Jeffries v. Broker on Neighborhood Names
Today The Brooklyn Paper ran an op-ed from Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries about why he’s introducing a bill to formalize the process of naming neighborhoods as well as one from a Rapid Realty broker named Lanishia Goodwin about why she supports new neighborhood handles. From Jeffries’ piece: “The consequences of realtors providing misleading information are broad….
Today The Brooklyn Paper ran an op-ed from Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries about why he’s introducing a bill to formalize the process of naming neighborhoods as well as one from a Rapid Realty broker named Lanishia Goodwin about why she supports new neighborhood handles. From Jeffries’ piece: “The consequences of realtors providing misleading information are broad. Working families are pushed out of rebranded neighborhoods as housing prices soar. Newer residents pay more to rent or buy, largely as a result of the deceptive marketing. This is why I plan to introduce the Neighborhood Integrity Act. This bill will require the city to develop a community-oriented process before brokers can rebrand a neighborhood or redefine its boundaries simply for commercial purposes. These new names rarely result from community input and are often disconnected from a neighborhood’s history, culture or tradition.” Meanwhile, Goodwin has this to say, in part: “In Brooklyn, even familiar names are nicknames for other neighborhoods. Prospect Lefferts Gardens was borrowed from a group of buildings in the Prospect Heights neighborhood, What about Ocean Hill and Kensington? They’re really Flatbush. And what about Stuyvesant Heights? Most of the owners of the million-dollar real estate in this historical area grew up there won’t argue that it’s Bedford-Stuyvesant…Brooklyn as a whole has also become such prime real estate—there are so many people moving farther and farther into Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, and Bushwick—that it can no longer defined by just prime neighborhoods.”
Jeffries: Neighborhood Integrity Matters [BK Paper]
Goodwin: New Names Help Brooklyn Grow [BK Paper]
QUOTE:
I don’t know about anyone else, but I read this as “I want to prevent white people from accidentally moving into areas they don’t belong”
i dont see it that way at all. i just see it as her not liking snooty annoying people with too much money moving in and trying to reinvent the wheel.
*rob*
“”The consequences of realtors providing misleading information are broad. Working families are pushed out of rebranded neighborhoods as housing prices soar. Newer residents pay more to rent or buy, largely as a result of the deceptive marketing. This is why I plan to introduce the Neighborhood Integrity Act.”
I don’t know about anyone else, but I read this as “I want to prevent white people from accidentally moving into areas they don’t belong”
Well, it seems that regardless of what you want to call Bedford Stuyvesant, it will continue to change. Many more whites and others will continue to move here. I think it is great that they are occupying many of the apartments that criminals and crackheads used to live in. We did, the neighbors tell us all the time, that our building was a cancer to the neighborhood. Maybe there will be less shootings and less garbage in the streets. Have a great day.
bxgrl, how did “Crown Heights” came about?
A search of the Brooklyn Eagle 1841-1902 archive shows zero references to that name.
I am willing to bet it was not because a government committee or council.
“isn’t that what happens in queens? you don’t write ‘queens’ on your address, you write ‘woodside’ or ‘forest hills’. queens has official towns within the borough”
Queens was a collection of towns when it was annexed by New York in –thus the use of town names (even though neighborhood names were added, it’s perfectly acceptable to address all Queens mail to one of three towns–Flushing, Jamaica, or Long Island City).
The City of Brooklyn expanded to include all of Kings County in 1894–four years before consolidation–thus addresses just read Brooklyn.
Most of the Bronx was part of NYC prior to 1898 and some old time residents address their mail to New York, NY 104..
Staten Island I find incomprehensible, but some people there use neighborhood names in their address (i.e.: St. George, Staten Island, NY).
quote:
Ohhhhhh, she means “white people.” Why didn’t she just say so?
she means moonfaces. not all white people. she doesnt HAVE to say so. it’s understood who she doesn’t like.
*rob*
oops- Flase = False
I don’t know that I like the idea of a bill, bob. Maybe we should just get a class action lawsuit against realtors’ flase advertising. 🙂
Postal addresses do not necessarily have anything to do with any other political boundaries.
When I lived in the city of Hoover, Alabama, I used “Birmingham” as my mailing address.
When I lived in the city of Los Angeles in the officially designated neighborhood of Woodland Hills, I used “Woodland Hills.”
Other friends of mine who also lived in the officially designated area of Woodland Hills used the adjacent neighborhood of “Canoga Park” as their mailing address, since they were in a zip code that primarily served that neighborhood.