Dead' Hook: When Gentrification Doesn't Take
New York mag has a provocative article about how Red Hook’s failed to live up to the substantial hype pegging it as Brooklyn’s next great frontier for gentrification. (Evidence of that failure, according to the article, includes the closure of the Pioneer bar, bistro 360 and the Hook, as well as the claim that real…
New York mag has a provocative article about how Red Hook’s failed to live up to the substantial hype pegging it as Brooklyn’s next great frontier for gentrification. (Evidence of that failure, according to the article, includes the closure of the Pioneer bar, bistro 360 and the Hook, as well as the claim that real estate values appear to have peaked.) Red Hook’s used as a springboard for a deeper examination of how many of us have come to assume that there’s always going to be another neighborhood ripe for transformation:
In some ways, Red Hook was a Realtor’s dream, boasting Manhattan views, a salty maritime history (working piers! Brawling sailors!), and a brochure-ready name, all of which would play perfectly on some theoretical condo prospectus. Seeking waterfront living with a dusting of urban grit? Then drop your anchor in Red Hook! More crucially, Red Hook was simply next. Because if we’ve learned anything in the last twenty years of gentrification in New York, it’s that there will always be a next.
Do you really think Red Hook’s time has come and gone or is it just taking a breather?
The Embers of Gentrification [New York]
Photo by Betty Blade
The gentrification of Red Hook was basically hanging on the Condo development of the big shipping building at 160 Imlay street. The developers got a variance to renovate and then the a group of industrial business owners in the neighborhood called the Red Hook-Gowanus Chamber of Commerce got together and filed a lawsuit to stop the construction and won. To the person who said that Red Hook does not have the industrial housing stock of TriBeCa you should take a look at 160 Imlay and the neighboring building because these are massive impressive looking buildings that would have sent loft lovers drooling to Red Hooks shores regardless of transportation issues. All the rentals above Fairway have had absolutely no trouble finding tenants and these are expensive apartments. 160 Imlay was the defining moment in the deadening of the hook. The projects, the lack of transportation, the isolation… none of that would have mattered of 160 Imlay street had gone Condo.
The worst possible thing that could happen to Red Hook at this point would be that it became a Big Box store haven. That would be a tragedy of immeasurable proportions.
4:14/4:21 – comfortable with hatred.
I have 20 roommates…or as I like to call them…the staff….
Screw that argument…3:39 and 3:45. If that is the case why are white people who cant afford Manhattan anymore fleeing to Ft Greene,Clinton Hill ,Bed Stuy and Crown Heights,predominantly black neighborhoods?Or are they not fleeing to Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst and Williamsburg cause they cant stand living with their own kind such as yourselves, ignorant racist bastards who probably feel a sense of entitlement because they are living off inheritances or living with 20 roommates to be able to live above their means?
just because one lives in a pretty house, it does not make them any more or less “enlightened”. such a vain assumption.
classic limo liberal nonsense
“enlightened brownstone Brooklyn”
no one who lives in brownstone brooklyn named themselves enlightened. it’s fools like you.
“i think everyone here is pretty much agreeing with the first comment”
So much for enlightened brownstone Brooklyn. It’s pretty sad to see that so many people who consider themselves intelligent, thoughtful and progressive are so clearly ignorant, hateful racists.
in these modern times, anyone who drives to work when public transport is a viable option is an idiot
touche, 3:39.