November 12, 2007
Red Hook Suffering from "Degentrification"
Given the city's more nuanced real estate market, NY magazine covers "degentrification," focusing mostly on Red Hook.
Adam Sternbergh chronicles the neighborhood's ups and downs - for pre-gentrifiers, the stroller set and real estate enthusiasts, of course. He tells the story through a 30 year-old named Ivy Pochoda, who grew up in Cobble Hill when "Smith Street was still too sketchy to walk home on alone." (NB: Smith Street still was sketchy into the 1990s.)
Pochoda knew it was time to leave Red Hook when she saw two pretty-faced girls on Pioneer St. in tapered jeans and flats. Oh no, not tapered jeans and flats! The gist of the story is that, marked by the closing of the Pioneer bar, bistro 360, and the Hook, the wheels of Red Hook gentrification are going in reverse. The larger idea is that gentrification isn't self-sustaining - and "dying" Red Hook is the example.
Just as the hype surrounding Red Hook over the last few years was totally overblown, so is the thesis that Red Hook is done. Instead, the reality is probably somewhere in between. While economic development was slower than expected, the neighborhood still saw a 30 percent increase in property values over the last year. It's amazing to us, at least, that it's come this far, given how long it takes to get there (sans car). Our take is that Red Hook can't become DUMBO overnight until the transportation conundrum is solved. And remember that Red Hook still hosts Brooklyn's last working port, which is barely mentioned in the piece. Neither are the thriving ballfields.
NYPD-detective-turned-Red-Hook-building-owner-and-Jane-Jacobs-enthusiast Greg O'Connell pretty much sums up the story we've been hearing this season:
"It used to be that if you were from Okefenokee," he tells me, "and you were the best dancer in the world, the idea was that you could come to this city to make it. You’d live three in a room if you had to. But now the three-in-a-room places are disappearing. And you need that balance or you choke the life from the city."
His suggestion to someone young with money? Move to Buffalo!
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my favorite quote from the article:
that's pretty much my prediction for the future of our city-- european and asian overlords ruling over millions of investment bankers, and all the artists living in east niagra, or western Saskatchewan or wherever.I lived in Buffalo for a year.
Do not move there.
Often when I see people climbing on board a B61 to Red Hook (here in Brooklyn Heights), they have this "I wish I didn't have to take this bus" look on their faces.
red hook is seriously too out of the way, but who knows with the ikea parking it out there...maybe there will be some re-gentrification. you know how yupsters love their swedish pre-fab furniture.
Buffalo's major service industry,
Collection Agencies.
parts of red hook are really easy to get to -- just walk 10 minutes west from the carroll street F train stop.
yesterday it took me 45 minutes to walk from red hook to chinatown. by bike it's about 20 minutes.
too far from transportation. it would be great for a isolated rich area. too bad the projects are in the way.
i disagree with sternbergh on one thing, though-- i don't think gentrification is inherently self-limiting. it might burn itself out in certain neighborhoods (especially those deprived of basic access to transportation, good schools, and "amenities" like supermarkets and banks), but in neighborhoods that have those things, it's alive and well and probably unstoppable.
another vision of a future new york: good neighborhoods occupied by the super-rich, while the poor and middle class live in the boondocks, two hours from work.
Anyone who thinks any real estate cycle in this city is 'unstoppable' doesn't know their history and hasn't lived through several of them in this town.
New York has been waaay waaay up and waaay waaaay down alot more times than many of the interlopers..I mean transplants, would like to admit to themselves.
You'll see.
I decided to head West and just wait and come back if/when the "bubble" bursts happens. It's just not worth it anymore.
I don't want to give away any secret but there are some cheap(ish) beautiful towns along the Hudson.
His suggestion to someone young with money? Move to Buffalo!
or for some international flavor, move to Berlin. Crime is a little higher that it used to be, graffiti is plentiful, but rents are cheap compared to here & there's a lot to do there. It's basically New York 15 years ago (or 10-15 years in the future).
It's really part of the larger economic cycle that NYC (or really almost any city) goes through. The economy is faltering terribly, and we're about to have a major recession. When money gets tight, borderline neighborhoods in the middle of gentrification start to slip back towards where they were before. People started buying up and priming Red Hook 7 years ago at least (the exact timing is debatable), when the economy was booming out of hand. Now that the Sex and the City years are just a bad DVD box set memory,property values are leveling out because they were unnaturally high. I lived through the late 70's and 80's, when the city was a mess. Then things got better in the late 80's and early 90's. They peaked about two years ago, and here we go again. This doesn't bother me so much because I'm not going anywhere. Buy a piece of real estate in NYC because you want to live here, not as an investment, and it won't matter all that much. A decent apartment, in an decent neighborhood will always hold it's value. It's people at both extreme end of the spending spectrum that get screwed.
it's just the transportation in red hook. As soon as they get some serious bus or bike friendly action red hook would be up and running. they should try to get a huge asian population running up in there, then you could get some shuttle buses. red hook has potential but it's gonna take work. I guess people will just rather wait for the blacks to move out once the atlantic railyards gets torn down and then move into their neighborhood. once gentrification sets in, the blacks move out.
I have lived in Red Hook for over a year and absolutely love it...even more so because its hard for the masses to get to. It still maintains that neighborhood feel and I am dreading the day that Ikea opens.
Just like was mentioned in the article, I lived there when I was growing up in the 70's - 80's. I can remember many days when I would not dare walk down some of the streets. As if I was walking into a haunted house.
I do think however, it is very fitting to see this happening to the area. Does anybody recall why the housing was built there in the 1800's to begin with? It certainly had nothing to do with wealthy people. It was created for the working class dock-workers. And so, maybe history is repeating itself.
What if the entire New York area had millionaires living here. Who would serve them? Who would cook for them, clean their clothes?
Maybe we are taking a step back into time, where the wealthy take all the real estate and then hire servants and put them in servants quarters.
I lived on Sackett Street on the Cobble Hill/Red Hook border for 7 years. I loved, loved, loved it but towards the end, the B61 became unbearable: overcrowded and off schedule.
kuffer makes a good point about much of the housing in the Red Hook area initially being built for longshoremen. Not in RH, but Cobble Hill, those houses on Warren Street were also built for dockworkers and today you literally have to be a millionaire to own one. So far from the original intent. I think also the Red Hook trolley never coming to fruition had a big effect on the area. The Ikea isn't necessarily going to inspire better transportation options during normal commuting hours, just more cars on the weekends and maybe some shuttle buses on the weekends. Red Hook is one of those Brooklyn neighborhoods that somehow still manages to hold on to a lost-in-time feeling.