I grew up in Greenpoint Brooklyn. It was a great place to live. We played Whiffle Ball and stickball in the streets, and if you were a driver you had a hard time finding a block where you didn't have to look out for kids in the street. There were kids playing on most blocks in Greenpoint. People raised families there. Kids played there. People worked there, and poured blood, sweat, and a lot of tears into the neighborhood. Shops were mostly run by locals who were invested in the community. Or non-locals who were equally invested in the community. Stores were closed on Sundays because people went to Church. Italians, Irish, and Polish all had their own Parish communities, but other than that they were a single community of Brooklynites; Americans with dreams and ambitions--both for self, and for family. Greenpoint was a place that people called Home. No sushi bars, but plenty of restaurants. No Starbucks, but we had coffee shops and doughnuts were made fresh. No Staples, but we had hardware stores. No Blockbuster Video, but we had movie theaters.
Now Greenpoint has fallen ill to the same cancer that has struck most of Brooklyn. The greed of developers, and the indifference of outsiders who don't really give a damn about the neighborhood has turned Greenpoint into something foul. The "yuppies" moved in and took possession of my home. Turned it upside down, and inside out to a point beyond recognition. Developers have torn down its character and replaced it with something cold and metallic; the same way that a heart is replaced with a rock. Native Greenpointers who worked much of their lives to make Greenpoint what it was are alienated. Pushed out. Bought out--often by force. Our history is embedded in the very concrete but it's washed over by tables that line the sidewalk in front of our old Park Luncheonettes. No more stools at the counter. No more hotdogs and egg creams. Now all you get is brunch--poached eggs and bad black coffee for &7.
Japan has nothing on Greenpoint. We have more sushi bars than the whole of Japan. Good luck finding a hardware store though. Yeah, Greenpoint got real trendy. And Trendy must be another word for "un-family-friendly" because while you may get away with painting some kind of garbage in your $2000/month 1 bedroom apartment, you sure as hell can't expect to raise a family there anymore.
And what's with this infatuation with "artists" in Greenpoint now anyway? You know what art is? Art is raising a family on a single income because you work that damn hard. Art is instilling values in your kids, and living the example of hard work, moral courage, and honor. It's charging a fair rent for fair space. It's about opening the day with purpose, and closing a deal with only handshake. It's respecting the people who taught you, and respecting the community that made you.
In the end, the yuppies and developers can have their sushi bars and say "trendy" things, like "forget about it" and laugh because they're being "oh so very Brooklyn". I say "No, you stupid bastards. I'm very Brooklyn. You're just an insult vomited from the mouth of the mid-west."
The last laugh is mine, brother.
While the yuppies and developers may steal Greenpoint from me...while they may have their fun with it, and pretend to call it their own....I can say this; Greenpoint will always be to me what it can never be for them. Home. A special part of my heart and soul. Greenpoint gave me what it will never give to them. A sense of place, and purpose, and direction. A sense of culture and an understanding of my past. It gave me a sense of class, a sense of pride, and a backbone of steel. An anchor in the history of my life, and the lives of my parents and grandparents before me. They'll never get that. They'll swing a quick buck for bad coffee, or an overpriced apartment. Much the same way as a thirsty fool eats the sludge from a dry well.
Farewell, Old Brooklyn. Thanks for what you've given me. Even as I'm apart from you..."They'll never take the Brooklyn outta me!"
3 comments:
"It's charging a fair rent for fair space."
Unfortunately, you neglected to point out that it's many of those old school locals who are cashing in and making Greenpoint family unfriendly by charging outrageous rent. It is also those same people who sold out/are selling out to developers and new landlords who care nothing about the community.
Thanks to those locals and thanks to the recent hike in rent, I may be priced out of Greenpoint---the community that I've called home for the last ten years.
What you're saying is only half true. And even that's generous. True, some native landlords are charging "you're-outta-your-fucking-mind" rent, and without an honorable reason or excuse. I won't ever defend them, or what they're doing. Wrong is wrong. But the majority of locals charge those high rents for other reasons
1. Taxes sky-rocketed for Greenpoint properties Greenpoint because now it's a ritzy neighborhood, where it use to be a working class one.
2. DEP and Sanitation agents now flood the neighborhood (again, because not it's a ritzy neighborhood whereas before you'd rarely see them in Greenpoint because it was a working class neighborhood) giving out thousand-dollar fines for a leaky pipe or $1500 fines for a plastic bottle being in the wrong trash can. None of that is exaggeration either.
3. Transients call the city to report that they have to wait too long for hot water. Because waiting 1.5 minutes for your bubble bath instead of 10 seconds is just unacceptable, apparently. This usually leads to a visit from city inspectors, and additional fines and fees for incidental findings, like a small puddle of water in the basement, or some other bullshit. Neighborhood people don't do things like that. We wait for the water to make it up to our apartment. If there's a real problem, we work it out with the landlord.
4. Transients who don't care about the neighborhood, or the building or apartment leave the apartment in shambles. Or they mistreat the space. So between added insurance the landowner has to take on, and the cost of fixing a totally fucked up space, the effective cost of ownership goes up even more. Again, this isn't exaggerated. These aren't invented scenarios.
But most of the buildings where that high rent is charged are usually owned by non-natives. People who bought into Greenpoint in the last 10 years. Or people who bought property in Greenpoint, but live in NJ or Long Island or something. On the flip side, I know a few local owners who charged 900/month rent even very recently (past year or so) but can't afford to do it anymore because of things I've mentioned here. Most local landlords DO try to charge fair rent.
To blame the fall of Greenpoint (or other "up and coming" neighborhoods" in Brooklyn) on the landlords is unfair, and not completely accurate. Developers have forced the value of Greenpoint to become inflated by way of illusion. This has pushed up cost of ownership in Greenpoint over the past couple of years. Then you have honest landlords who are forced out and bought out and scammed out of their ownership by greedy developers who come at you with a smile, but have a sharpened knife ready for your back. And if there weren't people from the midwest willing to pay $2500 for a space that cost $750 10 years ago, none of this would be possible.
I don't know your situation, and can't speak fairly about it. I don't know why your rent is going up or who is to blame beyond what I've already said in my blog. But while the newbies of the neighborhood want to point fingers and disclaim responsibility, the fact is they are part of the problem.
I'll wager that neither one of the previous posters responding to Tim's missive are native-born, lifelong residents. They both miss the point of his comments. It has nothing to do with rents. It's the loss of community. Living in a neighborhood as a transplanted adult isn't the same as growing up and spending your life in one place. Only then, can somebody understand the erosion of a neighborhood.
It's the influx of condescending pseudo-beatniks and retrogeeks, wearing the requisite porkpie hats,ski caps and hawaiian print shirts, that have contributed to this. Hipsters are self-indulgent, self-centered, myopic individuals, who contribute nothing except for raising rents and inundating the neighborhoods they invade with Thai restaurants and overpriced coffee palaces. Most of these hipsters are single; or, if married, produce no progeny. They own French bulldogs, instead. Hipsters don't like children. Children make noise when playing in the street or at the playground. Hipsters don't like noise or playing. Unless, it's the hipsters that are playing and making noise in hipster playgrounds like The Brazen Head or VooDoo Lounge, while drinking overpriced hipster beverages and disturbing the peace at 3:30 A.M. Their idea of neighborhood improvement is opening a lounge.
I, like Tim, am a lifelong resident of Greenpoint; and, I shared the same experiences. Everybody knew each other; if not by name, then, by sight. People living in the same apartment building knew their neighbors by name. The streets and parks were teeming with chidren playing and having a good time. Everybody knew everyone else on the street where they lived. Neighbor helped neighbor during hard times. Like yesterday's weather, those times are gone. That's what an interloper can't and won't understand. The sense of pride and belonging to an extended family......your neighborhood.
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