Writer Falls For Bed Stuy on First Date
We missed this profile of Bed Stuy in the Daily News on Friday (which surprisingly was accompanied by a photo of five houses on the Clinton Hill side of Classon, recreated above), but a reader flagged it for us yesterday…The writer clearly has a big crush on the nabe, even if it’s his first time…
We missed this profile of Bed Stuy in the Daily News on Friday (which surprisingly was accompanied by a photo of five houses on the Clinton Hill side of Classon, recreated above), but a reader flagged it for us yesterday…The writer clearly has a big crush on the nabe, even if it’s his first time visiting. “You can’t believe something like this is in New York, and then you can’t believe you never knew it existed,” he writes about himself seeing the Montrose Morris-designed Alhambra building. And the architecture isn’t the only thing that impresses him: Its restaurants are “are more Greenwich Village than Greenwich Village.” We also learn how wonderful the residents are: I didn’t like people very much before we opened, says the co-owner of Ms. Dahlia’s Café. But the people here are amazing.” And of course there’s the issue of race, with this quote from a fifty-year resident of Madison Street: We’re going back to how we were in the late 1950s, she says of the current wave of gentrification. We were 80/20 white-to-black then. Then we were 90/10 black-to-white. Now, every new family who comes in is white. We welcome the change. It’s great, but it makes me laugh. Let’s say 20 years ago I moved to Howard Beach? I don’t think I would be as welcomed as the white people coming here are. That tells you something.
High on Bed-Stuy [NY Daily News]
Historic district that currently exists is only Stuy heights which is VERY, VERY small compared to the rest of bed Stuy.
Basically Bed Stuy is roughly 14 avenues wide from Classon to Saratoga and at it’s deepest, runs 21 blocks from Fulton up to about Myrtle.
Stuy Heights is about 4 blocks over three of the avenues.
Roughly. I don’t need to generate all kinds of refinements on this.
Maybe he means he knows more people in Park Slope or something?
Bed Stuy is much less anonymous than many areas. People say hello on the street, I know my neighbors.
Good day all.
I grow up on this block in the photo. My family was the first African American to purchase and live on the block back in the 1920s. We have a ton of history on that block and the surrounding area.
Gentrification has taken place…it’s common to see white people an hipsters these days. There are several new cafes and places to shop. The verdict on gentrification is not concrete and depends on who you ask. Either way the block in the photo is a nice block with ton of historic value.
Rob, the existing historic district is in Stuyvesant Heights, blocks and blocks away from the part of Bed Stuy that this article features. There is a large grass roots effort to get much of BS proper landmarked, but the present effort does not include the blocks pictured in the photo, or Bedford Ave, although the block where Miss Dahlia’s is, and the surrounding blocks near the Alhambra are prime blocks, smack in the middle of a long overdue Bedford Historic district. The Alhambra is an individual landmark, and is already protected.
Those antique stores are really nice, too, if they’re the ones I’m thinking of. I hope the retail in this place doesn’t change dramatically overnight. Sometimes it’s nice when things are a little sleepy and mixed up.
ha true dave, i was thinking more along the lines of general gossip, like you know who is seeing whom, and what do they do for a living, day to day stuff that normal people gossip about. maybe bed stuy is anonymous cuz people arent ratting each other out over what people do with their own property? how big is the bed stuy historic distict tho compared to all of bed stuy btw?
*rob*
That’s a nice write up. I like the part about the architecture, the small-town feel, and the interviews with the old-time residents.
rob…you may be right. I bet there’s a lot more peering out of windows in bed Stuy and that can be a good or bad thing. But nobody is ever up in anybody’s business a la the Norah Jones’ window haters and busy body stuff like that.
quote:
Person said it was much more anonymous than Park Slope. What could be meant by that?
i would imagine it means people arent all up in their neighbors business like they might be in park slope? i dont know. i would actually think park slope is MUCH more anonymous really than bed stuy would be, but ive never lived there i really cant say for sure.. but in general the more affluent a community of home owners are, the less in each others business they are, that’s pretty much a fact. but who knows if that’s even what the person was talking about.
*rob*