A few weeks ago, I was sitting by the pond in Prospect Park under the beautiful shining sun, enjoying the breath-taking scenery with my good friend Noah Maxwell by my side. We were throwing pieces of coconut biscuits we had picked up from a Haitian bakery on the other side of town into the water for the ducks to eat. The sounds of African drumming filled the air, though we could hear nearby Latinos playing bachata music as they grilled chicken for the barbeque they were having. It was at that moment that I realized I was surrounded by a mini representation of the world. I was at the center of a series of interconnected webs drawing from different areas of the globe, a whole slew of cultures passing by me.
Prospect Lefferts Gardens is in some ways a reflection of Prospect Park itself. The park is a meeting ground for the different ethnicities that comprise the surrounding neighborhoods, and serves as a center of various cultures and values. Prospect Lefferts Gardens (shortened PLG) is a neighborhood spanning a small portion of the Brooklyn area. I discovered on my journey that PLG has a mini snapshot of many different cultures including Haitian, Dominican, Ghanaian, West African, Jamaican, and Caucasian. The neighborhood is home to many groups of immigrants, mainly Caribbean, but PLG is now included in the discussions of gentrification and real estate development, as the neighborhood is home to many beautiful brownstones and townhouses.
Before discussing my journey and discoveries, I think it’s important to give a more “on-the-books” generic description of Prospects Lefferts Gardens. It is a small neighborhood located in the Flatbush area and central part of Brooklyn, just south of Crown Heights. It is bounded by Empire Boulevard (formerly Malbourne Street) in the north, Clarkson Avenue to the south, New York Avenue to the east, and Ocean Avenue and Prospect Park to the west. The name is a combination of the nearby neighborhoods, including Prospect Park, Lefferts Manor, and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. PLG welcomes people of all races and cultures, with a large population of immigrants from Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rica, Asia, and in recent years, black and white middle class working New Yorkers (Leimbach 2004). The population is roughly 168,000, and the neighborhood is easily accessible from the No. 2, 5, B, and Q subway lines.
PLG has been called Brooklyn’s “best-kept secret” by many real estate developers and sociologists. This is mainly due to the number of beautiful brownstones that span the blocks of Prospect Lefferts Gardens. There are luxurious and historical late 19th and early 20th century townhouses that are a mixture of architectural styles, including Romanesque, Neo-federal, Colonial Revival and neo-Georgian (Leimbach 2004 and Pomorski 2015). Interestingly enough, PLG contains more than 800 historic buildings that have been designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee (Leimbach 2004). Prospect Lefferts Gardens really is beautiful, and as we walked I was in awe of the gorgeous architecture and structure of the limestone and brick townhouses that we passed. The leafy green old maple trees just added to the scenery, and created a serene and peaceful environment that gave me the illusion that I was not even in the city anymore.
Although the brownstones were absolutely stunning, what really surprised me was the vast contrast of housing that was evident on several blocks we passed. On one side of the street, there were beautiful homes like those pictured above, but on the other side were run-down small apartment buildings. It was like night and day within a single block. There is a stark difference between the rent-stabilized apartment buildings versus the single-family brownstones, often times just a few steps away from one another. According to The Observer, many of the townhouses are selling for more than $2 million dollars in today’s real estate market (Pomorski 2015). A major cause of this difference in housing is the zoning within the neighborhood, which many have been trying to change since 2008.
Besides the difference in housing, there is quite a mixture of people within the neighborhood. On one hand, there are newcomers from other areas of the city that have been priced out of their old apartments, many hailing from Park Slope on the other side of Prospect Park, where rents have skyrocketed and led many people to find decent housing in PLG. Besides the newcomers, there are people who have lived there for generations in the same townhouses, and then there are recent immigrants to the United States who have moved to PLG to find the comfort of being surrounded by similar people to share experiences and values with. As Leimbach writes in her article,
“People have either lived here for ages or moved in within the last decade, drawn to the interracial blend as well as the stone row houses, which are considered more affordable than their counterparts in Park Slope” (2004).
Prospect Lefferts Gardens is, despite the vast diversity, considered a tight-knit and friendly community, and I can even support that statement, as I felt incredibly welcomed when I visited the neighborhood. Everyone talks to each other and greets one another, even if they are complete strangers. Noah and I were walking down one street, and a man from across the way yelled to us, “I better see you next week!” So we walked over to him, and it turns out he was a member of the church choir, located just a few houses down. He invited us and asked us to come to the service next week, and how they would love to have us. It was incredible, not even knowing this man and him wanting us to be a part of his place of worship. As we walked further down the block, we passed the church they were talking about, The Episcopal Church Saint Gabriel’s, and gathered outside were at least thirty people, and many of them smiled at us and greeted us so warmly! Noah and I were shocked to say the least, because it was a large Caribbean and African group, and here we were like sheep in a herd of elephants, yet welcomed as if we were one of them.
We turned down the block and out of the corner of my eye I saw a blue awning that read “Haitian Bakery and Eatery.” I grabbed Noah and we went inside, and I just had a feeling this would be a great place to get information, and it truly was. When we went inside, we recieved some funny looks from some of the patrons, and the man behind the counter was hesitant. Many of the people we talked to were skeptical to speak with us, and the worker did not give many answers. He was born in Haiti, and he came here about 2 years ago. When we asked him if he liked it here, he did not reply, which makes me think that his experience has not been the greatest. We asked him for a recommendation of what food to buy, and so he gave us a traditional Haitian pastry, coconut biscuits.
As Noah paid for his treat, I turned around and started talking to an older man, who looked to be about in his sixties, and he was absolutely the best interview we had that day. Eugene is a Haitian immigrant who came here in 1974 and is a school bus driver. He has both kids and grandkids here. Every summer, when he is off from driving, he makes a trip down to Haiti. He loves PLG, because there are many Haitians and island cultures surrounding him. However, Eugene said that “This country, is mi corazon”, meaning that the United States is his heart. He loves it here, and said “America opened so many doors for me. Those who don’t make it here are the ones that don’t like it. They are not disciplined, and they have not worked hard enough.” He became very passionate, and he continued to preach the importance of working hard and saving money, not spending it all. I think the most inspirational thing he said to us was, “Even though I love it here, I cannot forget my home country. You cannot move forward if you forget where you came from.” He loves his ability to travel between his “two homes” and to mix his Haitian and American cultures together.
As we neared Prospect Park at the edge of PLG, we found this small dead-end street with more townhouses tucked neatly on the side. We ventured down the private road and outside was a woman planting flowers. Her name was Kate, and she was Caucasian, so it was a surprise to see her amongst a predominately African and Caribbean population. Kate was priced out of Park Slope, so she moved in with her mother to this townhouse that the mom had purchased 15 years ago. She talked about how the rent was cheap here (although many people said otherwise) but that she loved the little private courts and drives that were hidden throughout the neighborhood.
Eventually, Noah and I decided to take a break in the park and sit to enjoy the beautiful weather. Although we received a couple of other interviews along the way, those did not impact me as much as those of Eugene, Kate, and Jennifer who I will discuss shortly. As we were feeding the ducks some of our Haitian baked good, out of the corner of my eye I saw a small white dog, and me being the dog lover I am, ran over to ask to pet him. Walking Douey, as we found out his name was, was Jennifer, a young woman in her thirties. She walks her dog around the loop in prospect Park, and said,
“It’s really cool, just to walk around the pond here. It’s like walking through ethnic circles. There’s the Latino area over there, the African American area behind you where you hear the drumming, and the Greeks usually hang out by the tennis courts. On Sundays you can see a whole bunch of Jews walking around too.”
Jennifer explained how the area has changed drastically over the course of the twelve years she’s lived there. Although she lives on the other side of the park opposite PLG, she knows that about two years ago the rents skyrocketed, and townhouses began to cost upwards of one million dollars. She suddenly began to get a little sassy, expressing her discontent with a sky rise building behind us in PLG. She said, “You see that building over there? I hate it. It’s horrible and they should never have built it. They spent forty million dollars to re-do the park and make the architecture all flow together, and then the giant building was constructed and it ruins everything!” It really was an eyesore, looking around seeing beautiful trees and scenery and then all of a sudden a giant piece of metal rising high into the sky.
In many ways, Jennifer is right, and real estate companies are beginning to move into PLG, and “gentrification is happening there. It’s happening everywhere” as a passerby Josh remarked to me. As of 2014, 10 projects were in the works to create luxury rentals or condominiums in the neighborhood (Gregor 2014). Some welcome the new developments, as it will provide more housing for many people, but others are worried, as it will push rental rates upward. This may displace large portions of the highly immigrant community who may not be able to afford such high rents.
After thanking her for her time, Noah and I decided to follow the music we heard. We journeyed to the eastern most area of the park, right against Prospect Lefferts Gardens where we saw a drumming circle. It was a little area officially designated as “Drummer’s Grove.” Surrounding the grove were tons of people from all different racial groups, watching and enjoying the music, some dancing, and others just passing by on roller blades or bicycles. What was even more incredible was the circle itself. All one had to do to play in the circle was bring a drum, find a spot, and start playing. Whites, Latinos, Jamaicans, Haitians, and West Africans were all drumming together, just going off of what the other person was playing. It was truly amazing to see so many different types of people making beautiful music together.
Prospect Lefferts Gardens is a really interesting, unique and for lack of a better word, cool, community. On one hand, PLG provides homes to various groups of immigrants, allowing different cultures to run side by side each other and interact with one another from Haitian, to Dominican, to West African, and to Caucasian. It is a place where immigrants, such as Eugene, have come to call their home and have given them a tight-knit neighborhood to settle in. For others, such as Kate, PLG is a place with beautiful, yet affordable housing. For the newcomers, it is a place with beautiful architecture and scenery where they can raise families in the luxurious townhouses and brownstones immersed in lush greenery and flowers. Prospect Park allows these different cultures to come together and meet, just as they did in the drummer’s circle. Prospect Lefferts Gardens is ultimately a neighborhood that although the center of gentrification and real-estate developers, it is a home to so many different New Yorkers. In a world where people are constantly divided, a community like Prospect Lefferts Gardens provides unification and a sense of family and home. After all, there’s no place like home.
