Brooklyn, The Borough:
Destined to Be Gentrified and Gentrifying
On a recent chilly night, I was bundled up and on my way to Boerum Hill to have dinner at a friend's apartment. As I walked down Washington Avenue the B45 bus pulled up next to me, and I hesitated. “Which would be faster, the train or the bus?” I thought. Before I could make a decision, the bus doors had shuttered. Luckily, the light at Atlantic and Washington was still red and I approached the bus and knocked on the door. The driver, a middle-aged African-American man, refused to open the door, gesturing to the next stop, three street crossings away, even though his bus was still idling perfectly in front of a designated stop. It was 15 degrees outside and I'll admit it, I felt like the driver was sticking it to me for being white.
Luckily, after walking two extra blocks down to the C train, I hopped right on and plunked down comfortably across from two teenaged African-American girls. As I was admiring their fashion sense, the doors opened at Lafayette Avenue and a group of four 20-something white people appeared. The voices of a guy and three ladies boomed as they boarded the otherwise quiet car, chatting about their friends and lives and were, perhaps, a bit intoxicated. One young woman was wearing only mary jane shoes on her feet, with no socks, which, because of the insanely cold temperatures that evening, drew the attention of the young African-American women. The young duo exchanged vexed looks when the loud conversation turned to the employment status of one of the white woman's suburban parents. “My mother's a housewife,” she said, her face red and her volume dropping. “My father's basically retired.”
There was also the bodega full of middle-aged Hispanic men whose conversation abruptly ended upon my entrance; and the disheveled African-American man who inquired with me about potential odd jobs after assuming that I was the new owner of my building.
These experiences are merely anecdotal, the everyday manifestations of class and race in a fluctuating neighborhood like Prospect Heights. New Yorkers have intensely territorial feelings for their neighborhoods – whether they are newcomers or long-time residents. I'm just as guilty of this: I was distraught when it became apparent that the only people who could afford my childhood neighborhood Hell's Kitchen were bankers and other upwardly mobile professionals with an income range I can't begin to fathom. Or when my last neighborhood, Greenpoint, started to get an influx of obnoxious college students pushing up rental prices. Now I feel destined to simultaneously be gentrified and gentrifying, but to most people I just look like the new white girl on the block.
Once I arrived at my girlfriend's house for wine and sushi – the balanced diet of any decent gentrifier! - conversation turned to our apartment searches and surrounding areas. She also searched in northern Brooklyn, as I had, but was shocked to find a relatively cheap one-bedroom apartment in Boerum Hill for herself and her boyfriend, a neighborhood I assumed I couldn't afford. But though it's a nice, and, at times, pricey neighborhood, she added, “One block in the wrong direction and it gets a little scary.” That one block takes you to the housing projects that are smack-dab in the middle of Boreum Hill, Carroll Gardens and Park Slope.
Her words dwelled in my mind on my trip home, which, thankfully did not involve getting shut out of another bus ride. I thought of the articles that refer to “pioneers” moving into otherwise sketchy Brooklyn neighborhoods, a code for white people gobbling up real estate in marginalized minority areas.
So is Brooklyn indeed a stage for modern, urban manifest destiny? Is our “progress” - in the form of Brooklyn's physical rehabilitation – actually progress if it's not all-inclusive? I think it is a virtuous goal to build new homes, spruce up old ones and form communities where they've been lost to crime and decay. While greater forces than I are behind the transitional nature of gentrification, I think our city has to find a way to strike a balance between protecting the people who stood by their communities through thick and thin, and the newcomers who flock here every year to live in our nation's most diverse city.
Never going to happen. Money talks and bullsh*t walks. Until the rents hit a peak where even normal people can no longer afford them, rents will continue to spiral up, and middle class folks will slowly seep into cheaper, marginal neighborhoods and push those rents up.
The author may be a native NYer born and raised in Hell's Kitchen, but she writes about Brooklyn as if she arrived there six months ago after growing up in Ohio.
How do you know that the "people who stood by their communities through thick and thin" remained there by choice opposed to being stuck there out of lack of options or opportunities?
This article is everything that's wrong with modern New York. Missy, did you just leave Manhattan for the first time? Someone around here is a tiny bit too racially sensitive. Has it occurred to you that gentrification might be a $$$$ issue more than a racial issue? Why the gentrifiers gotta be so ignorant, I don't know.
"One young woman was wearing only mary jane shoes on her feet, with no socks, which, because of the insanely cold temperatures that evening, drew the attention of the young African-American women."
Nice detail! It chips away at the racial division. No matter what the skin color or income level, everyone knows feet can get really cold.
While some trash this young lady, and I am assuming she is young, I think it is great that at least she has tried to consider her place and race in a way that many people try to gloss over. True it is a much more monetary issue than she addressed ,however, many race assumptions are tied to money; white = rich = landlord, etc. And money does create tensions. Also, a different attitude and life style invading a neighbor hood also pisses people off. People assuming white people are going to bitch about noise, etc. While this article does smack of a fresh writer, a little naive sounding, over-reaching slightly in some examples (specifically the subway story) , I do think she touches on an interesting paradox. Bottom line is of course everyone without a lot of money is pissed that housing costs so much in New York and the answer is that rich families need to start heading to the burbs again!
These series of articles suck. Nicole acts as if the non-whites that she comes in contact with are animals in an African Safari.
'There was also the bodega full of middle-aged Hispanic men whose conversation abruptly ended upon my entrance; and the disheveled African-American man who inquired with me about potential odd jobs after assuming that I was the new owner of my building.'
Nicole you are a terrible reporter. How can the Observer even allow you to write such racially insensitive and inaccurate dog$h!t? Are Manhattanites really that isolated from the rest of NYC.
'(Boreum Hill) But though it's a nice, and, at times, pricey neighborhood, she added, “One block in the wrong direction and it gets a little scary.” That one block takes you to the housing projects that are smack-dab in the middle of Boreum Hill, Carroll Gardens and Park Slope.'
Black and hispanic people are so scary and vicious aren't they? They can be so savage.
Agree with 2:08; this young lady is guilty of nothing more than a bit of naivete and breathlessness, and her candor, intentional or not, is actually refreshing. We all live in a continual low-current stream of racial consciousness in this town, never more so than in areas in demographic flux; we're just all too cool to admit it, and after awhile we simply accomodate it inside our heads like signal noise. Nicole seems to be making a touchingly earnest effort to look past the filter of stereotypes that we all, black and white, have dropped before our eyes, and I think it's pretty shabby to tear someone to ribbons for innocuous things like shopping at Ikea or having wine and sushi (especially when she was at pains to be ironic about her wine and sushi consumption). Give the kid a break.
Oh, I take back what I commented earlier (to her previous article). She DOES define everyone she meets by race/ethnicity first! That's such a weird tactic. It's like the census bureau or something.
You know what would be REALLY interesting and refreshing and new? If some of these wide-eyed Alice in Wonderland journos (and they're always friggin female, why is that???) took their job a tad more seriously and actually did a little research on their subject.
In fact, talk to any number of brooklynites (or even recent transplants) and they'll fill you in on a fascinating background to your current choice of 'hood. Your approach is typical of chick lit BS: sloppy, lazy, self-centered fluff.
This is a young, talented writer, and she is obviously still seeing the world with naive eyes. I find nothing wrong with her expressing her views and describing her life.
The truth is that many people (white, black) DO define people by race, even if they choose not to admit it.
Classic. This reads like "Lost in Translation" come to life.
FYI, bus drivers don't pick you up in the middle of the street due to liability concerns and not because you're white. Seriously, you white people are so annoying when you start crying reverse racism.
I haven't read through all the responses to this writing, but since I haven't read a reference to the bus driver incident you speak of I direct my comments toward that specifically.
Speaking as someone born and mostly raised in your lovely new neighborhood (the rest of the time I was raised throughout brooklyn) I have some thoughts to share but let me analyze your details;
The bus driver wouldn't open the door? Was he "sticking it to (you) because you're white?
Doubt it.
Let me suggest an alternative theory. What happened to you used to happen to me all the time and I have always been a black guy, and the bus drivers (i've encountered) are usually black people. They are strict and occasionally merciless. They will tell you if asked that they only have to pick a person up when that person is standing at the bus stop. Which is designated only as that area from the bus stop pole going back toward the curb and indicated (usually by that yellow line on the curb.
Your writing indicates you were at or near the bus stop contemplating your varied transportation options. Well, that was your chance. The bus driver decided you blew it. When you walked over to the bus at the red light, you were no longer at bus stop, hence he wouldn't let you or me or anybody else who had their chance to board the bus moments earlier, on that bus then.
Interestingly, I watched a young brother, with dreds walk nonchalantly up to the bus stop, on Atlantic and South Portland just a few days ago for the very same B45. He was so cooly walking he hadn't actually gotten to that area indicated by the yellow line on the curb. The bus slowed down, the dred sporting brother didn't speed up, and then the bus did. He was left yelling and pleading and I sat watching and wondering where he was from.
Sure you've been here before but I extend a "Welcome to Brooklyn" to you just the same.
(PS I just noticed the last poster address the bus driver issue as well, funny what we don't notice in life isn't it!)