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.
BKALLDAY
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
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mattieweiser1
in General Discussion 6 years ago
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
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 6 years ago
IMO “being friendly, smiling and saying ‘hello’” will go a LONG way. I wouldn’t push it much beyond that. Start with your immediate neighbors.
stevecym | 6 years ago
see what bob says. I have African American customers in these areas and they tell me that a “simple hello” would be a good start for the new comers. these customers have complained to me that the new comers “walk by as if we don’t exist”. there is more to this and i know it from having lived in the south where people often say hello to strangers; many of the African Americans in Brooklyn have southern roots, specifically North Carolina and they were brought up to say hello to people they have never met before. I realize bob says “i wouldn’t push it much beyond that” but when i go to work on streets like Lincoln Place and Herkimer, i can end up knowing the neighbors very well within days of being there – to the point that when i have to take a break, i will ask them to watch my tools (and for that favor i always return with a cold bottle of water or tea for them). also, being from long island myself and having grown up in a typical suburban family, this level of comfort is not something i was raised with; i learned it myself over a period of years – a little bit from living in the south but also by simply talking to people on the streets of Brooklyn.
start with the older people as they will have more time for you.
cate | 6 years ago
This all sounds like good advice. When we moved to Bed Stuy 10 years ago people who had lived here for decades were so friendly and welcoming. Now that the composition of the neighborhood is more mixed, sadly I’ve noticed people are a little less prone to say hello. I make a point of saying good morning or hello how ya doing to pretty much everybody and especially the folks over 50. In addition to helping folks with trash, leaves and tidying sometimes it’s nice to shovel a bit on the sidewalks adjoining yours and help out a little there. If there’s a community garden you can offer to weed (without requesting a space).
stevecym | 6 years ago
I often write on here and then either think about a million things as to what I said that was wrong or what might make my situation different from the situation of others. I know some of what I said is correct as an African American woman said just those things to me as i quoted them (she would be delighted to know that I was listening and am quoting her).
i have to point out that one reason i may have an easier time in certain areas is because when i am working, i look pretty messy; i don’t look like a gentrifier. so my suggestion is, on your time off, dress in old jeans, don’t wear the trendiest sneakers, and wear an old t-shirt. even when gentrifiers are not dressed for the office, they stick out like, well, gentifiers.
and all this brings me to something else. the mindset of new comers to anyplace may be so different that even if you try to “do good” by cleaning up a neighboring property, it may not be welcome because you are an outsider. i can think of two places where this is true in my life: my family is from the North Fork of Long Island (i am not from there but have been going out there since the mid 1960’s; it makes it easy for me to see both “sides”) and there are a lot of city people going out there now and bringing all sorts of great ideas. unfortunately, the people in an area like that don’t like the changes, they don’t care about the money that is coming with the new comers (unless of course they found a way to list that extra room on air bnb but most of them still do not know what air bnb is and i am not kidding), they hate the traffic on the roads, and as miserable as they might have been, they were happy with their lives the way they were. because i am not from there but have scores of second cousins there, i get to sit down and listen to all the complaints about the changes as we drink a lot of cheap American beer.
i also face this situation in the very white neighborhood where i live. they do not want outsiders here. they don’t say hello to anyone on the street unless they know them and this brings about something else; ever since i left for college in another state, i have been the “new comer” to someplace be it in North Carolina or here in Queens. new comers reach to other people and say hello on the street; they have to if they want to meet people. the people living there may not unless they know the other person. i was with a customer the other day in front of his house and i saw a woman coming down the road and told him “she came by yesterday and gave me a big ‘hello” and the customer said “she’s new to the area and wants to make friends”. and i knew what he meant and if she had lived there for all her life, she might not have felt the need to reach out.
Outsiders always bring something different and if people are happy with things the way they are, they may not be welcoming and there may be nothing you can do about it. Here in Queens, my wife and i were the first new comers to move in on our street and with the exception of a few curious people, most of them kept to themselves. Once i got to know the “ilk” of these people, i was happy that they kept to themselves (they proudly and openly support a certain small-minded politician who also happens to be from Queens). the change for us came when three other couples arrived, all with greater aspirations than the locals and each with another level of education; they are open. if you do not immediately find some people who will talk to you where you are, in time other new comers will move in and you will find each other.
it is sad that it is this way, especially in Brooklyn, because the long-time residents you are living near, unlike these lilly white people where i live, may actually be very nice people and you may have a lot more in common with them than you or they think.
slopefarm | 6 years ago
I would go further than Bob. At a good moment, introduce yourself to your nearest neighbors, particularly if you are seeing them around regularly. Over time, ask questions — is there a block association, does the block usually have a block party or cleanup day, etc. and then participate in those things.
And, yes, shovel the sidewalk for elderly neighbors, be outside a lot keeping things neat, etc.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 6 years ago
Steve,
Having spent the first 25 years of my life in Forest Hills Queens (just a couple of miles from that certain politician you mentioned ) I’m convinced that white people in that borough are a lot less receptive to outsiders, or even their neighbors, than people of any race herein Brooklyn.
stevecym | 6 years ago
bob, I don’t want to name where I am but any of you can look it up; I am not too far from F Hills. I am embarrassed to live around such people as I do and having come from Sunnyside where everyone knew one another and having moved to where i am now, I was depressed for a full year after arriving here. I fully felt as though I had made the single biggest mistake of my life. when I tell my Brooklyn customers about what it is like to live over here, I say “not only do they hate each other but they hate themselves”.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 6 years ago
I know what you mean Steve. Moving from FH Queens to Brooklyn was one of the best things I ever did.
stevecym | 6 years ago
seeing your comments over the years and what you are saying now, which I know to be true, I have to say you are a good ambassador for Brooklyn, bob.
mattieweiser1
in General Discussion 6 years ago
Hi All, many thanks for your insights! Since moving here I have come to know my immediate neighbors fairly well – we chat a bit but I’m not quite hanging out with them on the stoop just yet. They seem to appreciate that I am taking care of the property and relieved that they no longer deal with random airbnb guests as neighbors.
My issue is with the extended neighbors – I take long walks during which I will make eye contact and say ‘hello’. Whether I say ‘hello’ or not, many people will stare at me as I walk by. If I make eye contact and say ‘hello’ most of the time my greeting is not reciprocated – either I’ll get a long stare with no response with a hint of confusion, or the person will quickly look away.
Not sure if it matters what I wear; I’ll stick out regardless. I am an Asian American woman, often walking with a dog – look young for my age so maybe people think I am renting (not sure if that matters). Many people in the area are not dog lovers, so that doesn’t help either. @cate, maybe my area is gentrified enough that most people stopped saying hello to each o ther. Good point about the over 50 crowd, I will be more aware and be sure to keep greeting them warmly.
@stevecym, thank you especially for your thoughtful response. It is unfortunate… I do believe my neighbors are good people as well. After 13 years of living all over NYC I become so comfortable in our culturally diverse bubble, it took moving farther east to remember these tensions exist closer to home.
stevecym | 6 years ago
part of why i felt ok expressing so much about culture and neighborhoods here is i have literally worked the cross section of neighborhoods in NYC and with that the cross section, a cross section of cultures and socio-economic conditions. my wife and i also have a diverse group of friends, very different than the people where either one of us comes from. consequently, I sometimes have to change the way i operate (business wise, mostly). by the way, my wife is an immigrant and we openly have to discuss cultural differences here as part of our marriage and raising our son but also in her relationship to the community (she is not comfortable addressing issues with the locals and will ask me to do it, say complaints to the school administration and they are just as ignorant as anyone else).
Not everyone is comfortable dealing with people from different cultures and it takes time for them – it may not be dislike – but more about not knowing (i do not even want to use the word “ignorance” but if we were talking about white people, like the people where i live, that is w hat it is called). i give my white neighbors little girth with their behavior as being one of them, i expect more from them (and i am from a pretty closed-minded area of Suffolk County myself; please, there is no excuse in America; stop watching fox five, open a book, or go to college; no excuses here). but there are things i have learned. if i pass some ignorant white person on the street here, i will look right at them and say hello and force it on them (just because i can walk down the street in brooklyn and say hello to someone whose skin color is different than mine and that person will give me a warm hello back; it pisses me off to have to come home to this).
we have a lot of people from asia moving into our area. i have learned not to force a hello on them. i look and if they look at me i say hello, quietly. i might not get one back. it is not the same with them as it is with the ignorant white people; it is something with a very different cultural and i know that because asian people have explained it to me. the only asian people i can really say hello to here are the ones i know, my neighbors and that only got that way after formal introductions were made (and once this was done with my immediate neighbor who is from china, i found we get along better than many other neighbors who share my skin color). the truth is, if you walked by my house and said hello to me as i were standing in my yard, as much as i want to see everyone in this neighborhood say hello to one another, i would think it was odd but not in a bad way. but i would be surprised. I could suggest you are catching some by surprise but i suppose day-after-day if you said hello to me, i would learn to expect it and respond with a hello.
What i am saying is, some people will have an expectation from some people in so far as how reserved they might be. my thought is, if you reach too hard and far, they might be thinking “what?” to tell you the truth, if one of my asian neighbors (female at that) came out here and shoveled the walk, i would think that is most bizarre and would not know what to do (do i thank them, invite them in for coffee, buy them a bottle of wine? or do i chase them away?); but if the fat old white lady next door did half my walk, i would be grateful and shocked and almost expect it as i have done a lot for them and have to listen to their problems with the house and the cars all the time (my wife complains because they shovel right to each property line when my inclination is to shovel over each line by a foot or so to help out).
all that stuff that i said about me walking into a brooklyn nabe and connecting; i think you can throw half that out the window. By gender and occupation alone, it is not going to be the same. Just the fact that i am carrying a tool bag might very well make people want to connect with me because you never know when you will need your door frame fixed.
Now that i know more about you, i am afraid to say, there is not much you can do. if the mindset of the people there is anything like the mindset of people here (and these things cross all races and cultures; one of my employees once told me “steve, there is s**t in every bucket”) you will be lucky to get to know your immediate neighbors and as with some of mine here, i feel like they only talk to me when they need something (i am not including the newcomers in that statement).
as someone else said, focus on your immediate neighbors. if it is anything like over here, that is all you will get until others move in. and i can tell you something about shoveling walks; i own a snowblower as we have a common drive in the back and i have to get out in the winter and have to clear it; only one or two neighbors ever expressed any gratitude for my clearing it and i have simply stopped doing it altogether even though i have to get my own work vehicle in and out. (and when the city came around and threatened to ticket them for not cleaning their side walks, they wanted to pay me; too late, you should have opened the door when i was selling candy with my son for his kindergaten class, i would have done it for free; your mom is not home and your a 40 year old parent yourself sitting in your parent’s house and i am selling candy with my 5 year old for school and you can’t open your wallet, telling me instead your “mother’s not home”; you should have bought the candy because your elderly parents wanted their walk done the following winter and had they raised you better than that and had they taught you to do something for your neighbors and you bought the candy, i would have run the snow blower over the walk for free……. that is how communities are supposed to work). this is what i learned, focus on those who respond and ignore the others. seriously, you will become unhappy trying and you will regret having bought a house there and your coming on here tells me that is where you are headed because i was once there and even though i still live here, in my mind i have moved on (don’t worry, when your house is worth twice what you paid for it, you will feel that tolerating your neighbors is just part of the deal; that is the point i am at). when you get to know others who think the behavior is wrong and you share stories, you will hear similarities and then you will realize you have made friends. you are where i once was and in time you will learn to focus on those things that please you and ignore the rest. do that for yourself.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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”
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.