1. Introduction
1.I capitalize White, because it is not the default American identity, not just “everyone else” or “normal people” or “us,” but an identity with affirmative content (like Black) that is critically associated with access to diverse resources that preserve the privilege of White Americans, both historically and in the contemporary era.
2.Thomas F. Gieryn, “What Buildings Do,” Theory and Society 31, no. 1 (2002): 35–74; Jeffrey L. Kidder, Urban Flow: Bike Messengers and the City (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012); Denise L. Lawrence and Setha M. Low, “The Built Environment and Spatial Form,” Annual Review of Anthropology 19, no. 1 (1990): 453–505, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.19.100190.002321; Aaron Passell, Building the New Urbanism: Places, Professions, and Profits in the American Metropolitan Landscape (New York: Routledge, 2013).
3.Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961).
4.Suzanne Spellen, interview with author, April 6, 2016.
5.Edward Glaeser, “Preservation Follies: Excessive Landmarking Threatens to Make Manhattan a Refuge for the Rich,” City Journal 20, no. 2 (2010), https://www.city-journal.org/html/preservation-follies-13279.html; Edward Glaeser, Triumph of the City: How Urban Spaces Make Us Human (Stuttgart: Pan Macmillan, 2011); Ingrid Gould Ellen, Brian McCabe, and Eric Stern, Fifty Years of Historic Preservation in New York City (New York: NYU Furman Center, 2016), https://furmancenter.org/research/publication/fifty-years-of-historic-preservation-in-new-york-city228.
6.Stephanie Ryberg-Webster and Kelly L. Kinahan, “Historic Preservation in Declining City Neighbourhoods: Analysing Rehabilitation Tax Credit Investments in Six US Cities,” Urban Studies 54, no. 7 (May 2017): 1673–91, https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098016629313; Stephanie Ryberg-Webster and Kelly L. Kinahan, “Historic Preservation and Urban Revitalization in the Twenty-First Century,” Journal of Planning Literature 29, no. 2 (May 2014): 119–39, https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412213510524.
7.Ryberg-Webster and Kinahan, “Historic Preservation in Declining City Neighbourhoods”; Baltimore Commission on Historic and Architectural Preservation, “Tax Credits,” accessed April 2, 2020, https://chap.baltimorecity.gov/tax-credits.
8.The rehabilitation tax credit is only available for maintenance costs associated with income-producing properties, thus not owner-occupied homes.
9.For more on the struggle to establish and define historic significance, see Melinda J. Milligan, “Buildings as History: The Place of Collective Memory in the Study of Historic Preservation,” Symbolic Interaction 30, no. 1 (2007): 105–23.
10.Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, “Promoting Historic Preservation Across the Nation,” accessed April 2, 2020, achp.gov; National Trust for Historic Preservation, “We’re Saving Places,” accessed April 2, 2020, savingplaces.org/we-are-saving-places; National Trust for Historic Preservation, “About Us,” accessed October 5, 2011, preservationnation.org/about-us/history.html.
12.National Register, Title 36, chap. 1, pt. 60, sec. 60.3.
14.Patrick Hauck, interview with author, June 3, 2010.
15.Melissa Jest, interview with author, July 2, 2010.
16.Simeon Bankoff, interview with author, October 19, 2016.
17.Robert J. Sampson, Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
18.David E. Clark and William E. Herrin, “Historical Preservation Districts and Home Sale Prices: Evidence from the Sacramento Housing Market,” Review of Regional Studies 27, no. 1 (1997): 29–48; James R. Cohen, “Combining Historic Preservation and Income Class Integration: A Case Study of the Butchers Hill Neighborhood of Baltimore,” Housing Policy Debate 9, no. 3 (January 1998): 663–97, https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.1998.9521311; N. Edward Coulson and Michael L. Lahr, “Gracing the Land of Elvis and Beale Street: Historic Designation and Property Values in Memphis,” Real Estate Economics 33, no. 3 (2005): 487–507, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6229.2005.00127.x; Edward Coulson and Robin M. Leichenko, “The Internal and External Impact of Historical Designation on Property Values,” Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics 23, no. 1 (July 2001): 113–24, https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011120908836; Deborah Ann Ford, “The Effect of Historic District Designation on Single-Family Home Prices,” Real Estate Economics 17, no. 3 (1989): 353–62, https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6229.00496; Dennis E. Gale, “The Impacts of Historic District Designation Planning and Policy Implications,” Journal of the American Planning Association 57, no. 3 (September 1991): 325–40, https://doi.org/10.1080/01944369108975503; Robin M. Leichenko, N. Edward Coulson, and David Listokin, “Historic Preservation and Residential Property Values: An Analysis of Texas Cities,” Urban Studies 38, no. 11 (October 2001): 1973–87, https://doi.org/10.1080/00420980120080880; Andrew J. Narwold, “Estimating the Value of the Historical Designation Externality,” International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis 1, no. 3 (January 2008): 288–95, https://doi.org/10.1108/17538270810895123; Andrew Narwold, Jonathan Sandy, and Charles Tu, “Historic Designation and Residential Property Values,” International Real Estate Review 11, no. 1 (February 2008): 83–95, https://www.um.edu.mo/fba//irer/papers/past/vol11n1_pdf/Article%204.pdf; Dan S. Rickman, “Neighborhood Historic Preservation Status and Housing Values in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma,” Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy 39, no. 2 (2009): 1–10, https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.132429; Douglas S. Noonan, “Finding an Impact of Preservation Policies: Price Effects of Historic Landmarks on Attached Homes in Chicago, 1990–1999,” Economic Development Quarterly 21, no. 1 (February 2007): 17–33, https://doi.org/10.1177/0891242406296326.
19.Vicki Been, Ingrid Gould Ellen, Michael Gedal, Edward Glaeser, and Brian J. McCabe, “Preserving History or Restricting Development? The Heterogeneous Effects of Historic Districts on Local Housing Markets in New York City,” Journal of Urban Economics 92 (March 2016): 16–30, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2015.12.002; David B. Fein, “Historic Districts: Preserving City Neighborhoods for the Privileged,” New York University Law Review 60 (1985): 64–103; Glaeser, “Preservation Follies”; Glaeser, Triumph of the City; Michael deHaven Newsom, “Blacks and Historic Preservation,” Law and Contemporary Problems 36 (1971): 423–31; David Wilson, “Making Historical Preservation in Chicago: Discourse and Spatiality in Neo‐liberal Times,” Space and Polity 8, no. 1 (April 2004): 43–59, https://doi.org/10.1080/13562570410001678842.
20.Philip Kasinitz, “The Gentrification of ‘Boerum Hill’: Neighborhood Change and Conflicts over Definitions,” Qualitative Sociology 11, no. 3 (September 1988): 163–82, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988953; Cameron Logan, “Beyond a Boundary: Washington’s Historic Districts and Their Racial Contents,” Urban History Review / Revue d’histoire Urbaine 41, no. 1 (2012): 57–68, https://doi.org/10.7202/1013764ar.
21.Stephanie Ryberg-Webster and Kelly L. Kinahan, “Historic Preservation and Urban Revitalization in the Twenty-First Century,” Journal of Planning Literature 29, no. 2 (May 2014): 119–39, https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412213510524.
22.NYU Furman Center, “CoreData.nyc,” accessed April 2, 2020.
2. Explaining Change in Baltimore’s Historic Neighborhoods
1.N. Edward Coulson and Robin M. Leichenko, “Internal and External Impact of Historical Designation on Property Values,” Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics 23, no. 1 (July 2001): 113–24, https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011120908836; Dennis E. Gale, “Impacts of Historic District Designation Planning and Policy Implications,” Journal of the American Planning Association 57, no. 3 (September 1991): 325–40, https://doi.org/10.1080/01944369108975503; Andrew Narwold, Jonathan Sandy, and Charles Tu, “Historic Designation and Residential Property Values,” International Real Estate Review 11 (February 2008): 83–95; Douglas S. Noonan, “Finding an Impact of Preservation Policies: Price Effects of Historic Landmarks on Attached Homes in Chicago, 1990–1999,” Economic Development Quarterly 21, no. 1 (February 2007): 17–33, https://doi.org/10.1177/0891242406296326.
2.Philip Kasinitz, “The Gentrification of ‘Boerum Hill’: Neighborhood Change and Conflicts Over Definitions,” Qualitative Sociology 11, no. 3 (September 1988): 163–82, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988953; Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly, Gentrification (New York: Routledge, 2013); Cameron Logan, “Beyond a Boundary: Washington’s Historic Districts and Their Racial Contents,” Urban History Review / Revue d’histoire Urbaine 41, no. 1 (2012): 57–68, https://doi.org/10.7202/1013764ar.
3.Lei Ding, Jackelyn Hwang, and Eileen Divringi, “Gentrification and Residential Mobility in Philadelphia,” Regional Science and Urban Economics 61 (November 2016): 38–51, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2016.09.004; Nancy Holman and Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt, “No Escape? The Coordination Problem in Heritage Preservation,” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 47, no. 1 (January 2015): 172–87, https://doi.org/10.1068/a130229p; Brian J. McCabe and Ingrid Gould Ellen, “Does Preservation Accelerate Neighborhood Change? Examining the Impact of Historic Preservation in New York City,” Journal of the American Planning Association 82, no. 2 (April 2016): 134–46, https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2015.1126195; Suleiman Osman, The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn: Gentrification and the Search for Authenticity in Postwar New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Kate S. Shaw and Iris W. Hagemans, “ ‘Gentrification Without Displacement’ and the Consequent Loss of Place: The Effects of Class Transition on Low-Income Residents of Secure Housing in Gentrifying Areas,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 39, no. 2 (2015): 323–41, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12164.
4.“Baltimore, Maryland Population History 1840–2018,” accessed July 25, 2018, www.biggestuscities.com/city/baltimore-maryland.
6.Eric Holcomb, interview with author, July 13, 2016.
7.Evan McKenzie, Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994).
8.Johns Hopkins, executive director, Baltimore Heritage, interview with author, July 13, 2016.
9.Historic districts in Baltimore are counted as National Register districts here, although many are both locally and nationally designated. National Register designation does not guarantee much control over the built environment for the local community, but it does grant access to the tax credit program.
10.Hopkins, interview. His name is, in fact, the same as that of the eponymous Baltimore university, to whose first benefactor he is distantly related.
11.The relationship between the Historic Districts Council and the New York City LPC is similar, according to Simeon Bankoff, executive director, Historic Districts Council, interview with author, October 19, 2016.
12.Personal correspondence with Johns Hopkins, December 15, 2016.
13.John R. Logan and Harvey Luskin Molotch, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
14.Kelly L. Kinahan, “Historic Preservation as a Community Development Tool in Legacy City Neighbourhoods,” Community Development Journal 54, no. 4 (2019): 581–604.
15.MFI (median family income as reported in 1970) is comparable to MHI (median household income) thereafter.
16.Dollar figures are reproduced as they are reported, not adjusted.
17.Northwood did not match the tract it falls within, so I do not have 1970 data for it.
18.Robert J. Sampson, Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
20.Baltimore City Commission on Historic and Architectural Preservation, “Baltimore City Tax Credit for Historic Restorations and Rehabilitations,” accessed April 26, 2017, chap.baltimorecity.gov/tax-credits.
22.I could not secure similar data for this program.
24.The Maryland Sustainable Communities Tax Credit has had similar impact and faces similar constraints. See Melissa Archer, “Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits,” Maryland Department of Planning, Maryland Historical Trust, September 24, 2014.
26.See also Stephanie Ryberg-Webster and Kelly L Kinahan, “Historic Preservation in Declining City Neighbourhoods: Analysing Rehabilitation Tax Credit Investments in Six US Cities,” Urban Studies 54, no. 7 (May 2017): 1673–91, https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098016629313.
27.The HTC has not been used in all Baltimore historic districts, thus the twenty-eight considered here are a subset of the fifty-five for which I have data.
28.I can provide an illustration of these geographic trends at the reader’s request.
29.Robert J. Sampson, Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
30.Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class (New York: Basic, 2019).
31.The national average, for 1980, was 17 percent. United States Census Bureau, “Educational Attainment in the United States: 1981 & 1980 Tables,” November 21, 2016, www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/educational-attainment/p20-390.html.
32.United States Census Bureau, “Educational Attainment in the United States: 2010,” accessed July 14, 2017, www.census.gov/data/tables/2010/demo/educational-attainment/cps-detailed-tables.html.
34.Brian J. McCabe and Ingrid Gould Ellen, “Does Preservation Accelerate Neighborhood Change? Examining the Impact of Historic Preservation in New York City,” Journal of the American Planning Association 82, no. 2 (April 2016): 134–46, https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2015.1126195.
3. Mitigating Gentrification Through Preservation in Central Brooklyn
1.Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).
2.Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly, Gentrification (New York: Routledge, 2013).
4.Lees, Slater, and Wyly, Gentrification.
5.Philip Kasinitz, “The Gentrification of ‘Boerum Hill’: Neighborhood Change and Conflicts Over Definitions,” Qualitative Sociology 11, no. 3 (September 1988): 163–82, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988953; Jonathan Lethem, The Fortress of Solitude (New York: Doubleday, 2003).
6.The only time I was actively threatened while doing this research, including extensive walking observation of neighborhoods in Baltimore and central Brooklyn, was returning to my car one evening after a community meeting in Bed-Stuy. Although anecdotal, this captured for me the heightened tensions in a neighborhood undergoing rapid transformation.
7.Pearsall, “The Reminiscences of Otis Pratt Pearsall.”
8.Tenzing Chadotsang, interview with author, February 8, 2017.
9.The Landmarks Preservation Commission explains this stage in the following terms: “The agency assesses potentially meritorious properties in light of many factors, including agency priorities, the agency’s policy of designating resources in all five boroughs, and the importance of the resource in the context of similar and/or already designated resources.” Landmarks Preservation Commission, Evaluation in Light of Commission Priorities and Other Considerations, accessed July 8, 2020, http://www1.nyc.gov/site/lpc/designations/designations.page.
10.Chadotsang, interview. Note that Chadotsang does not use the term “gentrification.” Also, this fits precisely with Suzanne Spellen’s account of landmarking in Crown Heights North.
12.Chadotsang, interview.
13.Chadotsang, interview. East New York is one of the last substantially low-income, overwhelmingly Black neighborhoods in Brooklyn, but it also is subject to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s rezoning process in the interest of building more affordable housing.
14.Simeon Bankoff, interview with author, October 19, 2016.
16.Bankoff, interview. This aspect of preservation efforts is prominent in Glaeser’s indictment of preservation and its relationship to housing affordability. See Edward Glaeser, “Preservation Follies: Excessive Landmarking Threatens to Make Manhattan a Refuge for the Rich,” City Journal 20, no. 2 (2010); Edward Glaeser, Triumph of the City: How Urban Spaces Make Us Human (New York: Penguin, 2011).
17.Bankoff, interview. This is a reference, of course, to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous formulation—“But I know it when I see it”—in his 1964 concurrence in Jacobellis v. Ohio, in which the Court reversed the indecency conviction of a cinema manager for showing Louis Malle’s “Les Amants” [The Lovers]. This phrase has taken on a life of its own, so interpreting precisely how Bankoff intends it is difficult.
18.Mary Shuford, interview with author, April 13, 2016.
19.Suleiman Osman, Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn: Gentrification and the Search for Authenticity in Postwar New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
20.When I talked with Shuford in April 2016, Sterling Place across Washington Avenue (just outside the landmark district) showed evidence of very recent and rapid high-end development in the form of multiple luxury apartment buildings.
21.Gib Veconi, interview with author, March 30, 2016.
22.Danae Oratowski, interview with author, April 20, 2016.
23.Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961).
24.See Steven D. Levitt, “Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors That Explain the Decline and Six That Do Not,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 18, no. 1 (March 2004): 163–90, https://doi.org/10.1257/089533004773563485; and Patrick Sharkey, Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence (New York: Norton, 2018).
26.Ingrid Gould Ellen, Keren Mertens Horn, and Davin Reed, “Has Falling Crime Invited Gentrification,” U.S. Center for Economic Studies Paper No. CES-WP-17-27, March 1, 2017, 36, https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2930242.
27.The Crown Heights North historic district was designated in 2007, Crown Heights North II in 2011, Crown Heights North III in 2015, and the fourth phase is “in the planning stage.” See Crown Heights North Association, “Landmark Phases,” accessed July 27, 2018, www.crown heightsnorth.org/phase-map.html.
28.Denise Brown-Puryear and Deborah Young, “Saving Preservation Stories: Reminiscences of Denise Brown-Puryear & Deborah Young,” interviewed by Liz H. Strong, August 17, 2015, www.nypap.org/oral-history/denise-brown-puryear-deborah-young/.
29.Suzanne Spellen, interview with author, April 6, 2016. I also interviewed Ethel Tyus, November 14, 2018, the Crown Heights North homeowner and attorney who worked with Brown-Puryear and Young to formalize the Crown Heights North Association.
30.Brown-Puryear and Young, “Saving Preservation Stories,” 5, 2–3.
31.This relates also to Veconi’s “democracy,” and I will return to this in my conclusion.
32.Brown-Puryear and Young, “Saving Preservation Stories,” 23.
33.This also harks back to Melissa Jest’s point, in my introduction, that preservation in communities of color has to acknowledge broader systemic issues as well.
34.Brown-Puryear and Young, “Saving Preservation Stories,” 47.
35.Suzanne Spellen, interview.
36.Brown-Puryear and Young, “Saving Preservation Stories,” 17.
37.Brown-Puryear and Young, “Saving Preservation Stories,” 28, 56, 66.
39.Brown-Puryear and Young, “Saving Preservation Stories,” 38–39, 30.
40.Brown-Puryear and Young, “Saving Preservation Stories,” 39, 38.
42.Brown-Puryear and Young, “Saving Preservation Stories,” 55.
43.Spellen, interview. In fact, this raises a question about middle-class Black gentrification. Spellen also suggests that there were some newer, white homeowners involved in the landmarking process, people whose role in the neighborhood was much more like Veconi’s and Oratowski’s.
45.I did not include Brooklyn as a whole in this chart because the borough is, overall, much less Black than these neighborhoods, declining from 34.2 percent Black in 2005 to 31.1 percent in 2014, and Brooklyn’s inclusion would have compressed this chart.
46.See, for example, the work of noted film director Spike Lee.
47.CoreData.nyc, from which I have collected these data, does not provide subborough-level numbers further back than 2005.
48.Robert J. Sampson, Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 107, 99.
49.Michael D. M. Bader and Maria Krysan, “Community Attraction and Avoidance in Chicago: What’s Race Got to Do with It?,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 660, no. 1 (July 2015): 261–81, https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716215577615.
51.Reno Dakota, interview with author, May 26, 2016. The value Dakota places on aesthetics is confirmed by a published profile of his home emphasizing Dakota’s painstaking decoration of their 1895 brownstone with period accuracy. See Steven Kurutz, “In Brooklyn, a Strict Victorian Brownstone,” New York Times, July 26, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/greathomesanddestinations/in-brooklyn-a-strict-victorian-brownstone-on-location.html.
52.Bed-Stuy is protected by the Stuyvesant Heights district, which was substantially expanded in 2013. The Bedford district was designated in 2015 and there are plans for Stuyvesant North and East districts.
53.Omar Walker, interview with author, June 13, 2016.
54.U.S. Census Bureau, “American Fact Finder,” American Community Survey data.
55.Changes to the costs of living in a neighborhood that are associated with changes in local amenities, such as grocery stores and restaurants, have another, more indirect impact on homeowners.
57.It may seem conspicuous that I have not dealt with household income here except to factor it into housing affordability. I chose to focus on other quantitative data because the income data for these neighborhoods are extremely volatile and do not indicate any particular trend during this time.
4. Vacancy, Abandonment, Demolition by Neglect, and Project CORE in Baltimore
1.“Baltimore’s population stood at 611,648 as of July 1, 2017, according to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau…. Baltimore’s population peaked after World War II, reaching almost 950,000 in 1950,” declining 36 percent by 2017. Ian Duncan, “Baltimore Population Decline Continues, Census Estimates Show,” Baltimore Sun, March 22, 2018.
3.Eric Holcomb, interview with author, February 19, 2019.
5.Cohen, “Abandoned Housing,” 416, 429, 430.
8.Luke Wenger and Yvonne Broadwater, “Gov. Hogan Announces $700M Plan to Target Urban Decay in Baltimore,” Baltimore Sun, January 5, 2016.
11.Jason Hackworth, “Race and the Production of Extreme Land Abandonment in the American Rust Belt,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 42, no. 1 (2018): 51–73, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12588.
16.Kacy Rohn, “Rebuilding Baltimore, From Urban Renewal to Project C.O.R.E.: Neighborhood Revitalization, Historic Preservation, and the Lessons of the Past” (master’s thesis, University of Maryland, 2017), http://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/20543.
17.Editorial, “Hogan’s Budget and Baltimore,” Baltimore Sun, January 25, 2016; see also Matt Hill, Chris Lafferty, and Ty Hullinger, “The Reality of Gov. Hogan’s Baltimore Investment,” Baltimore Sun, January 17, 2016.
18.Rohn, “Rebuilding Baltimore,” 59.
19.Rohn, “Rebuilding Baltimore,” 64.
20.Rohn, “Rebuilding Baltimore,” 68.
21.Rohn, “Rebuilding Baltimore,” 75.
22.Ian Duncan, “$75M Plan to Demolish Thousands of Baltimore’s Vacant Houses Now Relies on Other Groups, New Accounting,” Baltimore Sun, October 26, 2017.
23.Rohn, “Rebuilding Baltimore,” 80.
25.Eric Holcomb, interview with author, February 19, 2019.
26.Johns Hopkins, interview with author, July 11, 2018.
31.See Cohen, “Abandoned Housing.”
32.Andrea Merrill Goldwyn, “Demolition by Neglect: A Loophole in Preservation Policy” (master’s thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1995), https://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses/357/; Rachel Ann Hildebrandt, “Demolition-By-Neglect: Where Are We Now?” (master’s thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 2012), https://repository.upenn.edu/hp_theses/189/; Galen Newman and Jesse Saginor, “Four Imperatives for Preventing Demolition by Neglect,” Journal of Urban Design 19, no. 5 (October 20, 2014): 622–37, https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2014.943705; John M. Weiss, “Protecting Landmarks from Demolition by Neglect: New York City’s Experience,” Widener Law Review 18 (2012): 309.
33.To put this in perspective, at the time of this writing, Catherine Pugh had recently resigned as mayor and was sentenced to three years in prison when evidence emerged of her efforts to enrich herself through city contracts. Luke Broadwater, Justin Fenton, and Kevin Rector, “Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh Sentenced to 3 Years for ‘Healthy Holly’ Children’s Book Fraud Scheme,” Baltimore Sun, February 27, 2020.
34.Joanne Whitely, Hearing on Demolition by Neglect in Union Square, before the Baltimore Commission on Historic and Architectural Preservation, August 10, 1990, 3–7, 11, 16.
35.Maryellen Cahill, Hearing on Demolition by Neglect in Union Square, before the Baltimore Commission on Historic and Architectural Preservation, August 10, 1990, 8.
36.Ardabella Fox, Hearing on Demolition by Neglect in Union Square, before the Baltimore Commission on Historic and Architectural Preservation, August 10, 1990,16, 13.
37.A lien is a sum attached to the deed of a property that must be repaid, in this case to the city for stabilization or demolitions costs, when the property is sold. The lien mechanism is obviously a more effective way to secure returns to the city when properties are likely to sell and for significantly more than the value of the lien when they do. A lien has the benefit of requiring minimal action on the part of the government agency imposing it.
38.Fox, Hearing on Demolition, 13.
39.Cahill, Hearing on Demolition, 19.
40.John Huppert, Hearing on Demolition by Neglect in Union Square, before the Baltimore Commission on Historic and Architectural Preservation, August 10, 1990, 14, 17–19, 25.
41.Cahill, Hearing on Demolition, 19.
42.Huppert, Hearing on Demolition, 20–22, 25–26.
43.Cahill, Hearing on Demolition, 30.
44.Huppert, Hearing on Demolition, 31.
45.Ron Miles, Hearing on Demolition by Neglect in Union Square, before the Baltimore Commission on Historic and Architectural Preservation, August 10, 1990, 32.
46.“The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is a flexible program that provides communities with resources to address a wide range of unique community development needs. Beginning in 1974, the CDBG program is one of the longest continuously run programs at HUD. The CDBG program provides annual grants on a formula basis to 1209 general units of local government and States.” Housing and Urban Development, “Community Development Program,” accessed October 2, 2019, https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/comm_planning/communitydevelopment/programs.
47.Miles, Hearing on Demolition, 32, 33–34.
48.Deborah Goodman, Hearing on Demolition by Neglect in Union Square, before the Baltimore Commission on Historic and Architectural Preservation, August 10, 1990, 11, 26.
49.David Norman, Hearing on Demolition by Neglect in Union Square, before the Baltimore Commission on Historic and Architectural Preservation, August 10, 1990, 12, 26.
50.Goodman and Norman, Hearing on Demolition, 40–41.
51.See also Cohen, “Abandoned Housing,” 425, on Mayor Schmoke’s ignoring city’s shrinking, for another example of the impact of this attitude.
52.See Neil Smith, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (New York: Routledge, 2005), https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203975640; Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly, chap. 2 in Gentrification (New York: Routledge, 2013).
53.Richard Casey Sadler and Don J. Lafreniere, “Racist Housing Practices as a Precursor to Uneven Neighborhood Change in a Post-Industrial City,” Housing Studies 32, no. 2 (2017): 186–208.
5. Struggling to Preserve in the Context of Aggressive Development Pressure
1.This committee is ad hoc, pointing to the rapidity with which neighborhood residents have felt they must respond to rapidly increasing pressure.
2.Dixon Leasing (website), accessed July 30, 2019, www.dixonleasing.com.
3.Rob Witherwax, interview with author, October 16, 2018.
4.A number of my Brooklyn interviewees acknowledged in our conversations that land use zoning could accomplish similar ends to those they are attempting to accomplish with landmarking, but they also argued that it was a much more intense process, more likely to encounter resistance, and less likely to succeed.
6.Ethel Tyus, interview with author, November 14, 2018.
7.Community Board 3, Landmarks Committee meeting, May 9, 2016. Suzanne Spellen connected me to Muncey, with whom she gives tours of historic Bedford-Stuyvesant, and he showed me around the neighborhood before spontaneously offering to bring me with him to the meeting.
10.Camille Bautista, “Proposed Halsey Street Apt. Design Clashes with Historic Zone, Locals Say,” March 19, 2017, www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20170317/bed-stuy/524-540-halsey-st-brookland-capital-bedford-stuyvesant-historic-district-condos-brooklyn.
11.Dixon Advisory USA is the manager of the U.S. Masters Residential Property Fund (U.S. Masters), a residential real estate investment trust (REIT) operating in the New York metropolitan area. U.S. Masters is focused on acquiring single-family houses (up to four dwellings) for acquisition, renovation, and rental. Dixon Advisory (website), accessed December 4, 2017, www.dixonadvisoryusa.com.
12.Evans Dixon, “About Us,” accessed October 26, 2019, www.evansdixon.com.au/about-us.
13.Community Board 3, Landmarks Committee Meeting, May 9, 2016.
14.Community Board 3, Landmarks Committee Meeting, June 13, 2016.
15.Historic buildings in disinvested neighborhoods are often converted to single-room occupancy, both to provide inexpensive housing and to increase rates of profit for their owners.
16.Evelyn Tully Costa, interview with author, April 19, 2016.
17.Evelyn Tully Costa, interview with author, February 28, 2017.
18.Tully Costa, interviews, 2016 and 2017.
19.Tyus, interview. Ethel Tyus, a Crown Heights North resident instrumental in landmarking the Crown Heights North district, does not believe the Crown Heights South landmarking process will work until the differences between the longtime African American and Caribbean residents, newer white residents, and Lubavitchers can be worked out.
20.Tully Costa, interviews, 2016 and 2017.
21.I reviewed all of the local Brooklyn press available online for coverage of the process of its announcement, planning, and permitting and the resistance to that process. These sources are extensive, including BKLYNER, Brooklyn Reader, Brooklyn Paper, Brownstoner, Curbed, DNAInfo, Gothamist, and Kings County Politics, foremost, in addition to larger circulation publications like the New York Daily News, The Guardian, and Politico. New York City Economic Development Corporation also published press releases, state offices published reports, and the eventual developer of the armory, BFC Partners, produced a quarterly newsletter beginning in late 2016. Notable local bloggers such as “The Q at Parkside” provided further perspective.
24.Tully Costa, interview, 2017.
25.Megan Carpentier, “Brooklyn Lawmakers Enter Gentrification Feud Over Crown Heights Neighborhood.” The Guardian, October 19, 2016.
26.Rachel Holliday Smith, “Brooklyn Armory Deal, and Larger De Blasio Development Debate, Move Toward Term Two,” Gotham Gazette, December 11, 2017.
27.Tully Costa, interview, 2017.
28.Gaby Del Valle, “Crown Heights Residents Protest Development at Bedford-Union Armory,” Gothamist, March 8, 2017.
29.Ameena Walker, “Crown Heights Residents of Color Won’t Benefit from Bedford-Union Armory Project: Study,” Curbed NY, March 25, 2017.
30.Rachel Sugar, “Bedford-Union Armory Developers Promise Union Jobs, Training Programs.” Curbed NY, April 10, 2017.
31.Gloria Pazmino and Sally Goldenberg, “Cumbo to Oppose Bedford Armory Project, After Hesitating for Months,” Politico PRO, May 18, 2017.
32.Tanay Warerkar, “Controversial Bedford-Union Armory Redevelopment Loses Cumbo’s Support,” Curbed NY, May 18, 2017.
33.Amy Plitt, “Protestors Came Out En Masse at Meeting to Discuss Pfizer, Bedford-Union Armory Developments,” Curbed NY, July 11, 2017; Tanay Warerkar, “Bedford-Union Armory Redevelopment Unanimously Rejected by Community Board,” Curbed NY, June 28, 2017.
34.Plitt, “Protestors Came Out En Masse at Meeting to Discuss Pfizer, Bedford-Union Armory Developments.”
35.Amy Plitt, “Borough President Calls for 100 Percent Affordable Housing at Bedford-Union Armory Redevelopment.” Curbed NY, September 2, 2017.
36.Sarah Amar, “Bedford-Union Armory Developer Faces Questions from City Planning Commission,” Gothamist, September 20, 2017.
37.Pazmino and Goldenberg, “Cumbo to Oppose.”
38.Tanay Warerkar, “Embattled Bedford-Union Armory Conversion Clears City Planning Commission,” Curbed NY, October 30, 2017.
40.Colin Mixson, “Armed with a New Backer: Crown Heights Pol Declares Newfound Support for City’s Armory Scheme Before Council,” Brooklyn Paper, November 22, 2017.
41.Smith, “Brooklyn Armory Deal.”
42.Colin Mixson, “No Aid: Judge Quashes Legal Aid Suit to Halt Bedford-Union Armory Development,” Brooklyn Paper, July 30, 2018.
45.Tanay Warerkar, “Bedford-Union Armory Revamp Moves Forward with Plans for 15-Story Rental,” Curbed NY, March 14, 2018.
46.Craig Hubert, “Second Rental Building at Bedford-Union Armory Redevelopment Will Be Eight Stories with 60 Units,” Brownstoner, June 15, 2018.
47.Hubert, “Second Rental Building”; Colin Mixson, “Forward March: Builder Files Plans for New Tower at C’Heights Armory Amidst Ongoing Suit Against Project,” Brooklyn Paper, June 20, 2018.
48.Warerkar, “Bedford-Union Armory Revamp Moves Forward.”
49.Hubert, “Second Rental Building.”
50.Tanay Warerkar, “Bedford-Union Armory’s Community Center Gets $15M from Cuomo,” Curbed NY, September 4, 2018. The J’ouvert celebrations are variously described as “Brooklyn’s largest street party” and a parade marking the first day of Carnival, first celebrated by freed African Americans after Emancipation, but also drawing on Caribbean traditions.
6. Conclusion
1.Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, interview with author, July 26, 2019.
2.Daniel Rodenburg, interview with author, July 12, 2019.
3.Stephanie Ryberg-Webster and Kelly L Kinahan, “Historic Preservation in Declining City Neighbourhoods: Analysing Rehabilitation Tax Credit Investments in Six US Cities,” Urban Studies 54, no. 7 (May 2017): 1673–91, https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098016629313.
5.Denise Brown-Puryear and Deborah Young, “Saving Preservation Stories: Reminiscences of Denise Brown-Puryear & Deborah Young,” interviewed by Liz H. Strong, August 17, 2015, 30, www.nypap.org/oral-history/denise-brown-puryear-deborah-young/.
6.David Harvey, “The New Urbanism and the Communitarian Trap,” Harvard Design Magazine 1, no. 2 (1997); Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014).
7.See, for example, Kelly L. Kinahan, “The Neighborhood Effects of Federal Historic Tax Credits in Six Legacy Cities,” Housing Policy Debate 29, no. 1 (2019): 166–80; Ted Grevstad-Nordbrock and Igor Vojnovic, “Heritage-Fueled Gentrification: A Cautionary Tale from Chicago,” Journal of Cultural Heritage 38 (2019): 261–70.
Appendix: Data, Methods, and Measures
1.The scholar who connected me to him introduced him by saying, “his name is, believe it or not….”
2.Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (website), accessed January 30, 2017, phndc.org.
3.New York Preservation Archive Project, “Oral History Project,” accessed, October 11, 2019, nypap.org/oral-history.
4.Robert J. Sampson, Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).