Bushwick ‘Underserved’ by Banks
photo courtesy of NY Times
How did I miss this: the NY Daily News featuring people actually complaining that unlike Manhattan and fancier parts of Brooklyn, Bushwick’s streets are not neutron bombed of all activity by the presence of blocks-long strips of bank branches. Some guy bitches that he has to ride his bike two miles to deposit his check at the nearest Citibank branch — what, don’t you ever go to the city for work or other errands? Everyone should have a branch of their bank within a 2-minute walk? He actually says it’s “disgusting”! Get a hold of yourself, man.
Honestly, I can’t imagine how this new, annoying trend of opening huge, deserted bank branches all over every city could possibly be profitable. Hopefully the phenomenon suffers a sharp correction before the idiocy hits places like Bushwick.
October 4th, 2007 at 10:10 am
i agree with this article…i hate the fact that im forced to do all of my banking either in manhattan or by car. i wish they would open a bank some where closer to me than ridgewood or flushing ave
October 4th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
do some people do their banking by robbery around here?
October 5th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
totally. There’s a bank of america every six steps in manhattan, not one in bushwick.
October 5th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Manhattan’s got the banks, Bushwick the bodegas?
October 8th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
There’s an interesting story regarding low income people and banks. Traditionally, financial services are free for people above a certain class and not free for low income people. This actually has less to do with institutional problems and more to do with cultural problems. I know a lot of the Mexican families in my neighborhood distrust anything where there’s a lot of signing, probably because they are concerned with deportation, taxes, etc. They prefer to hold on to their money.
When I started landlording here, I told people to stop paying in cash, but to start paying in check/money order (as much as I love this block, I am unwilling to walk with a month’s worth of rent in cash down the street).
So people started paying in money orders because no one has a bank account. I tried explaining that they could get free bank accounts instead of paying $5 for a money order (or $10 for 2 since some places have a maximum of 500 on the money order), but no one listened. The extra $10 is actually quite a bit of money to people working on minimum wage.
Bloomberg worked with New York banks to overcome this fear of banks by offering free checking services with a $50 dollar incentive to open an account, about a month ago. After reading about this, I thought “Wow, it would be great if there was a community outreach program to help people with this.” People inherently distrust “the man” so if it came from the people from their own community, they would change their minds. I called “Make the Road by Walking”, a local community group that helped fight worker exploitation at Associated Market, but they were totally unreceptive. As soon as they heard I was a landlord, they thought i was trying to cause trouble or trick them. They eventually told me i would have to call the bank.
The attitudes here hold people back more than the perceived oppression.
Anyways, I do my banking at the Bushwick branch of Washington Mutual. Se habla espanol.
October 8th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Make the Road got hostile when they heard you were a landlord, huh? Big surprise. Their work fighting “worker exploitation,” as I understand it, is not what it seems at face value, but I’m not gonna get into it here.
The Washington Mutual here blows because they hold my checks for 14 days — something that offends me considering I have had an account with them since I was a teenager depositing my bagboy wages. I go to the city to deposit checks and the funds are available almost immediately.
October 9th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
that sucks you have to drag the check into the city to have them clear. where is washington mutual?
bagboy? as in paperboy?
lots of people are afraid of having their finances on record.
vertigo are those tenants paying below market rents?
October 10th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Jeremy:
I wouldn’t say they got hostile, they just didn’t believe I wanted to help.
Jay:
Yes, actually those tenants are paying below market rents (even though the building is not rent regulated) it actually is good, because otherwise I would be much more obliged to raise rent every year the maximum amount (if you don’t and you’re rent stabilized, then you’ve missed your chance). Since the building is not rent regulated, I can charge what i want, meaning that if I don’t want to hike someone’s rent, I can let them stay at that rent. Which I have for the last two years and only have started the raising, to less than market, just to make up some of the costs that have increased.
The WAMU is actually on Grand and Graham, and though I’m still not sure if it’s technically Bushwick, they are known as the Bushwick Branch. And it’s quite the imposing building.
October 10th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I’ve been in that area, and no it’s not considered bushwick.
if they are good tenants that one thing if you can afford to keep them. but as additional costs increase (including water), it costs more to maintain.
most concerned landlords want to invest money on capital improvements to help gentrify the area.