On March 9th 2013, I went to Avenue U in Homecrest, Brooklyn with Kate Zarudna. We covered what I thought to be the scope of the chinatown there, basically from 15th street to  25th street. Now, it is highly likely that there was a significant Asian population if we walked from the Avenue U station (on the Q line) in the descending order of streets, it just so happened that we decided to walk east. We had visited several establishments and businesses in the area, and asked the workers if Sandy had affected them in any way. We had tried to do this as least intrusively as possible, but nevertheless the majority of the Asian residents did not show any desire to talk to us. Upon us mentioning the word “questions” many of the people we talked to appeared to grow suspicious and mistrusting of us, which was completely understandable. Furthermore, I would like to point out that there was a noticeable language barrier with the older generations of Asian locals (as can be expected).

In Acupuncture and Herb Remedy store, there were Russian advertisements; however, there appeared to be no Russian-speaking workers on premises at the time and the owner was Chinese. He did not appear to understand our questions related to Sandy (or maybe simply did not want to answer.)

At Dr.Wireless, a general tech store, the sales attendant answered that no damage from Sandy occurred, and that we should check further down, closer to Sheepshead Bay. Business continued as usual.

We also stopped at a Russian-owned pharmacy on Avenue U. We felt more comfortable interviewing one of the ladies working there in Russian, and to be honest this method yielded better results. Of course, as to the state of Avenue U after Sandy, the answers were much the same, Ave U was not harmed and business continued much as usual despite the natural disaster. According to the lady, there are also many Russian-speaking people in the area along with the Chinese. It was she who specified the damage was more on Ave Y and headed us in that direction.

As we walked south to Avenue Y, the area becomes instantly residential. Damage from Sandy is no longer evident in the area either because it was cleaned up already or because there wasn’t much.

On Avenue Y and Ocean Ave there was an “International Food” Store (a very probable sign that it was Russian-owned). We asked the cashier about Sandy and finally got evidence of Sandy’s impact; apparently their basement was flooded but they did not lose power. Essentially their business closed down only for a couple days for repairs.