A Very Different Reception for Bike Lanes in Brooklyn's Poorest Neighborhood

Library To Sell Forest City-Adjacent Branches

Brooklyn library lost to developers


http://observer.com/2013/02/a-ratner-in-the-stacks/

Forgot their escape plan

Series of Brooklyn Billboards Put Racial Inequity on Display

Billboards are everywhere in New York City. They’re on subway trains and in stations, and on top of and inside taxis. But few, if any, have been anything like a series of anonymous billboards that have popped up on bus shelters in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. They’re not selling anything but a delcaration: that racism still exists.

That’s also the name of the appropriately titled campaign. At least half a dozen billboard sites have sprung up around the neighborhood since August, with each month dedicated to highlighting racial disparities that impact black people in America. So far, the billboards have touched on topics ranging from the entertainment industry, education, fast food, smoking, policing, and black wealth. Each month’s billboard is also accompanied by an detailed post on Tumblr that provides background information, news articles, studies, charts, and statistics to back up each claim.

A brief statement on the Tumblr page says, in part, that “RISE is a proejct designed to illuminate some of the ways in which racism operates in this country.” But who’s behind the project remains a mystery.

For the time being, the project seems dedicated to its anonymity. Both the Tumblr page and the billboards themselves are devoid of any contact information. Similarly, the private advertising company that’s contracted by New York City’s transit agency to host advertisments and billboards said that it does not give out information about who paid for the advertisements.

Even local activists who spend their time dedicated to working on racial justice issues can’t figure out who’s behind the billboards. Nonetheless, they’re intrigued by the campaign. This month’s billboard is dedicated to Stop-and-Frisk, the controversial NYPD tactic that’s drawn national criticism for its disproportionate impact on black and Latino men. The billboard’s provactive text reads, “Don’t want to get stopped by the NYPD? Stop being black.” On the heels of New York City’s 2013 mayoral race and the prominent role that critics of Stop-and-Frisk have taken in city politics, the billboards have become a meaningful part of local discussion.

“Bed-Stuy, and Brooklyn in general, is going through a very profound transformation and we gotta put that in context,” says Kali Akuno, an organizer with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement’s New York chapter, referencing the gentrification that’s drastically altered the borough’s demographics over at least the past ten years. “For many of the young yuppies and buppies, they see the police playing a positive role and trying to engage in a race neutral dialouge.

“What the billboard is doing is kinda opening up and exploding this myth that [stop-and-frisk] is taking place in a race neutral light — it’s making people confront it in a very real way.”

Akuno added, “I applaud the effort. If the intent was to shake things up, I think they did their job.”

It’s no accident that of all of New York City’s neighborhoods, the billboards have targeted this one. A historically black neighborhood, Bed-Stuy has become one of the most contested spaces in New York City. A 2012 study from the Fordham Institute found that Brooklyn is home to 25 of the country’s most rapidly gentrifying zip codes. That’s created a stark contrast between those in the neighborhood who have more upward social and economic mobility than others. Several high profile media accounts have recently noted Bed Stuy’s so-called “hip” transformation and “resurgence”, but the borough’s medium per capita income in 2009 was just $23,000, which was $10,000 below the national average.

The content of the billboard’s messaging may not exactly be news for most residents, but the presentation has nonetheless been powerful.

”I think it’s a different kind of communication than I think people are used to in this neighborhood,” says Mark Winston Griffith, the executive director of Brooklyn Movement Center, a community organizing group based in Bed-Stuy. “It tackles race very directly, even the way it has the conversation with an infographic.”

Despite the billboard’s powerful messaging, questions still remain.

“As someone who’s paid for billboards before, I know there was a significant cost to [the project], one that was clearly bankrolled and where no one claimed credit for it,” says Griffith. “All those different elements are what makes it really interesting.”

http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/01/bed_stuy_billboards.html

Brooklyn's Affordability Crisis Is No Accident

If desirable neighborhoods don't start shouldering more of the burden of increased urban demand, American cities will soon end up like their counterparts in Europe, where everyone except the rich and the tourists are shunted off to the suburbs.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2013/01/brooklyns-affordabilty-crisis-no-accident/4401/

Only The Dead Know Brooklyn

Thomas Wolfe

http://www.southerncrossreview.org/57/wolfe-brooklyn.htm

The Trendification of Brooklyn and the Perils of a Successful Urban Brand

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/08/trendification-brooklyn-and-perils-successful-urban-brand/2973/

http://gis.nyc.gov/nycha/im/wmp.do;jsessionid=BA9E72EE1F4FFFACDC1C1D65268A795D?

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/01/mapping-brooklyns-gentrification/4283/

Brooklyn the Game

rooklyn: The Game will allow people to explore these questions by using their smartphones to tour Downtown Brooklyn, one of New York City’s most rapidly changing neighborhoods. The game turns the city into an interactive learning space while engaging a wide variety of constituencies in virtual and real world conversations about development policy and projects.

Players start by downloading the app and picking a tour such as Brooklyn Undergrounds: From Hip Hop to Abolitionism, A Great Bargain: Shopping Then and Now, or Designing Downtowns: Architecture an Urban Planning. The game’s augmented reality feature allows them to juxtapose the past, present, and future of individual sites by bringing together an array of historic and contemporary materials including images, photographs, film footage, and interview clips. Players travel through layers of time while standing in the actual built environment, giving them a fresh and nuanced perspective on neighborhood change.

The game is also fun and competitive. By answering questions and finding clues, players receive discounts at local businesses, discover “geotags” on buildings that provide information about developer subsidies and public benefit, and are rewarded for sharing their opinions through online social networks, including Facebook and Twitter.

Brooklyn: The Game is a companion project to the feature documentary My Brooklyn. Together, these products are parts of a single package that will provide audiences with much-needed tools for understanding issues of race, class, and neighborhood change in historical context.

http://www.brooklynthegame.com/

Can Brooklyn gentrify the right way?

“There’s nothing wrong with change, as long as we’re seeing real benefits for people of color, who are the vast majority of longtime residents and shoppers in the area,” said Alvin Bartolomey, a board member of Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, a nonprofit organization with a membership in downtown Brooklyn’s public housing communities.

Brian Browdie