I've been thinking this for a while, but now I'll just come out and say it: I don't think I like my neighborhood anymore. Even though I have lived here since 2002 (and David since 1996), even though we know so many people and even though Ruby was born in our apartment, I feel like a stranger on my own block.
On the corner of our block, two buildings down, a fancy new ice-cream store opened up a few weeks ago. We know the owner of the building and when we found out end of last year he had finally decided to lease his store front to an ice-cream store, my first reaction was that Ruby would throw a fit every single time we walked by it. (That hasn't happened--ironically I think their flavors are too elaborate and Ruby doesn't seem too crazy about it; although don't get me wrong, she'll agree to one in a heartbeat, it's just that she doesn't ask for one all the time.)
What I didn't expect was how much it would make me uncomfortable. It's not the first fancy store--a bagel store opened up on Vanderbilt earlier this year, and both new places are in line with new stores that have opened up in the last few years on our stretch of Vanderbilt Ave. Vanderbilt Ave is now the place to be. More and more people come here to hang out, to eat and drink. Our street is bustling on this warm Saturday evening, with people who don't live here, but come to visit.
Today while I was out, I even saw a few tourists and I know that is going to be a more frequent occurrence. We are close to Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and the Brooklyn Art Museum. In about five years there will be a basketball stadium a few blocks away. There is a hub of big department stores ten minutes away by foot. I know I'm writing the real-estate brochure for my community and frankly, it sucks.
Because it's only my community if I'm upwardly mobile. Upwardly mobile despite the economic crisis and the city and state cutbacks. So primarily, but not exclusively, white. It's about class and race and I don't like the tensions I already see and feel.
Across from my building every summer some of the people living in those apartments live on the sidewalk. Right now M. from next door is out there with his friends, playing cards. They'll have a loud radio on and the kids will be out, hanging around. They'll be talking and laughing and kidding around. They will have loud opinions. They are all Black. I've seen mention of noise complaints on local neighborhood message boards. I can only imagine what the predominantly white ice-cream eaters, sitting on benches outside the store, are thinking of the folks across the street from them. I do know that M. and V.'s foster kids, like Ruby's friend M., can't afford to get that fancy ice-cream and join them on the benches, despite the warm muggy heat.
My family is seen as part of that tension however. Ruby went to a private school up the street for two years. We don't eat meat, so that when M. and V. invite us in for a bbq, there is some awkward distance. We're assumed to be upwardly mobile, I'm sure.
But I really do hope that we're also seen as a little different, despite appearances. Because we want to stay here and because we resent being pushed out by the rising cost of living (even though I recognize that our capacity to withstand that rising cost of living is greater, because of our relative privilege). So bring on that loud music. And thank you V&B for that bbq and for that first awkward moment of difference now being past us. Let's take this party to Coney Island!
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