“As the demographics of Bushwick changes, more upscale coffee shops, restaurants, and grocery stores are moving in to serve the wealthier residents, often replacing the bodegas and discount grocery stores that have served the community for years.”

Let me guess. Neither the ‘reporter’ nor the paper thought it wise to actually, uhhh, do any of their own fucking research?? Shoddy bullshit.

Jose, if you are lurking I want you to tell us where exactly these establishments are, and what they replaced. So we can go and enjoy them!

We all know about NE Kingdom. It’s been around for a few years and didn’t replace a god damned thing. We know about Life Cafe, the oldest ‘gentrifying establishment’ in the area, also replacing what? An empty storefront on Flushing? The coffee shop down the way from NE Kingdom, fine. But it’s tiny, unnoticed and again, replaced a lovely crapped out never been used in years mini storefront.

What I really want to know about: these supposed fancy shops, organic shops, and Internet cafés. Where, where and WHERE? Replacing exactly what, what and WHAT?

Please do yourself a favor and provide data for your assertions, or else I will not take anything else you have to say seriously. And that’s a really bad thing, cuz for the most part I want to support what you are doing.

the bottom line is: I moved to a neighborhood which was the crime central of the entire world, and apparently the people here don’t want me.

. “Make the Road by Walking” should stop having meetings and start a blog to get its message out. Because the way it sends it message out is very important, for us current residents and the future ones. When I look at simple lies of “A lot of shops are shutting down, and the ones that are opening in their place don’t serve the current community” I get the feeling that Make The Road by Walking can -lie- to get what they want. That is a scary beginning. Change is inevitable and there must be other solutions then rejecting the newcomers. I read the articles and I have not seen a single solution from MTRBW that makes sense. Should people not move in? Should buildings not be built? Should the government intervene and built affordable housing all around Bushwick? Whatever “positive solutions” they offer, it has nothing to the with- the real estate brokers, developers, the current residents, future residents. This is between them and the city housing and that’s not the message I get seeing those people infront of that luxury highrise.

If MTRBW were to announce that Danny Meyer was opening Maria Hernandez Grille on Suydam, I suspect the Daily News would just print it without calling him for comment.

The problem is that I simply don’t see how having to move because one’s rent goes up is a big deal. As I have mentioned elsewhere, it’s happened to me and several of my friends in another city. So you move. Big deal. When a product I buy at the store gets scarcer and therefore more expensive, I usually stop buying it or substitute something similar but cheaper. I don’t rail against the factors that make peaches rise from 25c a piece in late summer to $2 a piece in winter.

I know, housing is different — but is it? It’s a bigger pain to be priced out of than most other products because one lives in one’s home, but homes are a product, supplied like any other. And the fact is, there is a huge supply of cheap, available housing across the country just waiting to be filled. Houses in Flint, Michigan, for example, rent for $250 and sell for $9000. So what we’re talking about here is some people’s desire to continue to afford a luxury — residence in New York City. Pardon me if I am less than sympathetic.

All this said, my judgement of these types is based solely in their idiotic arguments and stances. If they were to focus on, say, increasing homeownership among their community instead of inciting class war over a couple of coffee shops and a big ugly condo, I would be all fuck-yeah behind them. But as it stands, they will only attract my criticism.

I write to weigh in on the gentrification discussion. I have only posted once before–in response to Tony T’s thread about Hollywood and Bushwick. I reintroduce myself as an artist who owns and has partially renovated a vacant factory building in Bushwick for use as my studio. We are in the process of constructing a dental clinic on the ground floor of the building.

I feel that your take on gentrification reflects your position as someone who feels he has risked a lot to move to this neighborhood, to make an investment in his property, and to endure the distinct lack of amenities that characterize a poor community. It is hard for you to have patience with, or be sympathetic to, the notion that there might be hostility to you and me, when we just want to go about our business and live our lives in Bushwick, unburdened by how our decisions may affect others. Especially when this patch of contested turf seems less than ideal from our perspective, it is frustrating to be told that we are part of the problem. The neighborhood seems to have plenty of problems that don’t have anything to do with us!

That said, I think you are way too hard on those who fear for their future in Bushwick–the folks that MTRBW is trying to galvanize and to help. Where you stand on the prospect of newcomers like us moving into the neighborhood can be influenced by whether you own or rent. For example, one of my neighbors is a patriarch of Hispanic origin whose entire family of three generations lives in a 3-family house that he has owned since 1983. He has told me that he is thrilled that I have bought the building next to his, believing that it increases the value of his property, which he will be able to sell eventually for a big profit.

Property owners don’t fear gentrification, but the many more people who rent may well resent the newcomers as harbingers of displacement. The poor people in Bushwick know what’s coming. It may take 20 years, but it is inevitable. And they have little recourse against it. Look at Manhattan. The only people of limited income who can afford to live there are in government-subsidized housing. It wasn’t always so. The newcomers to Bushwick who don’t have the ability to buy their dwellings are going to be in the same position as the long-time, largely Hispanic, residents who rent. These newcomers have no protection against future displacement either once they help improve the neighborhood. Artists particluarly have watched neighborhood after neighborhood retreat from them into inaffordability. It’s the story of New York over the last 30 years.

Because you are fortunate, or prescient enough, to be able to afford and renovate your house, your should consider yourself lucky. Your situation is far better than those for whom you appear to have so little sympathy. They have far greater problems than whether they can get Thai food or a find a good wine bar in their neighborhood.

Let’s try to live together as best we can, knowing that we can’t always prevent ourselves from being the agents of harm to those around us. If the frustration of of poorer neighbors around us spills over at us, I think the better posture is to reserve judgment about them because some of us may well be in their shoes in the future.

For all his class-baiting and his claims of being misquoted, he hasn’t ever taken back his “wine bar” comment, has he?

Convenient of José to ignore the fact that I can’t fucking afford a $270-K condo, and even if I could, I sure as hell wouldn’t buy one at the shithouse 358 Grove.

But when you’re 19, you don’t see nuance. You only see blood and testosterone. The elderly Puerto Rican lady who asked Jen this morning how I am, because she hasn’t seen me in a while–she doesn’t seem to agree with the teenyboppers that I’m such a menace.

Yay, gentrification!