Category: Student Posts

I was just scrolling on Facebook when I noticed a good friend of mine posted a video about how an entire village was destroyed in the making of Central Park. I remember talking in class about the idea that sometimes we live in an area long enough that we don’t really know how it used to be before we lived there, or before people occupied the space in general. Since Central Park has been around my whole life and most of the history I learned in school included the park’s existence, I never really thought about what was there before the park. Even when I was learning about how the park was built, I never was exposed to the information presented in this video, and I presume it was because this is a part of history textbook writers and education leaders do not want us to know (but that’s another story for another post).

The video and article titled, “An Entire Manhattan Village Owned by Black People Was Destroyed to Build Central Park” posted on Timeline by Heather Gilligan are about Seneca Village, which was a village that spanned from 82nd to 89th street along what is the present western edge of the park. It is sad to me that we are too familiar with the housing regulations and racism in the housing market that was present in the 1800s because we still see it in today’s market (a lot more subtly, but it’s there). In the mid-1800s, white landowners did not sell property to black people, no matter their social standing. Therefore, black people who could afford to travel and settle down went to places like Seneca Village- refuge spaces for black people to live. Gilligan mentions that Seneca Village was a stop on the Underground Railroad, which gives Seneca Village an even more important purpose that stems even further back than the 1800s. If you were able to purchase land in Seneca Village, this meant that you had the power to vote (men only, of course, but for black people this was a very important step towards climbing up the social ladder). Abolitionist Albro Lyons and Mary Joseph Lyons were residents of Seneca Village (Gilligan, NY Public Library). Black people living in the village built schools for their children. Seneca Village was home for lots of black people living in New York at the time, and it was all destroyed in 1857 to make way for Central Park, a “public place” mainly for white elitists to show off and enjoy their leisure time (This sounds a lot like the Hudson Yards project that we discussed in class!).

Finding this information really made me think about all of the neighborhoods that were destroyed under Moses’ construction projects, as well as all the communities that we still don’t know about that were destroyed in the gentrification process. A memorial sign was put up in 2001 where Seneca Village used to be in Central Park, and you can still go there to read about this village today.

Gilligan, Heather. “An Entire Manhattan Village Owned by Black People Was Destroyed to Build Central Park.” Timeline. Timeline, 23 Feb. 2017. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

I was aimlessly scrolling through Yelp searching for where to find the best kinds of food in New York City. I typed in “Afghani Food”, expecting to find the best Afghani food somewhere in New York City where there is a high concentration of Afghani people. I was expecting that these businesses would prefer catering to people of their own nationality, giving the locals a taste of their home cuisine.

However, what I found was that the #2 best Afghani food for cheap near Brooklyn was the Kabob Shack in Williamsburg-South Side. That was something I did not expect, knowing that Williamsburg has been the constant site of gentrification over many years. The two things in particular that shocked me was 1) why is it fairly cheap? and 2) why Afghani food in Williamsburg?. After thinking more into it, it makes sense. This business is in Williamsburg’s South Side, which I learned is considered more residential and less gentrified than the North Side. This business serves both the residents in search of ethnic food and the stragglers of the North Side of Williamsburg who are in the mood for falafel. The “exoticness” of Afghani food also seems to attract customers to this restaurant.

Furthermore, after reading about the zoning changes in Williamsburg/Greenpoint, which allows for more residential developers to come and create housing for both low income and high income families, it is apparent that the location of this business is ideal for those moving in. Because it is ethnic food, rather than something like a restaurant, which can be displaced by Applebee’s or Chipotle for example, it seems to me that the Kabob Shack is here to stay.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/kabob-shack-brooklyn?osq=afghan+food

In “The Right to Stay Put, Revisited: Gentrification and Resistance to Displacement in New York City,” Kathe Newman and Elvin K. Wyly discuss displacement within New York City. This paper provides a detailed look at the following question. Does gentrification lead to displacement of low-income families or is that due to “the result of long-term industrial and occupational change” (Hamnett, 2003, p. 182). The paper highlights the multiple factors aside from gentrification that leads to this displacement of lower-income residents within New York. The nature of displacement within New York City is a multi-faceted issue that always comes back to one central theme, corruption.

In New York City, we start with Robert Moses. Moses was a man that was clearly hungry for power, basically monopolizing New York City’s planning department. He shaped New York City into the urban center it is now known as today. But, he did not do this alone. With the help of money-hungry real estate corporations, he built up areas that were “in need” of change. Moses’ plans both benefitted the city, and negatively affected people on an individual level. However, the driving force was always corruption. Moses took advantage of the system and made it so he was of such power that most of his ideas went largely unopposed. The corrupt big real estate players had no intention in mind other than taking advantage of people to make a larger profit.

So to examine the true reason for displacement we need to understand that corruption is inherently part of human nature, whether this has to do with power, money, or any other aspect of life. Based on a purely systematical view of this “problem” using basic principles of logical reasoning, the following could be inferred. Since human nature allows for corruption, and corruption is what caused gentrification of New York City and displacement of lower income families, it can be viewed that human nature is the cause for this displacement. The nature of humans to strive for bettering themselves is what detriments those worse-off. So, while the “quantitative” and “qualitative analysis” that Newman and Wyly reference in their paper does adequately suggest that there are more factors than gentrification that lead to displacement, the one factor that may explain it all goes unmentioned.