Video: A Taste of Bed Stuy
For those of you who haven’t gotten a chance to get to know Bed Stuy, check out this video that celebrates the nabe’s close-knit sense of community and architectural history and examines some of the issues surrounding the recent gentrification in the neighborhood. Our favorite part? A look inside the Akwaaba Inn on MacDonough Street….
For those of you who haven’t gotten a chance to get to know Bed Stuy, check out this video that celebrates the nabe’s close-knit sense of community and architectural history and examines some of the issues surrounding the recent gentrification in the neighborhood. Our favorite part? A look inside the Akwaaba Inn on MacDonough Street. Brownstone-y goodness.
A Taste of Bed Stuy [YouTube]
What a Beautiful Neighborhood.
Hip hop, rap, crap, it’s all the same.
Meaning, they are all just opinions!
The posting of the comments on this video are a great example of how the americans are historical divide weather it be, race, sex, or more importintly Class! Instead of make comments on this beatiful neighborhood. The majority of the comments are about the choice of music used for the video. Anywho, as you can see I will surely include myself. When I comment about opinionated Americans.
I Miss New York!
wow, reading these comments sort of remind me of why I stopped reading the Bed-Stuy blog when we first bought our house. What have I found in Stuy Heights? I am white and I have found open arms, kind wonderful neighbors who make me feel like the luckiest person on earth to have found a neighborhood like this. Yes, I wish there were more amenities and I wish I felt more comfortable walking home after 10 or 11:00pm at night, but I still wouldn’t trade this to go back to the East Village where I lived before. After 10 years on the same block I knew 3 people beside the 4 other apartment dwellers within my building. To live here, to be welcomed by so many within the first week, well, I’ve never had that experience before and I value and treasure it.
As for the black male depictions, I can honestly say all the men I know on our block are respectful, hard working men, from accountants, to coroners to folks who work for the MTA, to contractors. All work hard, watch out for the neighbors and are wonderful people to associate with.
Best neighborhood I’ve ever lived in in the 18 years I have lived in New York. The prettiest and the best community. I disagree with the woman from Akwaaba, I don’t believe any neighborhood needs to stay one race or Bed-Stuy would still be mostly white as it was when established. The world changes and let’s hope someday we aren’t talking about the color of anyone’s skin, simply their being and soul which is what matters.
I’m not living in Bed-stuy and I’m Black and no my spouse is not white. and yes I grew up there that was enough..
You are absolutely right, Ballin’. I’m probably making too much of this, and reading way too much into it. This wasn’t a bad film at all, really. A positive light is a positive light. I’ll certainly take that over the alternative. Pax!
CrownHeights, thanks for the dialogue. I agree with you about the main male images that stand out. However, I dont think this film was meant to be an anthropological study of the black man in his envirnment.
I thought the idea behind this film was about how things are changing in BedStuy, “hopefully for the better”. As such, i thought they did an ok job. In addition to highlighting places of interest, they could have spend more time documenting the actual changes that have taken place.
I am afraid that the video did a disjustice to the neighborhood. It shows no diversity and I think it portrays the neighborhood gloomier than it really is.
Ballin’, I looked at the film again, and I’m sorry, but my original opinion still stands. Granted, I’ll amend my first comments to say that you seem to be right about the gentleman with the computer bag, and perhaps the man with the glasses who’s voice wasn’t heard. I would have liked to have heard what he said, otherwise why show him? But the main male images that stand out to me are the young man in the green shirt doing the thug walk, who was shown twice, and the ex-drug dealer. Balanced against them were Monique Greenwood, Alisha Stewart, the BS tour guide and the other young woman who was the Weeksville tour guide, intelligent, well spoken women,all.
Does that mean Mr. Green Shirt is really a thug? Of course not. Is all of the meeting and greeting a nice gesture- sure. Are Bed Stuy people on the whole friendly and nice – I’ve always thought so. BUT – it would have been nice for the film makers to have interviewed one black man in a shirt and slacks, or God forbid, a suit, who ALSO represents the hundreds of black men I see every morning at the Nostrand Ave A stop as we all go to work. Is that my buppie preferences showing? No doubt. But they too are a vital part of Bed Stuy, and are too often as invisible to the mainstream media and mindset as they were in this movie. To me, that plays right into the way many people think of Bed Stuy and Af/Am men, and this film could have helped change that. That’s my personal take on it, nothing more. I’m not trying to dis the brothers, I’d like to see more of them.
I love when art makes people engage. Thanks to the crew who put this together. Let those of us who are serious about making Bed-Stuy all it can be keep up the fight. Eventually the haters will just fade to black, or white… who cares where they go.
Bless the black, bless the rap, bless the love that is Bed-Stuy.
Well, if you could distill it down to bullet points I’m sure we’d like to try.