Gloom and Loom at BBG

Gloom and Loom at BBG
Artist's rendering of proposed development along eastern perimeter of BBG

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Let's Call A Spade, A Spade

Watching the oft-repeated American scene in Ferguson, a town, like Crown Heights, that went Black in the wake of white flight. The older whites who are left are on the side of the (white) "these people are animals" police. Recently, however, there has been an influx of "low level hipsters" (to quote the highly intelligent, not-racist white taxi driver interviewed by Chris Hayes in his excellent reporting last night) to the area, people "committed to diversity," he said. The area has "craft beer.....a farmer's market....." etc. Sound familiar? I keep thinking back to the gentleman I heard at a CB9 meeting some months ago, who had been gentrified out of several neighborhoods in several cities. "These people don't share, they dominate," he warned. Let's see how "committed to diversity" we white people are in places like Ferguson and Crown Heights; there must be others. Are Ferguson and Crown Heights in the first stages eventual total white domination, or not? I'll be honest, I have only read the headline for this article, "America Is Not For Black People." But it's a helluva start.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Gentrification is picking up speed. The Owl & Whistle Brooklyn General Store (baby bibs with Clash album cover, artisanal pickles, etc.) has opened on Franklin on my side of Eastern Parkway; Mountain, an aromatherapy emporium, has put up a permanent sign. There's a Pulp & Bean, a new, possibly artisanal, pizzeria. Every day, another purebred dog being walked by a bearded man or texting girl. None of this makes me happy. This sign explains why. I keep thinking about what someone said at a CB9 meeting. He'd been gentrified out of DC, Chicago, Fort Greene and Harlem. He said, "These people don't share; they dominate."