Brooklyn Heights Gentrification

The Evolving Gentrification of Brooklyn Heights Gentrification is a process in which wealthier, usually middle and upper income people, move into a deteriorated or lower income community. The wealthier people renovate and restore housing and sometimes businesses in these communities. The result is what is known as gentrification. The increase in middle income families and individuals usually results in the overall decline of racial minorities. Gentrification also makes the real estate market change. Where once stood modest homes that were affordable now stands luxury apartments which command expensive rents. This process of gentrification is what has made New York City the beautiful, diverse and thriving city it is today. Gentrification
has touched communities such as Harlem, Chelsea, Astoria, and Brooklyn Heights. Brooklyn Heights has gone through many stages of gentrification making it the beautiful and popular suburb of New York City it is today (Patch, 2004).
Over the course of the last century, Brooklyn Heights has undergone many transformations and several stages of gentrification.
What once began as an area filled with brownstone buildings in the architectural style of Queen Anne and Gothic Revival, it started to lose upper-class residents because the newly-operational IRT subway in early the early 1900s, made it easy for the masses to travel freely to and from the once-secluded neighborhood. When the wealthy people left for the suburbs, many of the brownstones were divided into rooming houses for lower-income occupants (Osman 2011).
When the depression hit in 1929, nearly one-third of the houses in Brooklyn Heights were boarded up due to bank foreclosures. Eventually, the neighborhood experienced a deep decline in population and income level and it was no longer considered a place where the well-to-do wanted to live (Lees, 2003).
It was not until the end of World War II when Brooklyn Heights once again experienced another gentrification. The upwardly mobile young adults who were now hitting the business world en masse did not want to locate to the far off suburbs of Long Island. Manhattan was always a place where housing was overpriced with the affordable neighborhoods being just like the Brooklyn Heights of a decade prior. Brooklyn Heights became their neighborhood of choice (Lees,
2003).
Brooklyn Heights, and the streets such as Pineapple, Montague and Cranberry, became the ideal place for the new wave of literary and artistic elite with residents such as Arthur Miller and Thomas Wolfe. This gentrification made the neighborhood exclusive once again with high-end rents and the renovations of the historic brownstones resulting in lower income families being forced out and displaced (Lees, 2003).
The BHA, or Brooklyn Height Association, solidified Brooklyn Heights as a desirable oasis close to Manhattan when they blocked Robert Moses from putting the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway right through the neighborhood and from destroying hundreds of historical buildings. As a compromise, the road was built on a loop around the Heights which borders one of the most famous sites of Brooklyn—the picturesque Promenade. It became the first New York City neighborhood to be designated both a national landmark by the Department of the Interior and a New York City Historic District by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (Lees, 2003). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Brooklyn Heights underwent what is called corporatized gentrification.
This gentrification began with the onset of the redevelopment of the outlying areas surrounding its borders. Wall Street bankers, now finding themselves to be in a new class of wealthy, flocked to this exclusive area. Once again, Brooklyn Heights was more financially out of reach for lower income residents than ever before. For a family who once dreamed of living close to New York City and not out in the suburbs, Brooklyn Heights was no longer an option, even for many two income families. With the onslaught of the very wealthy and the accompanying increase in property values, local “mom and pop” stores which were mainstays for the locals over the course of many years were unable to afford their rent. Big businesses, such as The Gap, Barnes and Noble and CVS moved in to cater to the masses in the surrounding newly-developed neighborhoods now containing high-rise apartment buildings and scores of new residents. This type of gentrification seems to be contradictory to the desires of the class of people who inhabit the exclusive blocks of the historical district that one knows as Brooklyn Heights (Davidson, 2012). Although Brooklyn Heights is considered a family neighborhood, the families are usually small in size with many larger families moving to bigger quarters in more distant suburbs. In a community undergoing gentrification, the average income increases and average
family size decreases. This can also support the definition of gentrification in simple terms-families remain small and income remains high (Lees 2003). Today, many residents in Brooklyn Heights are still the epitome of the upper class financiers, living just a train ride away from lower Manhattan and coming home to an exclusive Brownstone in the insular neighborhood. This is sometimes called the “Manhattanization of Brooklyn Heights”. They can boast that their neighborhood is one where property values continue to rise, even in these harsh economic times (Lees, 2003). The gentrification of Brooklyn Heights is a process with strong sustainability. The tight-knit neighborhood stays true to the form that came about over sixty years ago when the post-war businessmen moved to Brooklyn and pulled the area out of the slums with multi-family homes that were inhabited by lower income families. They remain exclusive and appear to have taken on their own unique form of gentrification. Gentrification is change and change is always good. Although gentrification changes a community’s character and culture, the outcome most of the time is one that is good. Class 390 was able to go to Brooklyn Heights and take a walking tour of the community. In my opinion, gentrification was a good thing for this community. The community is beautiful and thriving with fresh, young blood. In order for a city community or suburb to survive and keep up with the evolving world, they need change and be renewed.