Gifford Place OurHood post by Kaneisha Bell:
The video graphic with this article on gentrification is alarming. Look at the way the brown dots disappear and get replaced with pink dots in historically Black and POC neighborhoods. Harlem, Jackson Heights, Bed-Stuy.
Fitzroy Sweeney: Frightening!
Kim DeVries: Gentrification literally means an area that was once in disrepair being improved upon. Why does it matter whether pink or brown dots are doing the improving?
Jenn Lithwick: Hey, Kim, there’re a lot of studies about the harmful effects of gentrification on neighborhoods like ours. Jen and I read a lot about it before buying here, and we have links if you want.
Kim DeVries: I don’t need to study sociology to be a good neighbor. And if I posted an article saying all the brown dots are bad for the neighborhood, I bet that would go over well!
(30 additional comments . . . see more)
THE PAPERS MR. PERKINS GAVE ME ARE SPREAD OUT OVER THE kitchen table’s scratched and scuffed surface. I’m casually leafing through them like Theo isn’t sitting there, waiting for me to explain the project.
This all feels a little childish now. Mommy always treated me like I was so smart I could be anything. Could do anything. Instead, I’m a thirty-year-old divorcée working an admin job I hate and wasting time on a bootleg history tour sparked by pettiness.
“So, whaddaya got?” Theo finally asks. I glance up, try to act like I hadn’t zoned out.
“Sorry.”
He shrugs, though his gaze is probing.
“Are you going to talk about the history of the houses at all, like on the brownstone tour?” he prods. “Or are you going to talk about people who live here now, like you did?”
“A little of both.” I tug a printout from the pile of papers and hand it over. At the top is an image showing an aerial view of Gifford Place from Google Earth—our street looks mostly the same for now, though the area around us is missing all the new condos and storefronts. There are numbers written in five colors of Sharpie labeling several houses. Beneath the photo is a key, giving a brief explanation for each color and number.
“These are the ‘stops’ I have so far,” I say. “The green outnumbers everything because they’re the easiest—it’s what I did before, talking about some of the interesting neighbors we have now, instead of only the white people who lived here a hundred years ago.
“I went to the Brooklyn library and found specific information on some of the white people who lived in the houses, and if they had anything to do with Black Brooklyn, good or bad.” I tap a pink number on the Jens’ house. “An abolitionist lived here in the old days. Things got so heated that they had to move, because a mob of angry men showed up and tried to kill him and his family.”
“Whoa,” Theo says. “Here in New York? In Brooklyn?”
“Yup. Here in Brooklyn.”
“Okay,” he says. “So . . . what happened to the white people? Are you gonna talk about that? I’ve been wondering about that since the tour, actually. The tour guide talked about all these wealthy white families, but eventually the neighborhood became . . .”
“Black?” I fill in.
“Poor,” he corrects me. “I mean, everyone wasn’t poor. But whenever I used to hear about Brooklyn it was people warning me not to come here because it was dangerous and—”
“Black?” I cut in again, and this time he runs a hand through his hair.
“Well, they didn’t say Black.” He shifts in his seat. “I mean, it’s rude to just say it. But that’s what they meant, I guess.”
“Rude. Rude?” I lean forward a little as something dawns on me. “Oh. Oh shit! Is that why you guys always whisper it? Like, ‘My friend is dating a—’” I look around furtively and then lean closer to Theo and whisper, “‘Black guy’?”
He shrugs, embarrassed amusement dancing in his eyes. “You aren’t supposed to point out stuff like that. That’s what my mom told me, at least.”
I bust out laughing, imagining white people chastising their kids for literally describing a person’s race. I guess if you think being Black is an unfortunate affliction, of course it would seem rude. I could push and ask why so many of them are eager to say the n-word if Black makes them squirm, but I’m not trying to have to ring the Howdy Doody alarm while alone in my apartment with him.
“Okay, to answer your question. My tour is about Black Brooklyn, but I do go into why the white people,” I whisper the last two words and he laughs, “left. In more recent times, it was white flight to the suburbs. But back in the day, there was the Panic of 1837. Basically, the bottom fell out of the slave and cotton market, and then all the rich people had to sell their land to recoup their losses.”
“Why would slavery affect people in Brooklyn?” he asks. I can’t even hate because I only learned this shit recently myself.
“Slavery ended in New York ten years before the panic, but not completely. And New York was the banking capital of the U.S. Slavery was a business. Cotton was a business. Rum was a business. Sugar was a business. Banks handle money for businesses. So . . . boom. That’s why.”
He has the nerve to smile.
“What’s funny?” I ask, straightening in my seat.
“I think your tour is going to do well. I never learned any of that, anywhere. And now I know, and I want to know more. And anyone who comes on your tour will know and want to know more. That’s pretty amazing.”
“Oh.” I get a warm feeling in my stomach. Honestly, so much of this project has been fueled by pettiness and escapism, by a need to reclaim what should have been mine, that I’d forgotten there’s a joyful side to sharing knowledge, too.
“Thanks.” I clear my throat and then tap the printout. “Anyway, pink text represents Black Brooklyn history topics. The purple numbers and text are things specific to Gifford Place. There’s stuff I got from my mother, and my own memory, but I want to talk to some older people in the neighborhood. And Gifford Place used to be part of a historic Black community that sprang up after the panic, so I need to look into that too. There’s a heritage center not far away I’ve been meaning to visit.”
He nods, and I wonder if he’s judging me for not having done all this sooner. I thought I’d already done so much research, but it feels like there is so much to do in just a week if I don’t want to embarrass myself.
“Want to go tomorrow?” he says. “To the heritage center?”
I raise my brow. “Did you forget you’re the assistant and not the boss?”
He grins. “Sorry. I’m just excited now. You only have yourself to blame.”
This flirtatious motherfucker. I narrow my eyes at him. “We’re going to the Weeksville heritage center tomorrow. Bring your camera. If you want something to do in the meantime, look into the Dutch West India Company. They were the ones who funded the Dutch coming here, and played a big part in the formation of Brooklyn, but I haven’t done a deep dive on them yet. If you find anything relevant to the tour let me know.” He nods again, his eyes scanning over the paper I handed him.
“I’ll email this to you, too, if you write your email address down,” I add. I’m kind of enjoying this tiny bit of authority—it’s been so long since anyone listened to me without giving me any shit for one thing or another. “You can take these papers and see what else you come up with. I just want to make it interesting for people.”
I lean back in my chair as he jots down his email. My face is still kind of warm despite the fact that by next week Theo will go back to being a neighbor I occasionally peep through his window—except maybe not even that, because I’ll probably recommend he get some blinds.
“I doubt you’ll have trouble with that,” he says as he slides over the paper. His phone number is on there, too, even though I didn’t ask for it, and it’s underlined. “You’re interesting even when you’re not being all passionate about history.”
He smiles at me in that curious way again.
Nope.
“Okay, we’re all set here,” I say, hopping up from my seat and walking toward the apartment door.
“Yeah, cool. Cool.” He gathers the papers up, but when I pull the door open, he stops at the threshold and looks down at me. “I appreciate you letting me help with this. If you need anything else, just text me.”
I don’t think he’s flirting this time, but he’s staring at me like I’m fascinating, and I don’t have time for the way my body responds to that.
“I’m not trying to air-condition the hallway,” I say, ushering him out.
A flush spreads over his cheeks so quickly that it’s almost startling, but he steps out into the humid hallway and doesn’t stop until he’s outside. He jogs down the stairs, then turns to wave and trips over a raised corner of slate sidewalk and it’s cute.
I look away so I don’t watch him head into his house. Somewhere nearby a jackhammer is breaking up solid ground, and the whine of construction machinery floats through the air. A Black woman with high cheekbones and a brown-skinned Asian woman walk down the street, chatting in accented English; each pushes a stroller with a white child tucked inside. They nod at me in greeting, and Toby starts up his barking as they pass by.
As I close the door, I hear the phone ringing upstairs. All the way upstairs. In Mommy’s apartment.
It could be a telemarketer—every time I bother to answer, it’s someone warning about auto insurance default for a car I don’t own or trying to scam me with questions about tax evasion. Those threats are nothing compared to the call I’m dreading, and I can’t keep avoiding said calls because that could lead to worse consequences. I bolt up the stairs, pull the key from my pocket as I round the banister, and fumble the door open.
“Hello?”
I pray for the automated click of a recording trying to sell me something or scam me, but a man’s voice says, “Hello, is this Yolanda Green?”
A lifetime of lying to bill collectors enables me to lie smoothly and without hesitation. “She’s out right now. May I take a message?”
“She gets out a lot for a woman in her condition,” the man says.
“Can I take a message?” I repeat, putting a little steel in my tone. These weasels had found her number at the hospital, trying to find out her condition. Getting her into the retirement home had felt like a spy mission, even if it had gone to shit in the end.
“No message. I’ll call back at a better time. Which would be . . . ?”
“Actually, I have your number here, I’ll have her call you back. Does that work?”
He chuckles. “Sure.”
With that I hang up and walk out of the apartment, feeling like I’m wobbling on stilts, my head spinning like it’s in the clouds. My heart is still hammering from my dash up to the apartment, and I sit down in the middle of the staircase and drop my forehead to my knees, forcing myself to breathe deeply. The air is humid and thick in the stairwell, and my nose itches from dust because I haven’t swept up here in a while, but I don’t get up.
I can do this. I’m my mother’s daughter. I can do this.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and text Drea.
Are you busy? I’m sorry to bother you every time but they called again.
I’m at work. We can talk about this later.
Okay. ˂3
I put the phone down and just breathe. I start to nod off a bit, the heat and the soul-deep fatigue threatening to pull me under. I feel too heavy, and the thought of carrying this body all the way down to my apartment is overwhelming.
My eyes are drifting closed when Toby starts barking next door. I try to ignore him like I usually do, since he barks at damn near everything, but his bark is so insistent and almost desperate that I drag myself to my feet. This isn’t how he sounds when demanding a walk or barking at whoever walks by outside. I stumble down the stairs, still in a pre-nap fog, cursing Josie and Terry for not putting him into the new doggie day care that they can certainly afford.
When I get to the main landing, the front door of the house is wide open, and I freeze on the bottom step. Hadn’t I closed it after Theo left? I was in a rush and I haven’t been super sharp lately, but closing and locking the door is instinct for me. Second nature.
Mommy drilled that shit into me, especially because I’d sometimes be home alone during the time between when I left school and she got home from work. It was muscle memory now.
I peer over the banister into the hallway, which is dark even in midday because Drea always turns off the light as she heads out to work, another habit instilled by my mother.
Toby is still barking wildly, but I stand on the bottom step like a kid afraid to hang their foot over the side of the bed because they expect a monster to pull them down into the darkness. I don’t see anything, but fear gathers at the nape of my neck as I stare because I feel like someone, or something, is looking back.
I think of Drew the Uber driver’s calm as he ignored my demands that he stop. How he knew my last name and there was no trace of him on my phone, and I haven’t even told anyone what happened.
The shadows near the door shift and my heart slams in my chest. Someone is there.
“Sydney?”
I jump, and damn near piss myself, but the voice is coming from outside. Ms. Candace, gripping her cane and peering in.
“You okay?”
I nod, even though tremors of fear are running through my body, a light thrum against my constant tension.
“I was like, ‘Did this child forget to lock the door?’ and instead you just standing there looking like you saw the boogeyman.” She laughs.
I step firmly down onto the hardwood floor, forcing myself not to look behind me into the dark end of the hallway. It’s only a few wobbly steps to the doorway, and then I flip on the hall light.
There’s nothing there but the heavy wooden apartment door, closed tightly. Did I close it before walking Theo to the door? Yes. The air conditioner is on. Of course I did.
“Girl, you need a nap. You always did turn into a bobble-headed little thing when you was tired, and I see that’s still the case.”
I shake my head and step out onto the stoop, where it’s slightly more humid than the hallway and about fifteen degrees hotter. “I’m fine.”
“Here, take this,” she says, reaching into the plastic bag hanging from her arm to hand me a round aluminum container with a plastic lid. As I reach for it, the smell of plátanos and rice and beans from the Dominican spot on the corner makes my mouth water. I try to remember the last thing I ate and come up blank.
“No, that’s o—”
“Take. It,” she says firmly. “I have enough here to feed ten people instead of two, anyway. Gonna take some over to Ashley and Jamel, too. We’re all we got.”
The reminder of my neighbors, who are dealing with every Black parent’s worst nightmare, puts my own problems in perspective. I can’t just fall back into the hole of self-pity.
“You’re right. Thanks.” I blink and inhale deeply. “Are you doing okay?”
She shrugs. “I’m old, my body hurts, but my brain is sharp as ever, even though some people wish that was otherwise.”
My fingers press into the sides of the aluminum container. “Who?”
She sucks her teeth. “These fools playing on my phone, trying to trick me into selling my house like I didn’t spend thirty years processing loans at Apple Bank and wasn’t blessed with two helpings of good sense.”
Some of the sauce from the beans dribbles out onto my fingers and I loosen my grip. “The real estate people?”
She nods. “Been coming to my door, too. Telling me all kinds of bullshit, thinking if they talk fast I’ll go along with it.” She sucks her teeth again, holding it for longer this time to show the true depth of her disdain. “My hair is gray, but my gray matter is still functional, thank you very much.”
“It’s terrible,” I say woodenly. “But they can’t get anything over on you.”
“Not today, not tomorrow, not in this lifetime, baby,” she says with a laugh. “Let me get going. I’ll see you later. Make sure you get that tour ready.”
She says it the same way she used to say, “Make sure you do your homework” when I was a kid, except when I go into the kitchen to do my work now, there won’t be a bologna sandwich and a cup of SunnyD waiting for me.
“Yes, Ms. Candace,” I reply. I linger a bit, take a deep breath, then head back into the apartment, checking every possible hiding place before grabbing a fork, pushing a stack of papers aside, and making myself eat.