When the construction firm AECOM proposed a sea of new apartment towers for Red Hook last month — and an extension of the 1 train under the East River to better connect the subway-inaccessible neighborhood to transit — it raised … Continue reading
When the incoming kindergarten class arrived on September 8 at Brooklyn New School, long one of the most sought-after public elementary schools in rapidly gentrifying brownstone Brooklyn, it marked a significant change from recent years. About half of incoming students … Continue reading
After a rush of activity culminating in last spring’s approval of the sweeping Mandatory Inclusionary Housing and Zoning for Quality and Affordability reforms to the city’s zoning code, the approval of the rezoning of East New York, and the withdrawal … Continue reading
For the one million New York City tenants living in rent-stabilized apartments, it’s a familiar dance: Your landlord offers to fix your splintering floor or crumbling kitchen cabinets, if you’ll agree to a rent hike. Landlords can use a panoply … Continue reading
In a city where more than 60 percent of residents are renters and rents are perpetually too damn high, New Yorkers are preconditioned to view their landlords as mustache-twirling cartoon villains. Even the most cynical of apartment dwellers, though, would … Continue reading
Tamara Zahaykevich is one of the many New Yorkers who have found themselves both gentrifier and gentrified, as the front lines have gradually shifted. “I’ve been in New York since 1996, and since then I’ve moved my apartment ten times, … Continue reading
The former Rheingold brewery site in northwest Bushwick was set to be a perfect flash point between the families who’d rebuilt the neighborhood after the fires of the 1970s and the newcomers who’d begun settling there in the Great Williamsburg … Continue reading
If anyone needed a perfect Rorschach test for 21st-century gentrification angst, it showed up this summer on Slate. The website created an “Are You a Gentrifier?” calculator that promised a simple yes/no answer. The calculator itself was fairly ham-fisted — … Continue reading
Bushwick has been in the national spotlight of late, the most recent neighborhood to be emblematic of the New Brooklyn of hipster beards and trendy clubs. There’s now an artisanal Bushwick-scented candle you can buy for $81 “scent highlights include … Continue reading