big box commerce—dry cleaners and fruit stands but few big chains—a reprieve from mall-ized Manhattan, and like the longtime resident, appreciates the new upscale restaurants moving in. But she makes a point: new residents, and the businesses that accommodate them, seem to have little to do with longtime residents. Crown Heights has long been known as a neighborhood of duality, with African-Americans and Orthodox Jews sometimes in conflict, sometimes in harmony, but now there seems to be another Crown Heights emerging. Thoughts?
Photo by sahadeva.
real zinger. i hope you have more of those. i really just feel sorry for you. it must suck to go through life as a moron.
Crown Heights is a shithole that needs to be nuked.
“One of my old professors had the best advice. Read, think, write… Then speak. ”
You should have taken his advice.
Chaka, great history there. However, I dont know about the assertion re the vast majority of West Indians being considered African Americans. Would that be true of East Flatbush too? All I am saying is that there is a distinct West Indian flavor to the area. The music, the food, the businesses, etc all show west Indian influences. Your post seemed to imply that this would not be apparent in CH, because it was all assimilated into and became African American.
Montrose, Chaka, and Benson:
I’ve heard of “Crow Hill” before, but hadn’t related it to race. Sheesh! It really sticks in the throat!
It’s remarkable what we don’t know, aren’t taught, don’t want to know, refuse to learn.
A deep exploration of Crown Heights uncovering all this social history would be fascinating. And what better time to write one, just as the neighborhood and Brooklyn are coming back.
Paule — not Paula, as I wrote above — is still alive. Now there’s somebody to interview!
I remember her as tall (regal, really) but then again I was small. She was typical of many Brooklyn women then: attractive, kind, and carefully done up in skirt and blouse. Crown Heights ladies and moms were usually like that. And some, like Marshall, were real artists. (Although I don’t know where she lived. I only met her tagging along with my parents to a party.)
That was another side to Crown Heights back in the day. Complex, accomplished, strong-willed women, black and white, who were often at the forefront of social advocacy. The saw their neighborhood as representative of the country’s progress, and didn’t hesitate to organize a march and take to the streets.
Man, it was some time to grow up!
(I recently had lunch with my brother in midtown. Looking around the club’s dining room at the other middle-aged types in Brooks Brothers blue I asked him:
“How come we don’t buy into most of this sh*t?”
“Because of Crown Heights,” he answered. “That’s where we learned that appearances have nothing to do with the intrinsic value of things.”
Another great lesson from a Brooklyn childhood.)
NOP
yeah bxgirl, i’m so wrong. if that’s the case, then it would be ok to make two little changes to your “hyperbole”:
It’s a less known aspect of Park Slope North that many of the homes have been owned by White families since the dawn of time (well, maybe slightly less), and many of these families are today the core of business and professional people who have stabilized the area and gotten landmark status for Park Slope North.
One of my old professors had the best advice. Read, think, write… Then speak. Have a nice weekend.
Very interesting comments made, for the most part. I moved to CH in Mar. 2001 and felt pretty safe. I was likely the only white female within a 3 block radius of Eastern and Franklin. Quite different now. I fell in love the diverse nature of the hood. Was extremely respectful of my neighbors, of course. I just hope it doesn’t become like my ex-hood Cobble Hill!
As an aside, I would like to open a coffee shop or supper club on ground floor but I assume it will take much capital to do so and may not be zoned for commercial. I know that someone in Sunset Park was thinking of this also. Advice, if any?
“This photo was chosen by choice”
Classic What babble. Thank God he’s back with his inimitable language-confusion.
Chaka;
Are you sure about the African Americans in Bensonhurst? I’ve recently read a book on the development of that area and this is the first time I’m hearing about this. Are you sure you are not referring to the small community in Sheepshead Bay (around East 16th Street) which is a remnant of the days when there were many race tracks in the Gravesend Area, and this community worked in them?
By the way,another small bit of historical trivia. The early African American community in Crown Heights of which you speak was not only known as Weeksville. It was also derisively known as Crow Hill by the neighboring Victorians. If you go through old Brooklyn historical documents, you will probably see this name more than Weeksville.