Gentrifying Crown Heights Is Losing Its Black Community
Crown Heights is changing, and high rents and landlords’ aggressive tactics are pushing out longtime tenants, typically African-Americans and Caribbean immigrants. Familiar businesses — bulletproof bodegas, fried chicken joints, video stores — are being replaced by expensive eateries, cocktail bars and national chains. Property values are rising, with 19th century townhouses now commanding prices in the millions….
Crown Heights is changing, and high rents and landlords’ aggressive tactics are pushing out longtime tenants, typically African-Americans and Caribbean immigrants.
Familiar businesses — bulletproof bodegas, fried chicken joints, video stores — are being replaced by expensive eateries, cocktail bars and national chains. Property values are rising, with 19th century townhouses now commanding prices in the millions.
White college grads and young urban professionals are moving into freshly renovated units with freshly elevated rents. Former tenants lived with rats and prewar kitchens, but many can no longer afford the neighborhood.
While longtime residents struggle to pay rising rents, they also note that everything from produce to crime has improved in the neighborhood. However, priced out, they cannot reap the benefits.
As rents surge higher, working class and minority residents increasingly find they can no longer afford to live in the same area, and are forced to move deeper into Brooklyn, to the outer boroughs or out of the city altogether, according to The New York Times. A reporter spoke to more than three dozen former and current residents of the area, as well as experts, about relocation.
Between 2000 and 2010, Crown Heights (as well as adjacent Flatbush and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens) lost 10 to 14 percent of its black population, census data shows. Not all may have been forced out by rising rents, although the Times story focused on renters.
Many former members of Brooklyn’s West Indian community have relocated anywhere from eastern Brooklyn to Boston, Maryland, Philadelphia or even back to the Caribbean, said the Times.
In the case of seamstress and former Crown Heights resident Shirley De Matas, she watched the rent on her two-bedroom at 1170 Lincoln Place rise from $800 a month in 1999 to almost $1,300 in 2014. Compounded by bursting pipes, rats, and an unhelpful superintendent, De Matas and her family moved out last February, renting in East New York for $750 a month.
For others, moving back in with family is the thriftiest option. After years of living with seemingly incurable mold and vermin, hospital receptionist Angelique Coward moved herself and her four children three flights above her 761 Propsect Place home and into her mother’s apartment. The landlord has since renovated Ms. Coward’s three-bedroom and tacked $1,400 onto the monthly rate.
Other struggling Brooklyn residents opt for landlord buyouts. In 2010, Raquel Cruz gave up her Franklin Avenue apartment after agreeing to a $10,000 buyout from her landlord as well as three months rent on a $1,300-a-month Bed Stuy unit.
She had to pawn some of belongings to pay the rent. Luckily, she found an affordable apartment in public housing.
While accepting buyouts, living with family members, or moving deeper into the borough grant temporary relief to the affordability crisis for many residents, longterm plans increasingly include moving away.
[Source: NYT | Photos: Brownstoner]
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This is a very shallow article.
Whenever there are stories about Real Estate and “minorities” being displaced it seems the African Americans are all poor. It never touches on the subject of Blacks being pushed out and made to feel no longer welcome in general.
The advent of 311 meant that people; especially “new” people can make complaints about, “noise”, “hanging out” etc and the majority of these complaints responded to by the police are focusing on African Americans.
An example: When I first moved to Fort Greene in 1978 there were always a group of African American men sitting on a park bench during the day along side Fort Greene park at S. Oxford St. Most of them worked night shifts at JFK or Fulton Fish Market, by the mid 1990’s they were mostly retired and looking the worst for wear by a life of hard toil, but they always watched out for the blocks and had a cheery “good morning” or what ever as you passed. Yes, there were one or two that clearly had mental health issues, but the group kept them in order while playing chess etc. As “new” people moved in the complaints meant that the Police were arresting them for “loitering”! What is a park bench for? How can you loiter on a park bench? Well the park benches were eventual removed… a couple of the old guys have actual now become homeless after serving 30 days in jail for “loitering” and not being able to make bail etc, the City stopped paying their rent and they lost their rooming house house rooms.
The wealthier people are gotten rid of by noise complaints etc from anonymous neighbors or complaints about their dog etc. to the point that it is uncomfortable to live in a neighborhood that you helped preserve and nurture hoping for better services etc only now saying… be careful what you wish for.
It is a fact that as blacks leave a neighborhood; rich & poor, property values go UP! Look at Harlem, Fort Greene.. now Crown Heights. There are many “investors” that work this investment angle and propel the Police to do most of the harassment on their behalf to move otherwise unmovable home-owning Black people out.
The black to white is not just poor tenants, but homeowners that no longer feel at home in their own neighborhoods.
resident2, if you or your buddies are hanging out and playing loud music at 11pm and 12am like I see some of the old timers (or their kids) do, then yes I will call the police to put a stop to it. I’ve done it and will do it every time I see it happen. I am not asking much but for the old timers to respect the fact that some of the new comers have day jobs and go to sleep at 11pm, some have kids that sleep at 8pm and some simply don’t want to listen to somebody else’s type of music. Being an old timer does not give you the right to disrespect other people’s quality of life; there are rules out there and everyone, including you, have to abide by them.
The vast majority of professional working musicians that I am referring that used to live in Fort Greene did NOT play their music load or late into the night and they played all styles: Jazz, classical, rock, blues it was wonderful walking around the neighborhood listening to all that creativity.
It used to make me wonder why people that did not like diversity & creativity bought there. Now I know; faster appreciating property values by getting rid of the “dark people”, you are only here for the investment and destroying a wonderful neighborhood that will never be again, nor existed anywhere else..
Brooklyn was best when it was Brooklynites & Immigrants and the rest of America referred to it as if it were an off shore third world island. Now that Americans have re-discovered it, all they want to do is to make it like “Anywhere USA”.
Quality of life is a very subjective notion, I prefer the old qualities where people spoke to each other and had far more respect for all their neighbors.
“It used to make me wonder why people that did not like diversity & creativity bought there”. Believe me, people that bought there love diversity, otherwise they would not have bought there. The problem is that you don’t like diversity and that’s why you have a problem with the newcomers.
“Faster appreciating property values by getting rid of the “dark people”. Resident2, please don’t forget that the people that are selling their properties and making a ton of money in the process are the so called “dark people”. The old timers are not forced to leave but they are rather taking the opportunity to sell properties for millions that they bought for very little and make a lot of money in the process.
“people had far more respect for all their neighbors”….yeah right… that’s why the murder rate was so high in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights….that’s a big sign of respect for each other.
This is a very shallow article.
Whenever there are stories about Real Estate and “minorities” being displaced it seems the African Americans are all poor. It never touches on the subject of Blacks being pushed out and made to feel no longer welcome in general.
The advent of 311 meant that people; especially “new” people can make complaints about, “noise”, “hanging out” etc and the majority of these complaints responded to by the police are focusing on African Americans.
An example: When I first moved to Fort Greene in 1978 there were always a group of African American men sitting on a park bench during the day along side Fort Greene park at S. Oxford St. Most of them worked night shifts at JFK or Fulton Fish Market, by the mid 1990’s they were mostly retired and looking the worst for wear by a life of hard toil, but they always watched out for the blocks and had a cheery “good morning” or what ever as you passed. Yes, there were one or two that clearly had mental health issues, but the group kept them in order while playing chess etc. As “new” people moved in the complaints meant that the Police were arresting them for “loitering”! What is a park bench for? How can you loiter on a park bench? Well the park benches were eventual removed… a couple of the old guys have actual now become homeless after serving 30 days in jail for “loitering” and not being able to make bail etc, the City stopped paying their rent and they lost their rooming house house rooms.
The wealthier people are gotten rid of by noise complaints etc from anonymous neighbors or complaints about their dog etc. to the point that it is uncomfortable to live in a neighborhood that you helped preserve and nurture hoping for better services etc only now saying… be careful what you wish for.
It is a fact that as blacks leave a neighborhood; rich & poor, property values go UP! Look at Harlem, Fort Greene.. now Crown Heights. There are many “investors” that work this investment angle and propel the Police to do most of the harassment on their behalf to move otherwise unmovable home-owning Black people out.
The black to white is not just poor tenants, but homeowners that no longer feel at home in their own neighborhoods.
resident2, if you or your buddies are hanging out and playing loud music at 11pm and 12am like I see some of the old timers (or their kids) do, then yes I will call the police to put a stop to it. I’ve done it and will do it every time I see it happen. I am not asking much but for the old timers to respect the fact that some of the new comers have day jobs and go to sleep at 11pm, some have kids that sleep at 8pm and some simply don’t want to listen to somebody else’s type of music. Being an old timer does not give you the right to disrespect other people’s quality of life; there are rules out there and everyone, including you, have to abide by them.
The vast majority of professional working musicians that I am referring that used to live in Fort Greene did NOT play their music load or late into the night and they played all styles: Jazz, classical, rock, blues it was wonderful walking around the neighborhood listening to all that creativity.
It used to make me wonder why people that did not like diversity & creativity bought there. Now I know; faster appreciating property values by getting rid of the “dark people”, you are only here for the investment and destroying a wonderful neighborhood that will never be again, nor existed anywhere else..
Brooklyn was best when it was Brooklynites & Immigrants and the rest of America referred to it as if it were an off shore third world island. Now that Americans have re-discovered it, all they want to do is to make it like “Anywhere USA”.
Quality of life is a very subjective notion, I prefer the old qualities where people spoke to each other and had far more respect for all their neighbors.
“It used to make me wonder why people that did not like diversity & creativity bought there”. Believe me, people that bought there love diversity, otherwise they would not have bought there. The problem is that you don’t like diversity and that’s why you have a problem with the newcomers.
“Faster appreciating property values by getting rid of the “dark people”. Resident2, please don’t forget that the people that are selling their properties and making a ton of money in the process are the so called “dark people”. The old timers are not forced to leave but they are rather taking the opportunity to sell properties for millions that they bought for very little and make a lot of money in the process.
“people had far more respect for all their neighbors”….yeah right… that’s why the murder rate was so high in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights….that’s a big sign of respect for each other.
lol what if the current market keep changing –frequently?