Self-confessed gentrifier: how to begin feeling at home in my own neighborhood?
Last year I moved to a more eastern area of Crown Heights. Since then I have strived to help improve my house and neighborhood by cleaning up the property and surrounding yards, making it a safe and presentable home, helping to clean the persistent influx of trash on the street, etc. However there are moments when I get the sense that some natives to the area believe I deserve less respect because I am new to the neighborhood, indicated by some uncomfortable conversations and confrontations. Besides being friendly, smiling and saying ‘hello’, can anyone offer advice for a self-confessed gentrifier? If this post does not belong on the Brownstoner Forum I will understand completely. TIA
mattieweiser1
in General Discussion 6 years ago
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daveinbedstuy | 6 years ago
Q.E.D. stevcym
stevecym | 6 years ago
Dibs: I hate to get into this with you here as others have done and have tended to stay out of these things in general, but did i hit a raw nerve? i have no better way to describe the mindset here without using adjectives which really may not be true. i will go even further, “trumpville” is a word i picked up from one of my customers, an african american at that, who does business over here. its the most polite descriptor i can use and it would probably please my neighbors to know i used it.
you are correct, i should keep politics off here.
daveinbedstuy | 6 years ago
stevecym: Try to refrain from posting your pathetic, virtue signalling politics here.
stevecym | 6 years ago
slopefarm: not in trumpville it doesn’t.
slopefarm | 6 years ago
LOL, you’re likeable enough, Dave!
Seriously, pitching in and doing neighborly stuff like sweeping and shoveling goes a long way.
daveinbedstuy | 6 years ago
When I bought my house on Stuyvesant Ave, I seemed to have an almost immediate acceptance by everyone on my block. For what it’s worth, I was the only white guy. Maybe taking down the 8′ unsightly security fence in the front had soemthing to do with it. Even more may have been getting up with the neighbors, mostly older retired men, to shovel the sidewalks od snow in the morning. But, as many old time Brownstoners know, I’m a very likable guy!!!!
stevecym | 6 years ago
Rach, I think this was really good that you came on here and i think it is potentially helpful to a lot of people. you and i have had very similar experiences in our respective neighborhoods but what is unique about my situation is that i look just like my neighbors (not anymore, after the last presidential election i grew a beard to set myself apart) and i have still felt the same indifference. but its not hate; they talk to us when we or they need something and haters don’t mix with the other at all and the other day one of them did something really good for me without being asked and another time one saw my car getting ticketed and went out and argued with the traffic agent on my behalf; they do know how to come together when it is needed. my wife and i were very perplexed by it and so are others; a few months back a woman walked by here with a baby in a stroller and another walking alongside and immediately told the one walking, “say hello to the man” and i said hello to them all and turned to her and promptly said “you are not from here” and i was correct and we immediately got into a 30 minute conversation about how odd it all is; i felt very bad for her that she perhaps has these two kids and might be alone during the day in this community and not able to connect; it can be lonely.
The good news about all this is, particularly with us over here, we cannot pin it to anything but what it is because we look like them and that shows that it can be the same for you over there; just the way they are. so these stories we have hashed out can always lend doubt to any newcomer who thinks this may be happening for more sinister reasons.
i enjoyed all this and thank you for bringing it here.
Steve
mattieweiser1
in General Discussion 6 years ago
@no-permitz, I apologize for my unintended ‘overall tone’. It is often the issue of online forums and blogs – you do not know me personally so you seem to be judging me based on my writing on a forum which is merely a small blip in my life/experiences. Same goes for everyone on here and other forums across interests/disciplines. Admittedly I’m also terrible at expressing myself in a just a few quick sentences.
I experience racial/sexual discrimination on a daily basis – regardless of the neighborhood or social situation – which makes me more aware than many people about my surroundings so I take note of it. My profession is also dominated by males so that’s something I battle in the workplace. Most of my friends including my husband are causcasian, and never feel the need to raise issues of race or sex because it rarely enters their mind. When I bring my observations up in a conversation, I draw attention to something that make some people uncomfortable. For me, it’s just a part of daily life.
One of my friends is half African-American man with an intimidating phys ique. One dinner he talked about the times he walks at night and notices that single females tend to be afraid of him, that they try to avoid walking close to him. I tell him he’s forunate that he never has to worry about being a petite woman, an easy target at night. He says he’d rather not be judged. In general it is important that we understand each other’s point of views so we understand how our behavior impacts others. As long as these conversations are productive, I believe they’re fair to have.
I did realize that the topic might be inappropriate which I admitted at the end of my first comment “If this post does not belong on the Brownstoner Forum I will understand completely”. I appreciate that the administrators kept this up long enough to harvest the thoughtful insights of some folks with awareness and understanding. It’s unforunate that my post was taken out of context as I’d like to thing this is an open forum free of judgement. Thanks again to all who commented – whether or not you understand, I appreciate the time you took to read the thread.
yudashasom | 6 years ago
@steve, it’s her overall tone.
I just picked one thing out that you might have said, that she repeated and concurs with. I could point to a dozen things she said… all of which show that she is not only a “self confessed gentrifier” but just someone I could see the neighbors liking (white, black, purple, or green).
stevecym | 6 years ago
no-permitz:
rach was only repeating something i said. both she and i have the experience of moving into a neighborhood that is “closed”. she, like i, moved in trying to connect with the locals. after being in my neighborhood, i have realized these folks do not talk to one another at all, let along new comers. there is no sense of community. when people like us come from places like sunnyside, we move into the new places not realizing that things can be very different. what i told rach was that when your house appreciates in value, you will not be so bothered by the other stuff (if not for anything else but that equity in a home may be your ticket out). I do not believe it was her intent to move into a neighborhood for any reason other than to be part of the community. now she has to find another reason to be there and i gave it to her, an investment; its the same here and me and my wife are talking more about Brooklyn ourselves especially since i expounded so much on this topic the other day and got some feedback from Bob Marvin and others; we want to exp erience restaurants, bookstores, cafes, music, and the diversity and the other things that we moved to the city to enjoy; i would trade that for the appreciation in the value of my house any day.
yudashasom | 6 years ago
> @rach_brklyn
> this is just something I have to deal with to reap the benefits of a house that appreciates so rapidly
Holy cow.
You sound like everything that’s wrong, or what old-timers don’t like with changes in these neighborhoods.
stevecym | 6 years ago
Bob:
point one: I bet you and the people who you speak of who talk to people much younger also enjoy people of different shades in general;
point two; it is ok to become local in the right locale. my son has seen the difference and he has told me and my better half that he may very well remain in nyc but that if he does it will be Brooklyn.
I need to acknowledge something here for anyone reading this who has met me or my son, including the man who commented directly to me on here the other day (cityguyz) because he and his wife were so nice to my son: the exposure to the variety of people I have been able to give my son by bringing him to work with me down in Brooklyn, not only the people who let him play with their children when I was working, but also the people we met on the street, really did a lot for us. that is part of the reason he has told us if he remains in nyc it will be Brooklyn. I suspect we will not be far behind which I hate to say because this area has begun to change but I do not think we will get the cultural attributes we desire soon enough.
and both of you, bob and rach, thank you for taking the time to read what I wrote. I hope I paint an accurate picture.
mattieweiser1
in General Discussion 6 years ago
@stevecym many thanks for sharing your insights and stories.
That is true about constant change; from the conversations I’ve had it seems most of my neighbors moved here in the late 80’s early 90’s. We were told that even 10 years ago hard drugs were being sold right on our block but things changed about 5-6 years ago when a school nearby opened up. A couple of my neighbors have also talked about moving back to the Caribbean, that it’s time to move on and retire elsewhere. Of course they’ve acknowledged their house’s new worth will provide a very comfortable retirement elsewhere.
We are still fixing up the house and haven’t held any parties here so I have yet to discover whether neighbors will actually show up. I have promised my neighbors a tour once it is done but I feel a bit guilty that I’m able to transform my house so significantly after briefly seeing what the inside of their house looks like.
My neighbor had a meeting last year on her stoop about getting a block association together but I had to miss it due to work. She mentioned she has no time for this a nymore (and probably like you didn’t want to keep extending the invite to those who don’t show) so perhaps I’ll pick up where she left off when I can get my stoop in better shape.
I really like most of my neighbors… it’s just a few of them who blast really loud music and scream at the top of their lungs while hanging outside, who are usually the younger < 30 crowd... as you mentioned this is just something I have to deal with to reap the benefits of a house that appreciates so rapidly. Actually I wouldn't mind it so much if their music selection was more tasteful. Sometimes the older crowd will play motown and 80's smooth jazz which I can get down with. Suprisingly I went to the local park and saw a group of about 15-20 parents and their children, a very diverse mix of people. It looked like a scene from Fort Greene Park, I hadn't seen anything like it before in that park. If I am not too old to have children of my own, I would love to join someday.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 6 years ago
Two points:
1. I’m pretty old and talk to neighbors half my age frequently—so do others who are my contemporaries
2. Stay around long enough and YOU BECOME a “local”
stevecym | 6 years ago
if you do not fit in with the locals and keep in mind, i do not fit in with them here and we look alike, skin color may very well have nothing to do with it and this is how it will all change (improve) for you. at first you will not notice it. you will have given up on them as i have suggested you do. you will focus on the one or two neighbors who welcome you and even they may not come to that party you might have at your house. my wife and i had a big party a few months after we moved in and invited a mix of people from across the board and our neighbors did not come to it (and our friends are easy to mix with and like to meet people). looking back as i write this, i know why. i never see anyone but their own family visit them and so far as i know, they don’t socialize; its them – they cannot walk into a party where they do not know anyone and feel comfortable while people on here, professionals who are comfortable mixing and who go out in the city, walk into situations where they do not know anyone all the time and in two minutes they have two new friends.
so you will give up on inviting them to your house . in time, other people will move in near you who will come to your house for a party and then you will go to theirs. and then another person or couple or family will move in and you will all meet and you will all socialize (and at some point you will compare notes on the locals). while all this is happening a few other things will happen. we had a drug dealer on our street and across from him was a serious drug user and around the corner was another serious user; these people kept the neighborhood down and while the locals may not have openly talked about them because they may have been people they once knew or they may even have been related to them or they may have loathed them so much that they didn’t want to think about them, part of the reason they had sheltered themselves in and stuck together was because of those problem neighbors; the drug dealers and users here, even though it was only a total of 4 people, there presence was magnified because of the people they brought around and this cast a distrust over the entire place and the locals did not know what to do about it (except the 80 year old man next to the dealer, he openly fought with him and they hurled threats at each other; praise that 80 year old man – this is what he said to me “you have a child to worry about, don’t get involved and don’t say anything, i’ll handle this”; this neighborhood should be doing more for him and his wife; i do shovel his walk or run my snowblower over it when i have it out). at one point one of my new comer neighbors said to me “hopefully in a few years we’ll all look back at all this (the drug people) and it will be like this; ‘remember those people we once had around here and we will have to think for a moment about who they were but we won’t even remember their names'”. well, all the troublemakers are gone; the dealer got busted and the feds threatened to take the house (his mother’s; she sold it) and the users are on Hart Island (sorry it that sounds insensitive; my wife and i worked our behind’s off to buy this place and we moved in here with a baby and had to walk by strung out people and their dangerous friends and their dealers in fancy cars who i don’t doubt were armed) and guess what, i cannot recall their names.
13 years on for us, there is a full mix of people here and it is almost as if the original residents, the ones who keep to themselves, no longer matter and i bet they like it that way. they still keep to themselves, possibly even more so now that “bad liberals” are moving in and inviting people around who do not look like them and even though the people who don’t look like them are productive members of society, they would never give them credit for having been part of the reason that the houses where the dealers and users lived are no longer occupied by those people. none of what happen here for this transformation to occur was really significant, except for the bust of the drug dealer which was welcomed by all and the endings of the three users which is sad for their families but served as a lesson for all the rest of us. the others just retire and move on and new people move in. that is the way it should go for you and it will.
i think these transformations have happened in a lot of outlying neighborhoods for years including the one where i grew up and in most cases it was not something called “gentrification” (and by the way, my german ancestors lived down there where you are living now, all over Bed Stuy and Bushwick from 1860 until 1920 and one “collateral” ancestor held on on St James place until 1946; how many times has that area transformed over that time period?).
Some of us might think that we are not being accepted because we are different (and even though i share the same skin color as my neighbors, i am very different from them and i like it that way) but it may not be that. it just may be that those folks are at different points in their lives – the kids have grown and it is easier to call the grand children or turn on the TV than stand out in the yard and talk to someone half your age as you worry that your knee may bend out from under you or if you sit on the steps you may not be able to get back up again or they may simply feel that their lives are full enough and less complicated the way they are and would rather not involve younger people whose lives are most definitely more complicated than their own. (when i sometimes stop, which is rare, i sometimes look at the neighbors with envy because of the simplicity; i will never admit that to them though).
In time, all of what i have said here will come true for you where you are because i think change is inevitable in any neighborhood and it has less to do with gentrification than you and others think; its just change.
stevecym | 6 years ago
i wish to offer you something else and some people pointed it out to me when we moved in here with our then baby; when you have kids you will really begin to meet people and through your children you will make friends. its amazing and it was so amazing that the friends my son was making, their parents had the same values as us; it fell together. and likewise, these are the people who had the same problems we faced and you face now.
stevecym | 6 years ago
years ago i was in a shop near my house and got into a conversation with someone about the people who do not say hello to people on the street in this area. we were commenting about how bizarre we thought it was. the shop keeper, a woman who routinely wears sleeveless t-shirts (the kind truck drivers wear) behind the counter as she cuts meats and makes sandwiches heard the conversation and with no apology stated “nope, not me. if i don’t know you, i don’t say hello to you”. that just added one more story to the litany of them i have about this area. Please understand, that woman owns the business – she was not some lowly employee with a bad attitude (I’ll be happy when it finally meets its death knell and a starbucks opens there).
eventually maybe you will find some humor in what you are experiencing. i can tell you when it begins to get funny; when your house is worth 50% more than you paid for it.
stevecym | 6 years ago
and lastly, this:
when I was first working in Brooklyn, years ago now, I was rebuilding a door for an African American woman. I noticed something in the area and that was that some people walked by me as though I did not exist and others would look and say hello. I thought the people who were ignoring me were doing so because I was white. now, this customer had a sign on her bathroom door that said “colored only”. the first thing she did when i saw that sign was put her hand on my shoulder and say, as she laughed, “don’t worry, you can use the bathroom”. but that sign and her humor, at something which we all should abhor, opened a channel of communication for us and I was able to ask her some things. I told her about what I noticed about some people walking by as if I did not exist and why I thought it was happening. she told me that it is not why it is happening and that they are like that with everyone. I think she was trying to tell me something else, that they might have been angry or something (she made a kind of face when she tried to explain it, kin d of shaking her head); but not at me or anyone in particular. it does not sound unlike where I live except these people here should not have a reason to be angry at anyone or anything because over here there is something called opportunity. that day though, I realized that the people who seemed to walk by as if I did not exist might have had issues of there own that had nothing to do with me. that same thing can happen any place, there in Brooklyn or here in Whiteville. at some point, after getting to talk to some people, you may be able to sort it all out a little and hopefully you will realize, like me, that it has nothing to do with how you look. its them and it may be their problem.
stevecym | 6 years ago
as i was writing this, i could hear my asian neighbor (brother in law to the homeowner) working in his yard breaking sticks. i wish i had gone out there this morning and said hello to him on his day off because that is what we do. and he knows not one word of english, sorry, two words “no english” but for some reason, for three or four years now we have managed to communicate. a smile from him does it for me. they are about the nicest neighbors we have; i gave them wire to hold their vine like squash plants up and they give us squash at the end of the summer; that is the way it is supposed to be. these other people here, the locals all look at them with suspicion. it does not help that they are running an air b n b out of the house, but everyone is trying to get me to turn on them and i keep telling them, “these are the nicest neighbors”. it does not matter to the locals how nice anyone is. that is the same mentality you will face and there is no changing it. focus on those who give you time.