Pass the syrup—and the Kleenex, because the Death of Downtown lamentations are only going to get louder as the Village gets its second IHOP.
There’s one in Harlem and one on East 14th Street, and soon there will be one in the West Village, too, at 80 Carmine Street. The International House of Pancakes has hit the Big Apple, folks, and it looks like it’s here to stay. Read More
Things may have looked bleak during the recession for On Prospect Park, but the tower’s most expensive penthouse has finally sold for $5.1 million, just as everyone knew it eventually would.
Are boom times here again? Well, when it comes to gentrification in Brooklyn, Prospect Heights in particular, it’s not a question of if but when, and Prospect Heights was already pretty far gone when the sleek tower was just a rough sketch in Richard Meier’s head. Even if The New York Times did call the starchitect-designed condo “a wall of windows into the real estate bust” back in 2009. Read More
Maybe you’ve heard about this neighborhood in New York City called Williamsburg? It’s a magical little place that—sometime around 1996—young artists looking for a bargain in reasonable proximity to Manhattan migrated from places like the East Village, back when it was still fairly cheap. The neighborhood has historically been a stronghold of Brooklyn’s Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Italians, and Chasidic Jews. Since then, like every other neighborhood in New York, folks young and old—moneyed with finances given or earned—have moved into the neighborhood.
As a result of this:
1. Those for whom the neighborhood was once affordable no longer count it as a reasonable living option.
2. Those for whom the neighborhood was once populated with contemporaries, it no longer is.
3. Those for whom the neighborhood was the place that they grew up have seen it indelibly changed.
And we know this now because a daring satirist writing for Thought Catalog—a digital publication ushering in a new Age of Enlightenment—has now come out as one of its ‘thoughtful denizens.’ Read More
The Times has uncovered an unseemly side to gentrification in West Harlem. No, not economic inequality, housing displacement or racist crime. It is something far worse: dog doodoo. Read More
Video
That seems to be the case made in this hilarious—and unembeddable!!!—video report from the BBC. “For many years, Greenpoint was a mostly mixed neighborhood, Polish and Latino, illegal immigrants, mostly working two three jobs” deli owner Mieszko Kalita tells us. “In 2000, Poland was admitted to the European Union, most people stop coming. The neighborhood very drastically changed from immigrants to artistic.”
“Strange haircuts,” Mr. Kalita concludes. “They definitely not illegal immigrants.” Read More
That is what Brooklyn activist Samuel E. Anderson sees resulting from the subway-driven gentrification The Observer explored on Friday. It was a widely debated story, with a number of commenters pointing out that Bushwick really isn’t that far from Manhattan, so there is no reason to assume the (over) development will not be just as swift and brutal as before.
There was a lot of talk about money and power and access, both to capital and transportation. But what they all ignored, excepting Mr. Anderson, who sent us an email, was not just the minorities but the minority artists affected by these changes. This is not exactly new territory, but it is well said—including our emphases—and it speaks to a dark future for minority communities, affordable housing and the art scene as a (w)hole. Read More
Everybody knows the old saw about how artist migrations and subway access help drive gentrification in the city, but we never realized the two were quite so intertwined. Read More
Talk about burying the lede under some extra toppings.
In a story about 11 new eateries opening in Downtown Brooklyn, the Post let slip that the eagerly awaited Shake Shack will finally be opening its doors on the Fulton mall tomorrow. Read More
Colson Whitehead’s new book, Zone One comes out tomorrow. The world has been overtaken by that cultural virus of the moment, zombies , and the zone in question is Lower Manhattan. It is the job of the protagonist to clear the area of the dead and undead, and many metaphors are obviously implicit: 9/11, the financial crisis, Occupy Wall Street.
But it turns out that Mr. Whitehead’s biggest concern appears to be gentrification, as the native New Yorker revealed in an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition today. Read More
We have an official addition to the running list of famous people no longer able to afford Brooklyn, and this one may come as a surprise.
Last night, The Observer spoke to Jay-Z at his charity carnival. Monday’s announcement that the Brooklyn Nets would still be called the Brooklyn Nets was very much on our mind, so we asked if the most famous Brooklynite since Walt Whitman might soon be moving back to his home borough to be closer to the team. Read More
