Coney Island

Race, Class, and Gentrification in Brooklyn discusses how Bedford-Stuyvesant, Flatbush, and Coney Island were stigmatized place names forty years ago. However, I would argue that if you delve deeper into the neighborhoods, they still are to some extent. Many people I know reference certain areas of the 3 mentioned as “the good part” or “the bad part” of the neighborhood. As more big name stores come into those areas, specifically Coney Island, they will soon become the “Williamsburgs” of Brooklyn – trendy, boutique hotels, clothing stores, and bars near the waterfront.  You can already see it happening with the opening of celebrity restaurant Wahlburgers and expensive candy store It’s Sugar. Interestingly enough, recent studies show that Coney Island is not experiencing as much of an increase in average household income as it is in gentrifying neighborhoods like Cobble Hills, Park Slope, and Williamsburg. 

I focus more on Coney Island because I live in Sheepshead Bay which is about 20 minutes away by foot. I did a semester long study on the 3 bordering beaches to see why there is such a rigid dichotomy between ethnicities; Manhattan Beach being mostly white, Russian upper-class, Brighton Beach being also mostly white, Russian but low/middle-class, and Coney Island being heavily young, low/middle-class, people of color. Though they are all connected by one body of water, as you walk along the Boardwalk, you can vividly see the difference.

For a visual reference, of the neighborhoods, you can watch this (amateur) video I made. This Time Magazine article shows Coney Island in the 1960s. I definitely would agree that in order to study society and urban change, one must take a visual approach to examine the changes.

– Ariella Trotsenko