Progress Through Perdition:
GENTRIFICATION of staten Island's north shore
What is gentrification? The dictionary defines gentrification as “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.”(Dictionary.com) Ninth graders Jack Morouse and Christian Branch told me that they understand gentrification to be “The modernization of older parts of a city in order to expand and revolutionize the city” or “The process of improving an area for the benefit of the population that live in that area.” So would gentrification be revolutionizing a city or be benefiting the population in the area? The topic of gentrification is a tough one.
When I asked myself to define gentrification, I first said: “Taking a bad place and making it better.” But then I was asked, “How would you define a good place from a bad place?” That’s the question that stumped me. Is a “bad” place a place with a high crime rate or a place with low-income families? Is a good place a place where a bunch of rich people live or a place that looks nice? Personally, I believe there’s no way to perfectly define a good neighborhood from a bad neighborhood. That’s what got me interested in this topic of gentrification and how it affects everyone in the area. Jeremiah Moss, a blogger based in New York, explains, gentrification the best, saying, “Today, however, what we talk about when we talk about gentrification is a far more destructive process, one that I prefer to call hyper-gentrification”(Moss). What the city, state, and other businesses try to achieve from gentrification is to make one location more successful than any other bigger, well-known locations or cities. While buildings are changing and new business are coming in, we don't see everything behind gentrification. Gentrification ends up causing displacement of long term residents. Another ‘behind the scenes’ of gentrification is that cities are ruined. And what I mean by this is that their history and vibe are all changed. Gentrification typically happens in lower class areas, usually being cheaper to buy for larger business. Gentrification ruins the history of the neighborhood that is being gentrified. Many older neighborhoods tend to have a rich background that many other ‘outsiders’ do not see.
So who tends to start the process of gentrification? The stereotype is that gentrifiers are white. But in fact, not all of them are; there are Asians, blacks, and Latinos who are also gentrifiers. Gentrifiers also tend to be many professionals who have worked their way up from being less blessed to become financially successful. A study by Kesha Moore, a professor of sociology at Drew University, shows “Professionals are drawn to some low-income minority neighborhoods because of a desire to give back to the communities where they or their parents grew up”(qtd. in Moore). But do these people who ‘want to give back to their communities’ feel like they are doing more good than bad? Do they even see the bad in what they are doing? These questions are still left unanswered.
Positive and negative effects from gentrification are happening all around us - from New York City all the way to San Francisco. One example of gentrification on the east coast is Chelsea in the borough of Manhattan. The issue was highlighted in the HBO documentary “Class Divide” directed by Marc Levin. But this isn’t just any normal act of gentrification; people are calling it “hyper gentrification.” The movie focuses on the two sides of Chelsea, NY. On one side, there are the Chelsea-Elliot Houses public housing. The people who live in the housing projects are families of the lower class. While on the other side of the High Line, a public park built on a historic freight rail line lies Avenues. Avenues is a pre-K-12 private school with tuition costing more than $40,000. The documentary follows kids from both sides of Chelsea. When a resident from the housing projects is asked how he thinks other people view him, he says, “It’s not racism, it’s classism”(Hyisheem). Tanvi Misra, a writer for CityLab, says, “But in America, race is inextricably linked to class, no?”(Misra). When hearing this, I kept on going over in my head what Tanvi Misra said. I half agree, and half disagree with Misra. This is because I feel like race is linked to class when talking about stereotypes. It’s almost the stereotype that all African-Americans or Latinos are poor. But this isn’t necessarily true. There are successful African-Americans and Latinos; not all are of the lower class. Yet success doesn’t always have to be measured by wealth, many people have different ways of measuring success. But I believe that we as a society almost always think about wealth whenever we think about success. So is racism and classism a problem in our day and age? I believe it is.
Another example of gentrification is in the borough of Staten Island on the North Shore. The North Shore is one of Staten Island’s oldest and most highly populated neighborhoods. The North Shore is important because there are many landmarks, some being the Staten Island Ferry, Staten Island Borough Hall, and the soon-to-come ferris wheel. The gentrifiers have decided to renovate the North Shore because it is one of the first places you will see when entering Staten Island via the ferry. In addition to the ferris wheel, Ironstate Development, a real estate giant, is planning to build up to 571 “luxe apartments.” But this is just the beginning. They are also planning on launching a project called “URL Staten Island.” This project is supposed to build more than 900 apartments “with top-of-the-line amenities and a string of cute, boutique retail sports geared at twentysomethings”(Clarke). The goal of this gentrification is to create a friendly, clean, and modern neighborhood. While trying to get this clean and modern look, they are also “looking for the Brooklyn feel” (Muss).
The gentrification of Staten Island’s North Shore came about after decades of underdevelopment and high demand for housing. While this project might look great, a lot of people are against it. Firstly, people are against the gentrification because of fear of being driven out of their homes due to the rise in property taxes. Jason Harris says, “There is a real sense of ‘There goes the neighborhood.’ There is an underlined, unaddressed concern about gentrification”(Harris). There's a possibility that the gentrification of the North Shore will ruin the views of what locals see in their communities. Instead of just seeing their neighborhoods and city as the “least hip” maybe they see more. Maybe there's more hidden behind the curtains that outsiders don’t see. The fear is that these projects will not only destroy the buildings that many had grown up in but also the memories and history of living there.
However, I feel that they positives outweigh the negatives, because first of all I am not from Staten Island and I have no personal connection to Staten Island, let alone the North Shore. If I were from Staten Island, though, I feel like my view would change. But there are also different factors that could make one like the idea of the gentrification instead of being against it. I feel that the biggest factor would be age. Younger people supporting the gentrification because not only do they want change, but they also want something new, something better. As for older people, I suspect that they would be totally against the idea. Gentrification would destroy their memories of all the good times that they had had. But, it depends on the type of person. Gentrification is not an easy subject to talk about, let alone support or be against. The pressures on that the engineers and contractors must be insane, let alone the pressure that citizens are feeling.
So why is this whole gentrification topic important to me? Well, gentrification isn’t any small matter. This is because gentrification is not just happening in some places and not others. Everything around us is getting gentrified, from the small local coffee shops being turned into Starbucks all the way to buildings getting destroyed just to be rebuilt even taller and bigger. We might think that gentrification is just when a New York neighborhood is renovated to become bigger and cleaner. Well, gentrification is not just that - it's taking the small local businesses and replacing them with big chain businesses. No clearer example of gentrification can be seen than in Santa Barbara, a small Spanish style town with no high-rise buildings. In my eyes, gentrification would ruin the town of Santa Barbara, especially in the area known as the Funk Zone. The Funk Zone is a place with converted warehouses and buildings decorated with graffiti murals and contemporary art pieces. Gentrification in the Funk Zone would destroy the vibe of the place along with the murals and warehouses. So what would make people think that the Funk Zone should be gentrified? First of all, it is in a great location, right next to the beach and State Street. Secondly, it would be way easier for bigger business to buy out the small, local business that are located in the Funk Zone. Gentrification would ruin the Funk Zone, period. Gentrification wouldn’t just ruin the Funk Zone, but also other parts of the small town of Santa Barbara. I can’t even imagine city-neighborhoods in Santa Barbara being gentrified. All the Spanish styled houses, the small community, the beautiful places, all gone. Gentrification is not a topic to be joked with. A place with rich history could go to a high rise city in months.
Works Cited
Clarke, Katherine. “Eye on Staten Island: The North Shore of NYC’s Forgotten Borough Slated to Become a Brooklyn-style Boom Town.” Daily News, 23 July 2015, www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/staten-island-new-brooklyn-article-1.2301695.
Freeman, Lance. “Five Myths about Gentrification.” The Washington Post, 3 June 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-gentrification/2016/06/03/b6c80e56-1ba5-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html?utm_term=.fdad12302be1.
Misra, Tanvi. “Kids and Class Collide in NYC’s Gentrifying Chelsea.” CityLab, 3 Oct. 2016, www.citylab.com/housing/2016/10/kids-and-class-collide-in-nycs-gentrifying-chelsea/502412/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2017.
Rizzi, Nicholas. “Staten Islander Organizes to Combat Feared Gentrification of North Shore.” DNA Info, 14 Nov. 2013, www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131114/st-george/staten-islander-organizes-combat-feared-gentrification-of-north-shore.
When I asked myself to define gentrification, I first said: “Taking a bad place and making it better.” But then I was asked, “How would you define a good place from a bad place?” That’s the question that stumped me. Is a “bad” place a place with a high crime rate or a place with low-income families? Is a good place a place where a bunch of rich people live or a place that looks nice? Personally, I believe there’s no way to perfectly define a good neighborhood from a bad neighborhood. That’s what got me interested in this topic of gentrification and how it affects everyone in the area. Jeremiah Moss, a blogger based in New York, explains, gentrification the best, saying, “Today, however, what we talk about when we talk about gentrification is a far more destructive process, one that I prefer to call hyper-gentrification”(Moss). What the city, state, and other businesses try to achieve from gentrification is to make one location more successful than any other bigger, well-known locations or cities. While buildings are changing and new business are coming in, we don't see everything behind gentrification. Gentrification ends up causing displacement of long term residents. Another ‘behind the scenes’ of gentrification is that cities are ruined. And what I mean by this is that their history and vibe are all changed. Gentrification typically happens in lower class areas, usually being cheaper to buy for larger business. Gentrification ruins the history of the neighborhood that is being gentrified. Many older neighborhoods tend to have a rich background that many other ‘outsiders’ do not see.
So who tends to start the process of gentrification? The stereotype is that gentrifiers are white. But in fact, not all of them are; there are Asians, blacks, and Latinos who are also gentrifiers. Gentrifiers also tend to be many professionals who have worked their way up from being less blessed to become financially successful. A study by Kesha Moore, a professor of sociology at Drew University, shows “Professionals are drawn to some low-income minority neighborhoods because of a desire to give back to the communities where they or their parents grew up”(qtd. in Moore). But do these people who ‘want to give back to their communities’ feel like they are doing more good than bad? Do they even see the bad in what they are doing? These questions are still left unanswered.
Positive and negative effects from gentrification are happening all around us - from New York City all the way to San Francisco. One example of gentrification on the east coast is Chelsea in the borough of Manhattan. The issue was highlighted in the HBO documentary “Class Divide” directed by Marc Levin. But this isn’t just any normal act of gentrification; people are calling it “hyper gentrification.” The movie focuses on the two sides of Chelsea, NY. On one side, there are the Chelsea-Elliot Houses public housing. The people who live in the housing projects are families of the lower class. While on the other side of the High Line, a public park built on a historic freight rail line lies Avenues. Avenues is a pre-K-12 private school with tuition costing more than $40,000. The documentary follows kids from both sides of Chelsea. When a resident from the housing projects is asked how he thinks other people view him, he says, “It’s not racism, it’s classism”(Hyisheem). Tanvi Misra, a writer for CityLab, says, “But in America, race is inextricably linked to class, no?”(Misra). When hearing this, I kept on going over in my head what Tanvi Misra said. I half agree, and half disagree with Misra. This is because I feel like race is linked to class when talking about stereotypes. It’s almost the stereotype that all African-Americans or Latinos are poor. But this isn’t necessarily true. There are successful African-Americans and Latinos; not all are of the lower class. Yet success doesn’t always have to be measured by wealth, many people have different ways of measuring success. But I believe that we as a society almost always think about wealth whenever we think about success. So is racism and classism a problem in our day and age? I believe it is.
Another example of gentrification is in the borough of Staten Island on the North Shore. The North Shore is one of Staten Island’s oldest and most highly populated neighborhoods. The North Shore is important because there are many landmarks, some being the Staten Island Ferry, Staten Island Borough Hall, and the soon-to-come ferris wheel. The gentrifiers have decided to renovate the North Shore because it is one of the first places you will see when entering Staten Island via the ferry. In addition to the ferris wheel, Ironstate Development, a real estate giant, is planning to build up to 571 “luxe apartments.” But this is just the beginning. They are also planning on launching a project called “URL Staten Island.” This project is supposed to build more than 900 apartments “with top-of-the-line amenities and a string of cute, boutique retail sports geared at twentysomethings”(Clarke). The goal of this gentrification is to create a friendly, clean, and modern neighborhood. While trying to get this clean and modern look, they are also “looking for the Brooklyn feel” (Muss).
The gentrification of Staten Island’s North Shore came about after decades of underdevelopment and high demand for housing. While this project might look great, a lot of people are against it. Firstly, people are against the gentrification because of fear of being driven out of their homes due to the rise in property taxes. Jason Harris says, “There is a real sense of ‘There goes the neighborhood.’ There is an underlined, unaddressed concern about gentrification”(Harris). There's a possibility that the gentrification of the North Shore will ruin the views of what locals see in their communities. Instead of just seeing their neighborhoods and city as the “least hip” maybe they see more. Maybe there's more hidden behind the curtains that outsiders don’t see. The fear is that these projects will not only destroy the buildings that many had grown up in but also the memories and history of living there.
However, I feel that they positives outweigh the negatives, because first of all I am not from Staten Island and I have no personal connection to Staten Island, let alone the North Shore. If I were from Staten Island, though, I feel like my view would change. But there are also different factors that could make one like the idea of the gentrification instead of being against it. I feel that the biggest factor would be age. Younger people supporting the gentrification because not only do they want change, but they also want something new, something better. As for older people, I suspect that they would be totally against the idea. Gentrification would destroy their memories of all the good times that they had had. But, it depends on the type of person. Gentrification is not an easy subject to talk about, let alone support or be against. The pressures on that the engineers and contractors must be insane, let alone the pressure that citizens are feeling.
So why is this whole gentrification topic important to me? Well, gentrification isn’t any small matter. This is because gentrification is not just happening in some places and not others. Everything around us is getting gentrified, from the small local coffee shops being turned into Starbucks all the way to buildings getting destroyed just to be rebuilt even taller and bigger. We might think that gentrification is just when a New York neighborhood is renovated to become bigger and cleaner. Well, gentrification is not just that - it's taking the small local businesses and replacing them with big chain businesses. No clearer example of gentrification can be seen than in Santa Barbara, a small Spanish style town with no high-rise buildings. In my eyes, gentrification would ruin the town of Santa Barbara, especially in the area known as the Funk Zone. The Funk Zone is a place with converted warehouses and buildings decorated with graffiti murals and contemporary art pieces. Gentrification in the Funk Zone would destroy the vibe of the place along with the murals and warehouses. So what would make people think that the Funk Zone should be gentrified? First of all, it is in a great location, right next to the beach and State Street. Secondly, it would be way easier for bigger business to buy out the small, local business that are located in the Funk Zone. Gentrification would ruin the Funk Zone, period. Gentrification wouldn’t just ruin the Funk Zone, but also other parts of the small town of Santa Barbara. I can’t even imagine city-neighborhoods in Santa Barbara being gentrified. All the Spanish styled houses, the small community, the beautiful places, all gone. Gentrification is not a topic to be joked with. A place with rich history could go to a high rise city in months.
Works Cited
Clarke, Katherine. “Eye on Staten Island: The North Shore of NYC’s Forgotten Borough Slated to Become a Brooklyn-style Boom Town.” Daily News, 23 July 2015, www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/staten-island-new-brooklyn-article-1.2301695.
Freeman, Lance. “Five Myths about Gentrification.” The Washington Post, 3 June 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-gentrification/2016/06/03/b6c80e56-1ba5-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html?utm_term=.fdad12302be1.
Misra, Tanvi. “Kids and Class Collide in NYC’s Gentrifying Chelsea.” CityLab, 3 Oct. 2016, www.citylab.com/housing/2016/10/kids-and-class-collide-in-nycs-gentrifying-chelsea/502412/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2017.
Rizzi, Nicholas. “Staten Islander Organizes to Combat Feared Gentrification of North Shore.” DNA Info, 14 Nov. 2013, www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131114/st-george/staten-islander-organizes-combat-feared-gentrification-of-north-shore.