will Sunset Park be gentrified?

aaronk121

with all these posts beggining with "after 10 years in Park Slope..." or the like, what is the likelyhood of sunset park being gentrified? Are there any special qualities that will help it resist?

oiseau

Yes it will be gentrified. It may take ten years or more but eventually everything will be gentrified, except possibly the Hasedic neighborhoods.

And guess what? The subway service won't get better.

raedog

Interesting question. Seems inevitable in some ways, what with the neighborhood's proximity to Park Slope, which seems to grow only more and more expensive....

bolletje

I don't know.
It seems like it could probably sustain a nice mix of people of different incomes and cultures for a good while yet.
Sunset Park has always had a lot of change going on/waves of immigration/different people moving in and out...

ben

The Chinese have a big impact on how Sunset Park will evolve. They are buying lots of property and have the money to keep doing so, they won't be pushed out by others with more money. The Chinese have different needs/desires for neighborhood amenities so I don't think the gentrification will be the same as what has gone on in other neighborhoods.

I do think it is very possible that the Latin community will be displaced. I don't think it will happen over night because the community has strong roots and large numbers but I don't know that the number owning vs. renting is large enough to fend off others coming in who are willing to pay more.

bolletje

It could end up being more like a Jackson Heights situation, where the prices of property go up steadily but the area doesn't fall prey to the over-hyping and homogenization that goes on in other neighborhoods because there are the entrenched communities of people with a somewhat common culture.
There are also some streets that are owned by Orthodox Jews and stuff, which are usually stable.

I guess it depends on what you mean by gentrification: is it an increase in housing prices alone? Or an increase in "amenities" which is really a word that indicates the kind of shops that upper class people want, in which the merchandise is presented in a certain way.
Because SP has a lot of good shops and restaurants and if you keep going up 5th towards Bay Ridge on the bus, there's pretty much anything you could ever want.

filmlover44

On the up side: Better schools due to a better tax base. On the down side: If we don't insist on maintaining affordable housing, our neighborhoods loose what makes them special. On the up side: Better restaurants, decent bagels and Cafe's. On the down side: Starbucks and the Gap.

I have friends who live in Chinatown. They are just as much "gentrifiers" as anyone else.

armchair_warrior

I remember living in sunset park.

all the whites were moving out to staten island and bensonhurst and parts of jersey. (this was above 7 ave)

I remember 1 grocer store, a barber shop, a butcher shop, a pizzeria . some burnt out house.

the asian immigrants started to "gentrify" that part of the hood.

the whites even moved faster cause of the asians, thinking they would lower the property levels.

armchair_warrior

parts of it is gentrified, if you're talking about amenities and property values. other wise some parts will gentrify more than others. closer to the 36th st stop and towards greenwood heights.

ben

Here's an article about Sunset Park in the Real Deal: http://www.therealdeal.net/issues/MAY_2007/1177700405.php

lostingreenwoodhts

Only time will tell. The rezoning will do a bunch (pro and con), but I feel the long-time Latino and Chinese populous will offset a lot of the potential newbie gentrification. Remember, it was all Irish and Swed before...'nabes turn over.

I hope (and will fight for) it will stay a middle class 'nabe for long timers, new comers and immigrant families. Launching pad for Bklyn, as I have heard SSP called.

aaronk121

so it seems like Chinese are leading the gentrification charge. But what does that mean? This may seem biased, but i doubt Chinese immigrants will be clamoring for Starbucks and sushi...

armchair_warrior

not star bucks but sushi sure haha. different taste .

oiseau

aaronk121 wrote: so it seems like Chinese are leading the gentrification charge. But what does that mean? This may seem biased, but i doubt Chinese immigrants will be clamoring for Starbucks and sushi...

Chinese immigrants do not lead any gentrification charge. The gentrification charge is being lead by hipsters who are sick and tired of the rents/prices in Park Slope.

armchair_warrior

Oiseau wrote: [quote=aaronk121]so it seems like Chinese are leading the gentrification charge. But what does that mean? This may seem biased, but i doubt Chinese immigrants will be clamoring for Starbucks and sushi...

Chinese immigrants do not lead any gentrification charge. The gentrification charge is being lead by hipsters who are sick and tired of the rents/prices in Park Slope.

I think he is trying to be funny . about chinese leading the charge.

oiseau

oh, sarcasm on an internet forum. Tough one.

sunsetpete

Subject: Sunset Gentrification

The Asian community *is* gentrifying, in their way, the Eastern edge of Sunset Park. The surest measure of this is a walk--with your eyes open--along 8th Avenue from 50th to 60th Streets. Count the number of new storefronts. The number of *banks*, especially. Along the residential blocks that surround 8th Avenue, notice the number of condo developments, and the number of brownstones that now have the nifty (yes, I'm being sarcastic) silver and brass fencing, and that have converted their ground-floor into a garage. This may not be the form of 'gentrification' that folks on these boards love to bemoan (in Park Slope, for example), but it is definitely a form of neighborhood defacement. The garage-building is especially ugly, clearly expensive for the people who choose to do it, and has effects that detract, rather than add to, the community overall. Sounds like gentrification to me.

santa

I would like to remove gentrification as a negative term and replace it with commercialization or mallification.

gentrification has already happened to sunset park on 7th - 9th ave. Its safe, full of middle and upper middle class families (mostly asian) and has what fits their needs. It has not been commerialized. But theres a freakin burger king on 4th ave (i think) which has a drive through. Thats just as bad as starbucks.

Also hipsters are normally poor and do very little to cause a neighborhood to change rather than adding white people. Its after this that richer individuals feel ok to move in. Thus making the rents raise. I would also venture to say very few white indivuals feel uneasy around asians yet many would have second thoughts about moving into a black community (white flight). Thus making some parts of sunset park desirable for a variety of different people (a good thing).

Also it seems that most people blame whitie for "gentrification". This seems kinda off since my building in park slope has an indian couple, an asian lady, two old middle eastern guys who look like theyve lived there forever, and a black lady. All I would guess they all make way more money than me, a young white male. Which is why I have to move because I cant afford to live in there.

sunsetpete

Santa wrote: It has not been commerialized.

Gonna have to disagree with you on that one, Santa. 8th Avenue is completely commercialized. First exhibit: the banks. Sure, they're Chinese banks, but that doesn't somehow make those storefronts any less banky than the branches that people complain about on the Park Slope boards. Second: the countless stores that all sell the same worthless crap. I'm not talking about food, here, which clearly is the real reason to live in or visit SP, Chinatown especially, and I'm also not talking about the stores that offer lots of unusual candies, toys, and other oddities from Asia. I'm talking about the cramped storefronts that proffer craptastic items that are either counterfeits of well-known brand name goods, or are simply generic versions of common household items that were assembled by children in China for pennies per hour. Bleh.

santa

while I agree with you wouldn't that mean everything has always been commercialized.

normally the term is used when refering to mall effects and every place having the exact same retail stores.

all in all I find "gentrification" a silly term used by people who cant deal with change. It just happens that todays change is richer people moving back into the city after they left in masses after WW2. Its a shame that the rich people are the only ones blamed for "ruining" nyc's culture when in reality its just part of the overall shifting of NYC, for good and bad.

filmlover44

aaronk121 wrote: so it seems like Chinese are leading the gentrification charge. But what does that mean? This may seem biased, but i doubt Chinese immigrants will be clamoring for Starbucks and sushi...

Their children will be clamoring for Starbucks and sushi!

filmlover44

Subject: Re: Sunset Gentrification

SunsetPete wrote: The Asian community *is* gentrifying, in their way, the Eastern edge of Sunset Park. The surest measure of this is a walk--with your eyes open--along 8th Avenue from 50th to 60th Streets. Count the number of new storefronts. The number of *banks*, especially. Along the residential blocks that surround 8th Avenue, notice the number of condo developments, and the number of brownstones that now have the nifty (yes, I'm being sarcastic) silver and brass fencing, and that have converted their ground-floor into a garage. This may not be the form of 'gentrification' that folks on these boards love to bemoan (in Park Slope, for example), but it is definitely a form of neighborhood defacement. The garage-building is especially ugly, clearly expensive for the people who choose to do it, and has effects that detract, rather than add to, the community overall. Sounds like gentrification to me.

Exactly. Gentrification doesn't always mean white hipsters and yuppie families.

filmlover44

Santa wrote:
Also hipsters are normally poor and do very little to cause a neighborhood to change rather than adding white people. Its after this that richer individuals feel ok to move in. Thus making the rents raise. I would also venture to say very few white indivuals feel uneasy around asians yet many would have second thoughts about moving into a black community (white flight). Thus making some parts of sunset park desirable for a variety of different people (a good thing).

It was middle class Black people who led the 'gentrification" of Harlem and Bed Stuy. When my dad moved to the upper west side, in the 90's before it was really hot, the neighborhood was full of "buppies". Before the buppies moved in, there were two brownstown buildings full of cats across the street from his apartment.

santa

Seinfeld led the gentrification charge for the Upper West Side!!!!!!

filmlover44

My dad was there before Seinfeld!

rose

My husband spent his early years living with his mother in a commune on the Upper West Side, back in the days when a bunch of marginally-employed hippies could afford the rent on a sprawling apartment on Riverside Drive.

rtraindweller

Santa wrote: Seinfeld led the gentrification charge for the Upper West Side!!!!!!

i coulda sworn it was kramer.

veets

About 15 years ago I had some friends who bought a brownstone in Sunset park... a young couple... and they renovated the building and tried to settle in.. well long story made short this couple eventually broke up and sold the house (for a profit) and one of the reasons for the break-up was the neighborhood was really hard to live in back then.

Things are better.. the property values are higher but GENTRIFIED in the sense I am reading the poster to mean... not any time soon... and that is not bad... people of many backgrounds live in Sunset.. but more and more it has become a middle class largely Hispanic Hood and that is just fine with me. Though I don't live there... I often go to Sunset park with the pooches and people are warm and freindly. I eat at restaurants there and just stroll. It is refreshing to NOT see 3 bars and 4 real estate brokers on every block!!

bolletje

I think Sunset Park has a lot of amenities: there's a variety of laundromats, grocery stores and markets, tons of restaurants, kitchen equipment stores, places to get computers and video games, barbers, bakeries, hardware stores, etc.

I'd really rather have that kind of useful, prosaic stuff than a bunch of tarted up bars and over-priced restaurants that make it easy to unnecessarily hemorrhage money. Also, there's a few pubs and some coffee and tea places that are okay to hang out in. The latter seem to be mostly for Chinese teenagers, but nobody looks at you funny if you're not Chinese and want to sit there with a magazine and some bubble tea.

santa

where do the locals drink?

thats what im askin

rtraindweller

Santa wrote: where do the locals drink?

thats what im askin

you can never go wrong with Irish Haven! i was there a few weeks ago with a friend playing our guitars, which led to us not having to pay for a drink all night. the jukebox is great, the regulars are friendly as they come.