This week’s readings highlight demographic changes that occurred in neighborhoods of New York, such as Brownsville, Brooklyn and Five Points. Excerpts from both books discuss the effect of housing projects on the population of these areas. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, residents at the time were concerned about the effects of the building of the Brownsville Housing in 1950. A few years later, a practice known as blockbusting was all too common. Pritchett discusses this concept that was introduced to us in the movie that we saw in class. Pritchett discusses the impact of this concept on Brownsville whereas the movie discussed the impact on neighborhoods on Long Island. According to Pritchett, “unscrupulous real estate agents used white fears and black demands for housing to reap profits in changing neighborhoods” (151). These real estate agents instilled fears into the White residents, leading them to want to move out of areas quickly and sell their homes to real estate agents for less than their market values. Soon thereafter, the real estate agents would flip over these houses, selling them for higher than their market values to the new African American residents.
In addition to the classes that existed between the Whites and Blacks, there were also cultural clashes between Jews and other Whites, and between the elderly and the youth. These various groups had different ideas about life. Pritchett describes one account of a Jew who was bullied. “One family requested a transfer after their son was beaten up in the stairwell of their building by ‘Negro boys who called him ‘poor white trash’ and dirty Jew’” (157). Pritchett also states that around the time that these neighborhoods increased in population of Blacks, they also were notorious for higher crime rates. He fails to give statistics to back up his claims. He discusses the presence of gang violence in this area as well, just briefly scratching the surface. In general, I think people see what they want to see, and look past what is of not interest to them.
Likewise, the neighborhood of Five Points experienced significant demographic changes. As a result of the Civil War, many men went off to fight in the war, so more local jobs were available in the neighborhood. The residents of Five Points at the time earned higher wages and were afforded the opportunity to move to other, more expensive areas of New York. Beginning at the time, the neighborhood of Five Points was experiencing what was deemed to be the “Urban Renewal.” Five Points was still inhabited by people of various ethnicities; however, the conditions were beginning to improve markedly. New legislation was passed, which regulated the building and function of tenements. Still, the poor were forced into overcrowded conditions.
In the excerpt from Sharman, he further discusses the UPACA gardens. The narrator has various interactions with people of different ethnicities. He had people over to her apartment on the same day as the Feste of the Madonna. His neighbors were all immigrants to America, and they all arrived through JFK airport. They had visions to improve the conditions of the city. Sharman writes, “Faced with the megalopolis of New York City, we were intent on actively engaging the life of the city, not passively consuming what was on offer.” They formed an organization to better the neighborhood of East Harlem. They didn’t always have a clear idea of who the leaders were, but they worked hard to better the city.
