If you replace Bushwick with Brewerytown... - PhillyBlog

raider.adam · #1 (**permalink**) 06-01-2008, 11:56 PM

it would be about the same.

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_bushwick.html

Quote:

These days, when Morris Todash walks the streets of Bushwick, a two-square-mile neighborhood of 100,000 people in central Brooklyn, he likes what he sees. On the long-abandoned seven-acre site of the former Rheingold Brewery, new two-family homes and condominiums have sprung up. On the side streets along Broadway—not so long ago, pockmarked with desolate lots where stray dogs wandered amid burned-out cars—more new homes arise and old ones get impressive face-lifts. New businesses—an organic grocery store, a fashionable restaurant—seem to be opening on every corner. Todash, whose insurance firm has served the neighborhood for more than 40 years, can hardly believe that this is the same Bushwick that became synonymous with urban chaos during the late 1960s and early 1970s, ravaged by fires, rioting, and looting until it resembled a war zone. “When I first came here to open a business, this was a shopping destination for all of Brooklyn,” Todash says of the neighborhood’s commercial district. “After the looting, no one wanted to come here any more.”
Often described by residents as a forgotten neighborhood, Bushwick was once a solid blue-collar community. But starting in the 1960s, a steady barrage of demographic changes and ruinous Great Society policies battered it down. So total was the devastation that even as New York began rebounding in the mid-1990s, Bushwick remained largely untouched by gentrification. Only recently—after years of tireless work by government (especially the police), local groups, and the private sector—has the revitalization of this once-proud neighborhood begun. With Bushwick beginning to thrive again, New York City has finally left behind the disorder and failure that flowed from the misguided liberal reforms of the sixties and seventies. Yet if Bushwick is back, no one should forget what happened to it.

Quote:

Still, there’s little evidence that the transÂ*formation will do anything but benefit most Bushwick residents. “Gentrification drives few low-income residents from their homes,” writes Columbia University urban-planning professor Lance Freeman, who has studied the effects of neighborhood change in New York. Instead, demographic changes take place gradually, prompted not by precipitous hikes in rent but by normal turnover in the housing market. Far from pushing people out, Freeman has found, neighborhood upgrades like Bushwick’s encourage many residents to stay and enjoy the fruits of revival.

RainDog · #2 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 01:10 AM

Except Bushwick is in NYC, and we're in N Philly..

raider.adam · #3 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 01:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RainDog

Except Bushwick is in NYC, and we're in N Philly..

Not sure what your point is.

RainDog · #4 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 01:40 AM

More progressive in NYC w/ more $$!

raider.adam · #5 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 02:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RainDog

More progressive in NYC w/ more $$!

If you read the full article, it was actually pointing out how some of the "progressive" policies actually held back and hurt Bushwick's recovery.

Also, it mentioned how private investment coupled with the NYC (predominantly selling off the seized land cheap, dealing with crime and lowering taxes) helped a lot of it gentrify, which is a good thing.

It wasn't "progressive" policies in the sense of social programs that helped the neighborhood, but mostly the government dealing with crime and getting out of the way.

The turnaround actually had nothing to do with government being progressive or it having money.

RainDog · #6 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 03:43 AM

I was a bit vague. I was referring to the pay to play Philly bullshit holding back private investment in neighborhoods such as ours. I too would love to see an independent organic grocer, some nice restaurants, a place to pick up some clothes, etc.. in Brewtown. But with the same local leadership in place, I can not see anything like that in the foreseeable future.

raider.adam · #7 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 03:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RainDog

I was a bit vague. I was referring to the pay to play Philly bullshit holding back private investment in neighborhoods such as ours. I too would love to see an independent organic grocer, some nice restaurants, a place to pick up some clothes, etc.. in Brewtown. But with the same local leadership in place, I can not see anything like that in the foreseeable future.

That I agree with you on and why I posted the article. It shows that it can be done if some people would let it happen.

merkin · #8 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 04:58 PM

great, i have to wait 50 YEARS to get fresh food. well its been almost 3 so that leaves 47....i will be 78....

we cant even get a any kind of market to open arouond here.

a tennant of ours just moved to bedsti (sp?). she was paying 300/month here, now she is paying 1200/month for a one bedroom apartment. i like your optimist adam and i love that people see positive change. i cant get it out of my head the stories that my friend george told me about NoLibs during the 80's. it has taken 30 years to see what nolibs has (and i aint all that impressed).

one thing i did see on my way to low's on my bike today was someone was taking a core sample from the lot at 28th and stiles where the church used to be. gorilla says that it has been up for sale and there is a zoning notice up on the fence. 750K gets you 15 lots!

Lolly · #9 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by merkin

a tennant of ours just moved to bedsti (sp?). she was paying 300/month here, now she is paying 1200/month for a one bedroom apartment. i like your optimist adam and i love that people see positive change.

That's Bed-Stuy (short for Bedford-Stuyvesant). I lived right on the border of Bed-Stuy & Bushwick when I was born. Then in the early 60's, before I could even remember, my parents fled the chaos to the suburbs of NJ. Many years later, probably when I was just starting high school, my grandfather finally gave up & abandoned the property -- after too many dead-beat tenants burned it out (along with most of the neighboring houses) too many times I guess. If that kind of positive change could happen there I should think it could happen in Brewerytown too. Keep the faith.