Social Responsibility And Salsa Out My Window

by Dora Fisher, Political Editor

It's a Sunday morning in September of 2004, and I have a paper due Monday morning. It's my first semester in graduate school and I'm really nervous. I go and treat myself to a strawberry-mango muffin at Blue Sky bakery, and some fair trade coffee at Gorilla Cafe. I'm clearly enjoying my new life in the recently redeveloped and gentrified north and west Park Slope.

I return to my apartment and sit down at my computer to write. About fifteen minutes into it, a neighbor across the street turns his stereo to the window and turns on salsa music. REALLY LOUD. Children and their parents in formal clothes began dancing around outside the apartment. I went outside and knocked on his window. I told him that I really liked his music, but I was "working" (I immediately felt silly, because I knew of the hard physical work he did for a living). He turned the volume way down, apologized, and said "it's just we've always done this every Sunday morning before church since we moved here. Only recently has it begun to bother people..."

The paper I was writing was coincidentally about the politics of neighborhood change. I began to think about what was happening to my new community, my role in it, and what that meant for everyone involved.

Last July, two months before this Sunday morning, after being put through the landlords-are-assholes ringer for what I decided would be the last time, I was left with only two days to find a place for me and my roommate-to-be to live. I remember how terrified I felt, knowing that I was at the mercy of these people who seemed to only care about taking my money by whatever means possible. So when I found a great apartment I was understandably distrustful. It was too good to be true: a (relatively) reasonably priced two bedroom on the border of Boerum Hill and Park Slope, on a pretty tree-lined street near all major express trains.

Out of pure distrust, I Googled the address. And Google returned a story about this building, in the newsletter of a community housing rights group, that nearly broke my heart. Miguel, an elderly disabled Puerto Rican man who lived in my apartment for 40 years had in most recent years paid for it with a meager disability compensation check. When he moved to the first floor because of the difficulty the stairs caused him, the landlord decided this meant he lost rent stabilization. My landlord-to-be doubled his rent and gave Miguel until the end of the month to pay. I was so moved and angered by this story. I really loved everything about that apartment; but how could I live with myself knowing I was a key element in such cruel destruction?

I began to think; what makes it OK for a landlord to do this, to evict an elderly man from his home and community? Why were there not policies in place to protect him? What would become of this beautiful, comfortable community with landlords reeling in the young, upper-middle-class white neo-Brooklynites, such as myself, to pay more rent?

Before making the decision to move in, I took a long walk down by my potential apartment that night at around midnight. The block was peaceful, clean, homey, and safe, with low-hanging lush tree branches. Two teenage Puerto Rican girls played jump rope, while an elderly woman watched them, smiling from her lawnchair. I knew it was what I wanted, even if I didn't really belong. Even if my being there was part of an overall change that could destroy it.

I took the apartment, reconciling my liberal guilt with thoughts of "well, I still have to live in this world, no matter how unfair I find it". And as for what happened to Miguel, community pressure roused by the newsletter about him forced my landlord to compromise, and Miguel found someone to sublet one of the rooms in his apartment to help cover the increase. We have a friendly neighborly relationship--we discuss the weather in Spanish and hold the front door for each other. He has no idea the significance his situation had on my interest in development politics. Perhaps I should tell him.

And so I have enjoyed living here for over a year now; so much that I've re-signed my lease to stay for at least one more. In this one year I have already seen many changes take place, and I have always felt conflicted about them. Along 5th avenue three new hip and trendy restaurants and bars have opened on a one-block stretch alone; the owners of these establishments are lovely people who are watching their dreams come true.

My professor, friend, and a known expert on New York City neighborhoods John Mollenkopf mentioned to me some time ago that my corner was once a known drug-dealing cornerÑwhich again brought about my inner conflict. When he told me that, I thought about the elderly woman I saw a year ago, watching the girls play jump rope late at night, and how nice it is that families can safely enjoy nights outside now. I am glad that this neighborhood change has made my block safer for the families that live here, but at what cost? And how much longer will they get to live here? And why is it that it takes an influx of rich white people to make this change?

I realize I've raised a lot of questions without answering them. If there are answers, I sure don't know them yet. But I do know the life I want for myself; to live near other interesting peopleÑsome in my "social class" and some not, a life surrounded by cultural and ethnic diversity, lots of great food, drink and entertainment, and a safe, comfortable place to come home to. I definitely do know the things that I love about this city and particularly my neighborhood; I love that I can walk fifteen blocks in any direction and purchase over 17 different ethnicities of cuisine or products, that it is safe and friendly here with all different kinds of people. I feel strongly about the circumstances of my neighbors that I think are fair and unfair; I know that no one, disabled or otherwise, should be evicted from where they live if they have always paid a fair amount of their income for it. How we can maintain all these things at once is something I haven't come to yet.

I do believe the answer has to come from a larger structural change in how development is handled politically. The residential market in this city is about turning profit and nothing else, which is why policies should step in. We need political intervention to protect people's lives, and the loving communities that nurture them. In the meantime, all I can do is enjoy my life here, respect and get to know my neighbors, and never forget how important community is--to everyone involved.