Two Interesting Red Hook Gentrification-Related Stories

[Photo courtesy of Von Roberts]

There are two interesting Red Hook stories on our list today. The first story comes from the archive section of City Limits magazine, which reaches back 20 years to a story that puts today's Red Hook in an interesting context. (It was titled "Red Hook: Gloom with a View.") It deals with the Red Hook reality and possible gentrification from the perspective of 1987, which is always an interesting one. The other is from today's New York Times and decries the slow process of gentrification along Columbia Street, where many restaurants and shops have opened in recent years. (Columbia Street also shows up in the City Limits story.) The six-word summary of the NYT's Columbia Street story: Columbia Street ain't no Smith Street.

Here's a sample from the City Limits story:

Among the gentrified and renovated communities of downtown Brooklyn, Red Hook remains the great outback. Its potholed streets are lined with vacant warehouses and abandoned storefronts, its waterfront decimated by rotting piers and dilapidated rowhouses. Red Hook’s 11,000 residents are overwhelmingly poor—63 percent of them earn less than $10,000 per year—and mostly black and Hispanic.

There is no subway stop in Red Hook. The two bus lines that serve the community run “when they want,” says one resident. There are no hardware or variety stores, no movie theatres and few social or cultural activities. The most conspicuous trade is drug dealing. But in the evenings, after the heavy truck traffic and noxious fumes of the day have died down, residents still drag their lawn chairs out to the sidewalks or gather in front of the bodegas to talk and catch a glimpse of the view of the river. Red Hook’s residents have become accustomed to the area’s isolation and inconvenience.

And here's a sample from today's Times:

The wishful thinking about Columbia Street’s being the new Smith Street goes only so far. The magical combination that makes one street hot and another tepid can seem elusive, but not here, where the reasons for the stalled revival are painfully clear. Continuing construction, a sense of geographic isolation and waning buzz continue to hush the “pop” that speculators had predicted.

Both stories are worth a few minutes of your time on this late August Tuesday.