New Macro-Nabe Trend Launches with "Tri-Hood"
We hadn’t read anything in the press yet about a movement to merge the neighborhoods of Bedford Stuyvesant, East New York and Brownsville into the appropriately named “Tri-Hood”, but this tag-up on the walls of the Louis Armstrong Houses on Lexington and Throop may be the start of a new macro-nabe trend. Remember, you heard…
We hadn’t read anything in the press yet about a movement to merge the neighborhoods of Bedford Stuyvesant, East New York and Brownsville into the appropriately named “Tri-Hood”, but this tag-up on the walls of the Louis Armstrong Houses on Lexington and Throop may be the start of a new macro-nabe trend. Remember, you heard it here first!
Triple Threat [Flick’r, photo by Kevin Mason]
Anon 10:50, if you don’t like to read long posts, scroll down. The rest of us are having an important discussion.
why do you want a character limit? Afraid you’ll learn something?
Sure 15 years ago these neighborhoods had higher crime rates. So did Bklyn Hgts, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens. SO did the entire City.Bed Stuy is huge- of course there are bad areas. In the 70’s and 80’s all over Brooklyn there were bad areas. There was a time you could not walk safely down COurt St. (Any one else remember the porn shops and theater?). What’s your neighborhood? Wanna bet I can come up with stats that tell a story you don’t want to hear? Experience is the greatest teacher. The best student is one who can walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.
I personally know a very blonde gay white male who rollerskated to a friend’s house in Bed-Stuy in the
“bad” 80’s wearing shorts (not a pretty sight!)- no one bothered him. I assume many of them were disabled by laughter. I regularly went to Bed-Stuy in the 80’s and 90’s to visit friends. The only thing that ever happened was that a Black man who saw me said, Honey you stand out like a lit candle in the night. Ooooh. The real point is that stats do not tell the real story or the whole story. I have a degree in social science- we were taught how statistics can be manipulated to mean anything. On the ground the truth is there was always a deep core of people who worked, bought homes, were fiercely proud of their history and culture and loved their neighborhood. If none of these neighborhoods, Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights,etc. had had that strong core, there would be nothing left. In the 70’s the now departed Apartment Life magazine wrote an article on the middle class families in Bed-Stuy, and how the neighborhood was alive, well, and a good place to live. I don’t know why some people choose to get personally upset that anyone chooses to defend their neighborhood. I don’t suppose the fact that Brownbomber lives in Bed-Stuy means anything? Anon 10:01- you never lived in Bed-Stuy- you don’t know squat except for some numbers. You don’t even understand how those numbers relate to a real neighborhood. And for the record, I’m the original poster who made the comment about White people know less about Black people than vice versa. I’m white, Jewish and if you read my post you will see that I speak from long personal experience. Before you count yourself an expert in other neighborhoods, you should live there first.
Actually CrownHtsPrd – I specifically quoted Homicide stats b/c they really cant be “interpreted” – your either dead or not.
You clearly didnt read my whole post b/c I specifically said that no one is saying that the people who live in Bed-Stuy et al, are all criminals – you are more than correct that the victims of these crimes were almost all the residents of same nabe. Nor was anyone dismissing these nabes are “crime ridden swaths of blight” but you are dellusional if you dont recongnize that 15 years ago these nabes were crime-ridden (and still have unacceptably high levels) – even if it didnt directly land on your personal front stoop.
Further the level of abject poverty in Bed-Stuy is also unacceptably high and no amount of sweeping that under the rug is going to make that go away.
I am not dismissing Bed-Stuy or saying anyone is a fool for not moving –
what I am saying is that simply ignoring or denying the problems will do nothing to solve them.
can Brownstoner put a character limit on posts?
“As for this revisionist history that Bed-Stuy et al… were these stable family neighborhoods w/ just a couple of pockets of crime and poverty is truly the most ridiculous spin ever posted here”
Anon 10:01 – THAT is patently untrue, and on top of that, is not what any poster said or meant. It is also highly insulting. You can quote all the crime stats you want, because these numbers can say whatever you want them to say. These stats cover a huge geographic area, with everything from mansions to housing projects, drug turf wars to domestic violence and child abuse, babies to senior citizens.
You seem to have no problem belittling the achievements of thousands of people in these neighborhoods, from those of us with Ivy League educations to those who are the first in their families to graduate from high school. You totally dismiss generations of families – yes, traditional nuclear families, who have lived in these communities for over 60 years and have thrived and prospered without a single member knowing what the inside of a police station looks like, people who have never been robbed, mugged, murdered or preyed upon. People who get up every morning, go to work, raise their children, and come home at night, just as they do everywhere else. Come to Bed Stuy or anywhere in black Bklyn on a Sunday morning and see generations of families on their way to hundreds of churches, some of the largest, wealthiest, most powerful and socially active churches in America. How dare you come on this forum and dismiss us and our community as a crime ridden swath of blight, as if 90% of us are criminals, and the other 10% fools. You don’t know us, you don’t know our history, or our trials and tribulations and triumphs. No one here has ever painted these communities as crime free utopias. Nor do we defend the criminals, as we are more likely to be the victims. If these communities were nothing more than untapped repositories of housing, the people now flocking to move here, white, black, Asian and Latin, would not have been able to make safe and stable homes for themselves and their families. They connected with a stable middle class with a vital and proud history, people who kept these homes standing, and people who still have much to give the “new” Bed Stuy, and all of the other communities that still make up Black Brooklyn.
It’s true – Billy Joel did walk through “Bedford-Stuy” alone. I have the video to prove it.
Anon 6:13AM – (whew, early in the AM my friend) Let the choir say Amen – thank you. That was heart felt, and well said. You articulated many things I have tried to say in various places and times. Also B2B, and Brown Bomber and others, as well.
Although many of you may get tired of this topic, it keeps popping up, and that is because it will be with us as long as there are race, class and gentrification issues in this society. (that means forever, sadly) I think that it is important for the truly socially aware and caring members of this blog community to grapple with this and come to an understanding that the way black and other minority peoples view issues of gentrification, “safety”, and other peoples’ idea of what makes up a “good” neighborhood, will always be slightly different and skewed towards a defensive position. Let’s keep talking, preferably in an intelligent fashion, and perhaps we can educate each other, and help make our shared neighborhoods a better place for everyone.