Bethanie Corona

  How Gentrification Dissects the Gente and Culture From The Streets

I often hear about all the changes that Brooklyn has endured over the years along with other boroughs. Nowadays it seems like you can’t walk a block without a hipster yoga studio, an artsy cafe, pop up shop, or smoothie bar insight. A lot of businesses and restaurants last only a few months before the storefront goes back to how they were: empty. Longtime businesses are disappearing or relocating due to the same issues of high rent. According to The Furman Center’s Census data, “Median rents in Williamsburg went from $857 in 2000, to $1,591, 14 years later.” (Pereira, May 11, 2016) Gentrification is the culprit to these fluctuations. I’ve seen it firsthand with the changes in bodega store prices and the inflated cost of pizza slices and cups of coffee. Please make chips 4 for $1 again. Boroughs that are otherwise known for their non-Manhattan qualities are now its miniature clones. My neighborhood, Williamsburg Brooklyn, has developed popular stores such as Whole Foods, Levi’s, Toms, and Supreme. The Furman Center defines gentrification as the “rapid rent growth in low income neighborhoods.” (Pereira, May 11, 2016) I understand gentrification for what it is: change; I was curious to understand my neighbor’s perspective as a father, a superintendent, a property manager in the Bronx, a former storefront owner, & a native Brookly-nite. His name is Kerok Vazquez.

The interview took place in my living room on a calm Sunday afternoon after taking a stroll around the neighborhood. For the majority of his life, Vazquez has lived in the same building in what is addressed as Los Sures by its long-term residents, which translates to ‘The South Side’. His parents are from Puerto Rico and they moved to New York for better opportunities and to start a family. He was raised in a post-gentrified Williamsburg, where besides a large Jewish community, a Latinx and African American presence was undeniable. When asked if gentrification was important to him, Vazquez bluntly and simply exclaims “Gentrification is not important to me because I think people should be able to live wherever they want to live.” My follow up question was what are the best/worst aspects about gentrification? He twirled his fitted Yankee cap and stared out contemplating his answer: “The best ones are sometimes the crime level goes down. Growing up I had so be home before sun down it was not safe to be outside chilling so late. It raises property value… for longtime homeowners. This increases their wealth.” I took notes on how his descriptions confirmed everything I’ve heard my grandmother complained about while growing up. Where the tourist magnet Smorgasburg and fancy Domino Park once was a hooker and junkie infested Kent Avenue.

After learning about what gentrification means to him, I wondered if he ever expected his own neighborhood to change so rapidly. Kerok strokes his beard as he describes: “What happens with gentrification is that if the neighborhood has any type of character, let’s say like a feel of ‘old New York’ gentrification takes that away.” He continues: “It’s hard because when you’re in it you don’t notice it, I grew up in the old Williamsburg then I moved out and then tried to come back. It would be a big shocker…but since you’re in it, it gradually happens, it is not like they’re ripping a band-aid off so fast, it was kind of slow, but now that it been happened everything seems so fast. You can really see the changes, the difference in how it was, how you grew up, and how it is now.” Gentrification as a process happens in stages. Kerok’s sage band-aid analogy shows how the pain or wounds resulted from displacement and gentrification eventually heals. The Williamsburg I have grew to know and love is different from the one he’s experienced. Kerok, now 34, at 21 opened up a sneaker and fashion shop in the neighborhood for 7 years until the rent was no longer affordable. He explains how he’s not opposed to Mayor Deblasio’s proposal for a NYC tax on vacant because some landlords boot the small businesses or “family owned joints” that actually “help the community and keeps the neighborhood’s ‘character,’ and then triple the rent” for profit. When asked about the affordable housing crisis, he responds: “I don’t think they are purposely trying to push a lot of people out…It seems that way for a lot of people that have been used to paying $400-$500 in rent then seeing how somebody is willing to pay triple or even quadruple.” Kerok also defends landlords: “It isn’t fair to tell them to keep the rent the same… It’s social capital…everybody wants a piece of the pie.” But are the ways that legislators try to keep affordable housing, like through a lottery, affective? Kerok emphasizes: “They just want a tax break… if you can give a big developer a tax break on a property just so that they can put affordable housing, for them its just for the numbers… ‘We will take a certain amount of low income housing but even that low-income is not really low income, because it is according to their rule and according to the area.’” Gentrification will continue to manifest as time moves on or in the words of Vazquez: “My daughter, depending on how the neighborhood changes as she grows up then, —that will be her story to tell.”

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