Self-confessed gentrifier: how to begin feeling at home in my own neighborhood?

rach_brklyn – I think NY is a tough place to live right now. I was speaking to my brother today about how angry everyone seems. My brother’s viewpoint is that the City is epic because it is so “elastic” and it’s accommodating everyone. The dog poop problem is a problem because people are behaving selfishly. There used to be (and still are in a few places) black and white signs that say curb your dog. It was meant to instruct dog owners to pull your pup into the gutter when that time comes for it to (literally) lay waste. I do it and it spares me a ton of comments from people who always seem like they are winding up for a pitch.

As for that dusty hole where you do let your dog go, think about adopting it. Introduce yourself to the homeowner who has it in front of their home and tell him/her that you wanted to beautify it and if you are green lit, all you need are a few bags of soil and some seasonal plants and perennials and call the Parks Dept. and see if they are still handing out tree gates and try to get one installed (but not one that will jack up anyone’s car door). Put in some hardy plants or fall pumpkins and hit the dollar store and buy a 13 gallon waste basket. Drill a few holes in the bottom and once a week fill the container with water and let it sit in the pit and drain slowly to water plants. Don’t suggest getting a tree because that is probably why it is a dusty pit.

The all night parties have probably been around awhile so you can decide to engage it (but it’s a heavy lift) or you can ignore it if the frequency of the raves are low. The good thing is before you know it cold weather will set in and they will move it indoors. But go to your local precinct and see if they wouldn’t mind coming through when things get ear bleed loud. We have had a 3 generation brownstone right behind us that used to throw parties every weekend (and they never missed a weekend). Couldn’t do anything about it but you would see the older generations move back South for warmer weather or pass away and the younger ones not having packs of children. I just heard at the family that owns a restaurant just purchased it.

As for the NY Times piece I think it shows the beautiful diversity of the City. The way cultures cleave together and how each block, each hood can be vastly different but totally embracing. Traditions stay alive or change and that new comers (for all their talk) don’t get involved in the block party mindset which is to their detriment. I hope your block throws one and you have a chance to meet some folks. Just work on your space and building your life. Don’t fret over restaurants and stores. I can’t tell you how many times I drive to Fairway or Citarella just cuz it”s NYC and I can. Be well.

I love seeing people use public space, and the situationist movement through the Times piece itself. Indeed this is life as it should be. Of course I have to note that within each frame there is sadly almost no diversity. Nonethless a wonderful photojournalistic piece perfect for the end of summer. Thank you bkallday for sharing!

Apologies for being MIA; I sincerely appreciate your thoughts and comments, especially stevecym, I enjoy (not in a sadistic way) and I sympathize with your stories.

Yes, the other week there was a loud party on both sides of the street, on a Monday night. I had a really rough long day at work and I just wanted to come home and crash on the sofa and watch something mind numbing on the television. I was out of luck. I got home around 9pm, the music was bumping, people screaming at the top of their lungs because they could not hear themselves over the music – it lasted at least until 2:30am when I finally drifted asleep. I thought surely someone must have called the cops because around 1am the cops drove through, interestingly while two men wer e having a fight on the hood of a car… someone yelled “COPS!!!” reapeatedly until the fight dissolved. The police slowed down a bit, paused, and drove away. Clearly this party fueled by boombox jams and intoxiated people was in violation of the city’s noise ordinance, but I do not dare interfere… I’m just trying to deal. Maybe the police officers were too…

Stevecym, you’re right. I worked hard to get to this point in my life and it is a bittersweet turning point in my life. Most of my friends do not own a home, but still live in places like Cobble Hill and Fort Greene – I don’t dare complain about my life as a “poor homeowner”. I am still super thankful for everything and I love my neighborhood. Really my biggest complaint is the lack of restaurants and decent grocery stores.

Re: the confrontations I’ve had. Nothing too serious – nothing close to ‘harrassment’ but certainly some awkward conversations. One recent moment was a conversation I had with a man who watched my dog poop in a dirt-filled hole in the sidewalk which used to be a planter at some point. Currently there is no foliage, just dirt and some trash. While I was cleaning it up some woman opened the door of her house and yelled at me. I told her not to worry, that I am picking up the poop but she did not care. She continued to yell. Then her neighbor explained to me that I should instruct my dog to poop in the street. Sorry, I know there are many people who do not enjoy the company of dogs, and are therefore not sympathetic to a dog owner’s excitement when a dog finds a happy place to poop. However, I do not know dogs to poop in the street, it is also harder to pick poop off pavement, not to mention it is also dangerous to stand in the street. The gentleman was very kind to me and tried to explain to me where he is coming from – that he does not like the smell of dog poop and when one dog poops another follows. I get it – I cannot stand seeing poop on the sidewalk or street. I told him I live nearby and I also have a planter in front of my house that is full of other dog’s poop that I am often cleaning up, that it is also very frustrating to me as well. He asked me where I live and I pointed in the direction of my street. He asked me to clarify where exactly I lived on the street to make sure I was part of “this” neighborhood. After I confimed, he said, “well we’ve lived here a long time and we do not like it”. I agreed and said I have lived in Brooklyn a long time too and I absoltely do not like it… he corrected me and said that I am “new here”. Steve, you might have said I won’t always be “new”. Things take time and change is always inevitable, bad or good, I’ll hang in there.

bkallday: that is the way life should be now.

This came out in the NY Times today. Enjoy! https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/15/nyregion/block-parties-nyc.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

so rach, i am sure you are finding what i have: it is very disheartening to take every nickle you have, leave a community where everyone got along and move into a place where the behavior looks primitive. for anyone who read the entirety of what i wrote or saw a comment i made about one of my neighbors, it is awful to move into a place where you are sitting on the couch with a three year old at 7 PM and you hear shouting in the street because one of your neighbors behaves like a two year old and has gotten in a fight with a bus driver over who had the right of way. but find some solace where you are, your neighbors, i assume are not civil servants. over here most of the bullies (not the guy that fought with the bus driver) are there to “serve and protect” and living among people who behave the way they do and carry weapons can be as frightening as living around drug dealers. and if i sometimes sounded displeased in what i was saying, trust me, i do not like having my tax dollar pay to support people who behave like children.

i waited a little while to come back on here and comment on something that boo is golden asked and was waiting to see if others would reply. Boo had asked about the “confrontations”. i have lived in several areas in my adult life and with the exception of one single time someone’s dog supposedly did something to someone else, I had never witnessed any confrontations between neighbors. even with the incident with the dog, one of the long time neighbors later clarified the situation by telling me, “he (the instigator, not the guy with the dog) is a bully”. then i moved here to where we have lived for 13 years. For the first few years we were here, it seemed that confrontations were expected.

before coming back on here to comment, i decided to run this topic by some others. after discussing it, my take on this is that there are people in neighborhoods who control things and get what they want by bullying people. in our case here, the instigators appear to be ranking NYC police officers and ranking fire officers (and they are used to getting what they wan t, especially with the public). there are a couple of exceptions to who these bad actors are, but most of them are of the same “ilk”. the sad thing i have realized is that the other residents learn what these people are about and then they hide. they all worry about getting into a confrontation over something such as a legally parked vehicle that someone thinks is in their private parking space in front of their house because that person, the instigator, has a bigger mouth, limited social skills, and in most of the cases here, carries a badge. along with the drug dealers, these people push otherwise friendly people inside their houses and break the social fabric of the community. with the actors in this neighborhood, civil servants, it should be the opposite, but its not (and hence my comments some took exception to the other day when i referred to my area as “trumpville; it is the mindset i was describing; i never would have said “bushville” if this were 1989 because i do not think George the First was anything like the people where we now live).

all this behavior seems to come from the same place and if you stand up to people who bring about a confrontation as they throw their little temper tantrum or you talk back to them (or laugh at them or mock them as i do), they might go crazy in that moment but once you do that, they realize you took control of that situation and they will leave you alone forever. they are cowards inside and they will be afraid of you because you have control. trust me with this, i am a contractor and I have had to deal with my share of small minded men. in the case of the police inspector here who began screaming in the street over a legally parked vehicle one quiet sunday morning, i almost told him “maybe you should pick up a newspaper and read it and you will find out what the public finds so objectionable about the police” (my point being, that at his rank, he should have known how to conduct himself a long, long time ago in front of the public).

I know it is hard for a woman to stand up to a 200 lb male who has a big mouth and neandrathal brain. but once you do so, and i only figured this out after discussing this with my wife the other day, you will find you have a lot of friends. other people do not like the bullies as well; they just don’t say anything because they do not want to provoke them. the 80 year old woman who lives two doors down from me does not like the bullies (she calls them “crazy” but that’s not it; they know what they are doing).

Between the drug dealers and the bullies, the locals are not even aware of why some of them hide in their houses. they have grown used to living that way. it is a dynamic that began two decades ago. as soon as someone stands up to these people – and yes, we had ranking police officers living on he same block as drug dealers – the dynamic will change (its funny, someone always says this to me, “the veneer is very thin between the police and the bad guys”; its almost like they are both unwanted in some areas as well; they begin to act and look alike to the rest of us). for us, the drug dealers got busted and the others, including the police and fireman, are now outnumbered by people who do not believe in conducting themselves the way they do and they have realized it no longer serves a point to stand out in the road shouting about something that they have no business complaining about, so now they hide in their houses like the anti-social boobs they really are; this is why it is good that some of these “men” get “twenty year and out” pensions; it may cost us taxpayers money, but eventually, they pick up and move and bestow their graces on florida. you’ll get there. numbers will change the dynamic.

Advice to anyone new on a block, or neighborhood – don’t try and “make it better” – right off the bat, be overly aggressive with your agenda, or act entitled. Your new, keep your head down a little but say hi to everyone. Remember that people have lived there a long time, and to them the neighborhood/block is fine just the way it is. Be gradual, don’t do stuff that can be misinterpreted.

I saw in another post that Rach said something about installing gates to her neighbors backyards so that she could “clean” them. And taking over the block association. Or commenting on the music type.

rach, i am sorry for the political slant but i fold that hand-in-hand with the social mindset i see here and really was trying to avoid saying it.

boo, i had a confrontation with a police inspector who lives two doors from me over a legally parked vehicle, this all on a sunday morning. all preventable. there is a mindset over here that i keep alluding to by saying uncalled for things such as what tv stations they watch; it cannot be the water, we all drink the same water in this city; it has to be something else.

Btw, Rach, curious as to what the uncomfortable conversations and confrontations were about. If you don’t feel like relating, totally cool but it might help give context.

Okay. Rach_Brklyn – Hang in there. It will all be worth it.

You didn’t miss anything bk, a couple of us took a jaunt off topic and I brought in matters from other posts in doing so.

Am I missing something? Was there a political slant to your situation? On my block the current President’s name is verboten and I hope folks are not trying to hit you over the head with that (depending on who you support). When we moved in many moons ago, folks were always angry at us because we were doing maybe what they couldn’t or weren’t; fixing up an old brownstone. However as time passed (literally years) I would see my closest neighbors digging up and replanting their gardens, washing their windows and hosing down their sidewalk, decorating their houses at holidays and being pleasant. Asking us how much the iron work restoration cost, etc.

I joined the local community garden, block association and it just slowly fit. They realized I wasn’t an interloper or a bad person but someone just trying to make a home for my family. During one particularly brutal summer we gutted our garden level space and our neighbors had tenants who all worked restaurant jobs. Boy did they cuss us out even though we started after 9:00 a.m. on weekends. It hurt but we sent all 4 to the Empire Hotel for a night with dinner on us. They actually became our allies when others would complain. When everything was done. I had an open house and put out a spread. maybe we went overboard but in a city where you live in such close proximity, it was worth it. You will find your place. Don’t over think every response. If you are doing the right thing then that’s always the right thing.

Boo, i will use something i learned from DIBS: QED.

Rach, I’m sorry for momentarily hijacking your thread, back to your very worthy question.

We moved into a neighborhood about five years ago now that is just beginning to have different types of newcomers arrive. We were very concerned about our impact on the neighborhood and how we would be received.

I can’t stress enough the wisdom mentioned here several times, but put very well by bkallday – “slow boil romance” just take it slow and show up, mouth shut and ears open. Granted we spent some time in the neighborhood you are currently in while we were looking in 2012-2014 and found it generally not as friendly as our neighborhood (for whatever reason, we didn’t sense a lot of friendliness in general to whomever – not ascribing this to race or any other attribute).

So keep saying hi to everyone and anyone, going to community meetings and listening, and shoveling those driveways.

Hi Steve, thanks for your response but I wasn’t just talking about this thread – for one example somehow a thread about a fence took a very unexpected turn into broad statements about the political leanings of people who watch a certain tv network.

Having read this forum for many years, only recently contributing, I have had great respect for your years of contributions and will continue to do so,.

My point was that somehow many topics here have had politics and broad judgements shoehorned into subject matters that are unrelated to the matters at hand.

Anyway, I tried to gently make my point, said my piece, and from now on will get back to the subjects at hand., including this very important one by OP.

booisgolden, i did explain this to dibs, i used that term not to be political but to explain a mindset. i could think of no other way to do it and did not want to accuse my neighbors of being anything they might not be, but i know some things by some of the bumper stickers on the cars around here at election time, so i termed it the way i did. i agree that politics should not be on this board but there is a fuzzy line where it crosses over to social issues (diversity) and those affect quality of life.

with my reluctance to say certain things about my neighbors, with no evidence, i thought a little more about this:

two weeks after we moved in here, one of the neighbors said “when you go to sell here you go back to the realtor you bought the house from or the one on the corner…. those realtors won’t dare bring ‘anyone else’ in here”. later when i realized i did not belong here and told my immediate neighbor i wanted to leave he said “i bet you will sell to……” (i told him the house will go to the person who can give us the most money, whomever that may be).

wh at i just recounted was something i was trying to imply. thankfully that is all we’ve heard but unfortunately if we were socializing with “these” people and drinking with them, we would probably hear more of it. i am from Long Island and heard a lot of it growing up. my wife is not from here (this country) and if she heard something like this or heard someone use that word that my neighbor said to me, she would say something. this is very possible why newcomers are not welcome in this neighborhood, even though we look alike.

even though this topic has been a sensitive one, the comments here will hopefully help somebody including the OP. if i had read them before i bought here, i would have thought twice.

Start by not calling yourself a “gentrifier”. Even though many old neighborhoods are changing, the word gentry is normally thought to apply to landed gentry who were overwhelmingly white. Also while many folks welcome things like the Bodega on the corner suddenly selling organic, they don’t welcome the jacked up prices, seeing their parking spaces eaten up by 20 yard dumpsters and the fact that now that you have arrived when you call the cops actually come. Think of this as a slow boil romance. Join the block association but keep your wonderful ideas to yourself and don’t try to Bogart with suggestions on how to make things better. If your block hosts a block party or halloween event, pitch in. If your block does back to school backpacks for the kids then offer to supply 5 fully loaded book bags with notebooks, pens, loose leaf, pencil case, etc. Eat from the local greasy spoon joint or hole in the wall Chinese restaurant and don’t pray for a farm to table to take over the old liquor store. Get to know the hobo’s and give them a few dollars to sweep your sidewalk and the house on each side. Work on fixing up your home and then if you have some like minded neighbors see if you can hose a once a Saturday block clean up where everyone comes out to sweep their fronts and the gutters. Set up a stoop sit where you can meet your neighbors and just chat. Ease yourself into acceptance and don’t force it. But continue to say Good morning and hello. You will do fine. Good luck

Just saying that over the past several years, politics and harsh words directed at people on whatever part of the political spectrum have forcibly inserted themselves into so many areas of life, that coming here to Brownstoner forum has been a much needed respite, where most of the invectives are reserved for disputes over wet basements and contractors and such.

So much of our lives have been taken over by this, and justifiably so, but I’d humbly ask that we keep the focus here on hurling insults over wood vs aluminum clad windows.

DIBS, I had to look that one up.

i am just trying to be nice.