With Bushwick safely ceded to the future 1 percent, publications still screaming about Brooklyn's widespread gentrification have turned their attention to new territory still untouched by Starbucks: Crown Heights. Earlier this summer, the Times sounded the GENTRIFICATION DRUDGE SIREN, dedicating about 1,500 words to the new condo developments, hip businesses and influx of young professionals looking to buy. And two months later, Bloomberg Businessweek's dipping its nib into the ink, offering a look at prospective buyers in Brooklyn who've been "pushed" into Crown Heights over, say, Fort Greene. It's the same story over and over and over again: summer turns to fall, Mets players get injured, Modern Family wins Emmys and people get priced out of neighborhoods of which they will, in turn, price others out.
Businessweek's story introduces Julian and Danielle Katz, who recently plunked down nearly $1.2 million on a Crown Heights brownstone for themselves and their three children. The Katzes moved from Fort Greene, a neighborhood a little farther along the gentrification spectrum. "We loved Fort Greene but we could only afford a modest apartment there," Katz said. "We could get a whole house in Crown Heights." According to Businessweek, the median home price in Crown Heights is now $600,000; the average rent on a newly-leased home is $2,110/month.
As has been the case with all gentrifying neighborhoods citywide—nay, nationwide—this new influx of wealth has dubious implications for the population that's been living here for decades. In Crown Heights, as well as in newly expensive Bed-Stuy, there are cute shops, cafes, a new giant beer hall, and more cops on the street. But as one longstanding Bed-Stuy resident—who is fighting with his landlord over his rent-stabilized space—told the publication, “I came here when this block had shootouts and drugs throughout the place and now that it’s getting good, they’re kicking me out. There are now two police officers on each corner but I realized that they are not here for me. They are here for the new crowd.”
In other news, today the Times ran another real estate profile on one 24-year-old medical student's hunt for a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. The young lady, who hails from Minnesota, somehow believed living in Brooklyn would be cheaper than Manhattan. But alas, the Land of the $10 Latte spares no future doctor. She's been forced to contend with a $2,345/month studio complete with a gym, a roof deck, a doorman and an elevator, in a part of Crown Heights the Paper of Record can't help calling "ProCro." "The shower is not scummy and gross,” she said. “I can take a shower and not be, like, I have to wear my flip-flops." Crown Heights 2014: a mere $2,345 a month gets you your own not scummy gross slice of heaven.
We'll just leave you with this.
