WEBVTT
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What's up everybody?
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Welcome back to the pod.
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I'm Mike Draden Figaro, and this is Unscripted and Unrehearsed, where I give you my take on news of the day, things I've seen, heard, experienced.
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All that jazz.
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Um, I I don't remember why I wanted this episode to be about gentrification.
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Uh I just can't remember why.
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And I have some notes, but I just can't figure out how to move forward.
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And I've I've been struggling putting it together all week because I've been trying to figure out how not to sound like I'm complaining when I'm experiencing gentrification every day.
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Um and we'll get into it.
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Um I think.
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Anyway, um so yeah, um, I don't remember like what I what I initially thought I wanted to do.
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I know for for a fact, um oh shoot, his name just left me.
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There's this incredible musician who's got this great, um I know you've seen it, and uh he he's singing haikus.
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And uh the one that really uh stands out is the one about gentrification, and and it plays in my head.
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I'm like, oh my god, I can't make a stop some days.
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Um, but it's true.
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Um gentrification.
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Rents are higher every day, everybody's white.
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Haiku.
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And I'm that is a brilliant haiku.
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Um uh yeah, so it it the thought to do this episode on gentrification came way before um I started seeing his posts.
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Um it'll be in the description below, because I can't remember unless it comes back to me.
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So yeah.
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We're you know what?
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First, check out this video and then we'll get into it on the other side.
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Sometimes gentrification is a way of saying we don't want to coexist, we want you out.
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Gentrification is in our neighborhood.
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What is gentrification to you?
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Do you see our community losing its cultural roots, or do you just see it embracing other folks coming in?
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I kind of see it like how some of the older generation probably sees it.
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We have people coming in that aren't from our community, don't know nothing about the people that make this place up oftentimes don't want to include them with the new creations that they're working on.
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And it's adding more to the erasure of our culture.
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For example, the story I was telling you earlier about the millionaire.
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And I feel like you know, it's like a like you know, this is more fairly they'll come up to people who don't have language around property ownership or who don't understand the value of what property is.
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Well, nothing of gentrification, nothing about housing and the politics of housing and like red line.
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And so I go all the way back.
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That's the deep filmmaker and meteoric.
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I'm thinking about the racial divide on how even the hill was created.
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So it's always been a tactic to keep kick us out.
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I feel like if we could have conversations with the community so you could hear them out and they they know what's happening too.
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Um, I think the conversation can be more how can we upgrade what we have right now?
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When we think about where we come from, we understand that we got lack of resources, education system is flawed, the things that we eat every day, right, is not as healthy.
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Why do we have to coexist when we are the marginalized?
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We are already going through you know life and trying to figure out what works for us.
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I think the conversation is more of why do why when white people come now, we start to have conversations around a whole foods being there's a reason when people say community don't like to come out to meetings because they've been used up in all these meetings, right?
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Folks will come in, do their focus groups, get a 25 hour gift card, so it becomes conditional even exchange.
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Uh right up um Lehigh, you know, the bridge, the little bridge, like Emerald Street, there's a little bridge underneath the folks down there with their tents and living underneath there.
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So our folks gotta put up with it, right?
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We gotta accept it.
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As soon as developers were buying property outside, it was cleared up that fast.
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So for the past 10 years, the community's been coming out with meetings and doing surveys and having all these discussions about we need our blocks safe from our children stepping on needles.
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But when a developer brought some property that was able to clear.
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For so many years, we've been reporting this, we've been going through this, and they're trying to figure out what is the difference.
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Sometimes justification is a way of saying we don't want to coexist, we want you out, so we're gonna put all these things in place.
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So the Whole Foods really is not for you, right?
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Because you can't afford how much it costs.
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All right, so now what I remember.
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Wait, okay, so I I I oh god, so many thoughts at once.
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Where I grew up in Green Point, um, we were, you know, the as far as I well, the the block was divided.
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Kingsland Avenue is very, very long between Nassau and Drake's.
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It's very, very long.
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It's like a Manhattan block, right?
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Um I would say halfway down the block, depending on your perspective.
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Like going, I want to say north ish toward Newtown Creek, was mostly white.
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And that's that's where we grew up.
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And then the other side going sort of south ish was um was this south?
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Anyway, going the other direction towards Driggs was more Spanish, I want to say, more mixed neighborhoody kind of.
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But it was like mostly no Germans and Polish people.
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And you know, that's what my family was on my mother's side, right?
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So we would we definitely stood out, my sister and I, because we were the only colored kids on the block.
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Um, not that we're like very melanated, but you know, we're though the we're the Puerto Rican kids on the block, as it as they would say.
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Um I lost my treno thought.
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Oh, okay.
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So I didn't really know what gentrification meant back then.
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No, nobody knew.
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It's just like the people were moving, people were moving in, moving out, neighborhood was changing.
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But it wasn't apparent like that in the 70s or in the like early to mid-80s.
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So when we moved, we moved to the projects, which was like right on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint.
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And uh it was like mostly all the kids I went to school with were like from there.
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Um, there were kids in the other neighborhood that went to public school with us, but you know, most of them were from the project neighborhoods in the projects and the houses around.
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And um again, to me, it was just a mix of different people and cultures or what have you.
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So it it growing up in Brooklyn, you back then there was I don't want to say this wrong, but although there was a division of neighborhoods and you knew your your borders, neighborhoods were for the most part mixed.
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It's far from my perspective, because I had family in all of the neighborhoods, so we just moved through them.
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So I digress.
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Um, I didn't start experiencing gentrification, I think, until I got my first apartment in Prospect Heights.
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And I mean, back then it was a very, very black neighborhood.
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Um at the more um towards uh Barclay Center, I want to say that you get got from like Bedford Avenue and Franklin Avenue going, I want to say west, I guess.
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Um the houses got nicer, there was more single-family homes, condos, conversions, um, a lot of people moving into that area, gentrifying a neighborhood for sure.
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Because the I think I want to say was the Grand Army Plaza station, which I think is the two, three, and the four and five.
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Or the no, the the three and the five.
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Three and the five?
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Yeah, let's just go with that.
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Um there, there, uh that station there was the park slope station for the most part.
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So um people living in Park Slope would get off there and go in that direction, and people living in Prospect Heights, which is a lot less expensive, then Park Slope would go in the other direction.
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And that's when you know people getting pri price out of Park Slope started drifting more into Prospect Heights, and then that's when gentrification there started blowing up, and realtors started giving these neighborhoods these cute little ridiculous names just to get people interested in this Bohemian change or what have you, or to be cool, which is a friggin' peeve of mine, anyway.
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So I I lived I lived in my apartment for I want to say maybe 10 years.
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So no, I was like eight, nine years uh before I moved uh to to um Fort Green.
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And I watched how the neighborhood started to change.
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Uh abandoned or you know, um unused storefronts were starting to see some life.
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Um there were hair salons everywhere and a lot of um black hair product stores all along Franklin Avenue, which was really cool.
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Um, a lot of um uh folks selling like African uh attire and incense and all of that.
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And the further deep into Brooklyn on that side you went, you you there was a lot of Koreans over there, a little um still very, very black because it was becoming Crown Heights um on that side, divided by um Eastern Parkway because this is the south south of Eastern Parkway was the Hasidim, and then the other side was black, but they were like bridging from Williamsburg south into there.
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So um I started noticing these these changes.
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I thought, oh, this is cool, you know, new a new laundromat that's more modern with better machines, as opposed to the one who there was always a shootout of some sort.
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I was like, uh now I get it.
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I started understanding, like, oh, so this new spot is there, people start going there.
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That place is gonna lose business, nobody wants to go there because you know, the last time they went there, there was a problem.
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Then there were uh people buying up the abandoned houses, white people.
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I'm just gonna say it because this is the point of the video.
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Um, a lot of white people, some with money, some, and this was at the height of the bubble, you had the real estate bubble about to burst because of you know the economic um craziness back then.
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Um, where people were given these incredible uh uh uh uh terms for mortgages.
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They bought these properties and then you know their terms changed as per the contract, and then they lost everything.
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Some.
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I don't know if not all, but definitely some.
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So they were there were these people getting these incredible loans, the purchase loan, the fixer-upper loan, all of that jazz in there, buying these houses and fixing them up um and changing the this the landscape of the neighborhood.
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You know, there were more families with kids coming in, they were you know starting the fixing up the front front part of the building, the the backyards were getting fixed up, and then there started to become conflict with neighbors on either side who were, you know, being themselves in their neighborhood that they've been all their lives.
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And here comes this new family.
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You know, you're being too loud, you're da da da da.
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You can't be smoking up, you know, don't smoke in front of your house because it comes to my house.
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All of this weird stuff that I actually witnessed myself showing people property to sell.
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Um, and it upset me because I felt like being being biracial and multicultural, I'm trying to, at this point in my life, I was trying to build a business or career that I could do because I enjoyed it, um, and not have to really break my back just constantly utilizing my smarts and following the markets and all of that.
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And it it's an exhausting kind of job to have when you have to constantly be doing math in your head.
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Um, it can get tiring.
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That's most brokers won't say that to you, but yes, you're constantly doing math because you're thinking about that person's finances and this market uh si signals there and what the Fed is gonna do and how it's affecting the banks, all of that hits your bottom line too, because if people aren't getting great rate, they're not buying, and you're not making money.
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Same deal with renting, same, it's the same animal.
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I digress again.
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Um I felt like I was contributing to the problem at one point where people were getting price out of the neighborhoods they grew up in all their lives, and new people with means were coming in and changing the the face and the landscape of the neighborhood.
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And it really hit home for me because I grew up in Williamsburg and Green Point up until I was 30, 29, 30, 30, 29, because I moved out of my mother's house at 29 um for the second time.
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Uh I got my apartment in in Prospect Heights and I watched and I watched my home neighborhoods just change back to back.
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And that's you know, my colleagues were part of that transformation with all of the the land grabbing and getting the the zoning rights changed, uh to which which allowed these developers to build these buildings, like Schaefer Landing, which was right on the on the plot where Schaefer Beer used to be.
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Their factory was there.
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Um, I think which is not far from the Domino Sugar Factory, which went through many iterations of conversion idea that never fully materialized.
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I think they did something with it finally, but um they had to keep the facade.
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I think that was one of the contentions because it was landmarked.
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Um and then uh the Domino Sugar Park, I guess it's called, underneath it, and all that, all of that stuff.
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I watched how all of those projects change the landscape that's just was a giant wave from South Brooklyn all the way up to Green Point and all the way into the neighborhoods where rents are in a simple this this just blew my my mind like crazy.
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In a simple railroad apartment, where for those of you who don't know, it's one room after the other.
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So your kitchen could be living room, whatever, bedroom, bedroom, or vice versa, what have you.
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The last room is the parlor, the little big room, whatever.
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We we call that the parlor.
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Those guys were going for almost six thousand dollars in some cases, that and I might can't wrap my mind around this, you know.
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It's not that long ago where you know prices okay, they do go up, but I'm looking at a four-room railroad apartment, in some cases, maybe five, six thousand dollars, four thousand dollars, fifty three hundred dollars.
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And I'm like, wow, this is insane.
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Is it gentrification partly?
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Aside from, you know, landlord greed, maybe maybe they they're jacking up prices because their overhead is more expensive.
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All of that.
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But what's killing me is how well a lot of it is upsetting to me.
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Because as a 56 57-year-old person, the kind of money I'm making right now, I could technically live by myself, but now I have two roommates.
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I should be able to have a nice cool little one-bedroom or studio with a nominal rent.
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To me, nominal is you know I don't know.
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It's hard to put a a dollar figure on that now because everything is so all over the place and everything is so astronomical.
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Like for okay, there's a three-bedroom apartment where I live in now.
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We have one bathroom, one kitchen.
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Great size living room.
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Awkward shape, but it's rectangular shape, not not so bad.
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Um it's not cramped and tiny that my dog doesn't feel like he's you know living in a box.
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He's got room to run around, and my cat's got room to run around.
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It's a decent apartment.
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I would say this apartment should go for maybe two grand tops than what we're paying.
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Separated by three people, not including utilities.
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I lost my train of thought.
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But um to me, what I think is nominal for like a one-bedroom should be at least, you know,$1,800.
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With the money I'm making now at what I do and my at my day job, with all my bills carried in and utilities and all of that,$1,800 would be at my top my top uh max for my budget for a decent place.
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And there are plenty of decent apartments out there or places to live.
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So and this is part of the reason why I had trouble putting this video together is because it's all interconnected.
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The the the ethos, I don't know if it's the right word for this, but um of gentrification and what that means with the people moving into a neighborhood and changing what with the dynamics and the culture of a neighborhood is one thing, but it also comes with the uh effects of higher rents and prices because people who are hanging on by a thread are being pushed out by people who are just about making it but can still make it at a low for them.
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This is one neighborhood would be a lower price point than where they were because they're priced out of that area and they're coming in with high expectations of what they'd had.
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And it just seems to me that because now they have a higher uh income level than the people who are already entrenched in the neighborhoods they are moving into, they use their entitlement um attitudes to force a change onto a cultural neighborhood, a cultured neighborhood.
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To a space that's not their that was not theirs.
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Instead of trying to and I and I don't say this for for I don't mean I don't mean that they should come and just be like the people they're moving into.
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They should come and absorb and experience it, maybe add to, but not expect people to stop being themselves because now they are in the room.
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I think that's the point.
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I think that's where it you do that when you go to a job too, right?
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You get a new job, you don't walk in thinking, okay, now you all gotta do and say and act the way I do at my last job, or where you know, I don't know if we're making any sense, but it's it's very frustrating.
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So right now in my neighborhood, um it's kind of awkward because I see uh changeover, it's it's cyclic cyclical here because like I've mentioned many times before, I live down the street from Columbia Presbyterian Presbyterian Medical School and the hospital.
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So when every spring when they're graduating, a lot of these buildings around me here, you know, they're emptying out, people moving on to other, you know, other schooling or whatever, or what have you.
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Um and uh new people come in to go to school.
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And what we see is rents going up, you know, or they stay about the same.
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Um I also see a lot of people, I was gonna say this is the sad part, but this is part of the the thing.
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The the a lot of people in the theater district used to live in Hell's Kitchen.
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And for those of you who don't know, let's say 39th Street from say Broadway to the river, all the way up to 57th Street, Broadway to the river is considered Hell's Kitchen or Clinton.
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And um, it's the theater district, and where the way um Broadway theaters are configured, they're in those within that block, like right off of Broadway up to 8th Avenue.
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Um and then people lived around it who worked in the theater.
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Actors, crew, front of house, all of us lived within those few block radius with great apartments and great neighborhood feel.
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But then gentrification happened downtown in Chelsea, then everybody moved up, prices went up, then they moved up, prices went up, and just again cyclical.
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Um yeah.
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I I found I found it hard to talk about all of this without Stuck in a vicious circle of how it's all interconnected.
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I mean, I think the biggest problem with gentrification, like in the video you just saw, is the what's the word for them?
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For us, for everybody.
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Um natives to have to deal with newcomers acting like their way of living or being is not right and they should conform to this other way of being.
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Without even getting to know your neighbors, right?
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Excuse me.
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I think yeah, that's one of the biggest issues.
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I have seen since I moved back to the to where I am now, I have seen that in the year that I moved away that the neighborhood it it's it's it's a lot more white for sure.
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There are a lot less Spanish families along Fort Washington.
00:23:16.559 --> 00:23:24.720
Um definitely a lot of m a lot more theater people, a lot uh a lot more medical school people.
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:34.079
Uh yeah, the guys that lived next door to me when I moved into this new apartment next door to me, they worked downtown in the theater district.
00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:38.640
And I only know that because I could hear their conversations, they were talking about stuff.
00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:41.440
And their rent went up and they they they left.
00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:47.759
Uh people downstairs, the it was women downstairs who worked in theater, they moved out.
00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:59.759
Um the apartment below us, which was our initial um application before this one came open.
00:24:00.079 --> 00:24:06.559
Uh well, we they beat us by I think a half an hour, they got their paperwork in before we did.
00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:09.920
So, you know, first come, first order, but this one was open, so they we said yeah.
00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:14.960
Um they are in entertainment somehow.
00:24:15.039 --> 00:24:16.480
I think they I'm not quite sure.
00:24:16.559 --> 00:24:18.160
I don't think they're medical school people.
00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:51.440
Um I just feel like I think ultimately what's bothering me, and it's it's part of the animal, is how the expense of everything is really starting to get to me.
00:24:51.680 --> 00:24:55.119
In so much as I'm a pretty resilient person, I don't think don't bother me that much.
00:24:55.200 --> 00:25:09.119
But when I'm trying to stick to a budget and I'm realizing my staples are starting to become out of reach, like a package of chicken breasts or the other day, they were like 20 bucks, and I just stared at it.
00:25:09.279 --> 00:25:13.200
I literally just stared at it and then realized, do I get this or do I get something else?
00:25:13.279 --> 00:25:15.519
And that's never been an issue for me before.
00:25:16.400 --> 00:25:18.880
I just don't understand it.
00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:31.440
Um, but I see people, the white people around here, just filling up their carts like it's no problem.
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:45.200
I I have noticed though too, like around the first of the month, people who are on public assistance, they usually get their infusion of food stamps and all that onto their debit cards.
00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:51.279
Um they will go to the the supermarkets, but they're not that many anymore.
00:25:51.920 --> 00:26:02.000
Before it used to be like, say maybe the first weekend of the month you go to the supermarket, it would be packed with people all day long, trying to beat the crowds, but all day long packed with people, long lines at the register.
00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:07.200
The last few times I popped in there just to see and maybe pick something up, dead.
00:26:07.839 --> 00:26:09.359
Absolutely dead.
00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:35.279
I have noticed that uh the bodegas are starting to be uh uh well, I've noticed their shelves are starting to empty out more and their prices are starting to go up, and I think that's more greed than anything else because you know I don't think or you know it just hit me.
00:26:35.359 --> 00:26:37.680
It could be the tariff situation too.
00:26:38.319 --> 00:26:40.079
Why prices are so much?
00:26:40.559 --> 00:26:43.920
Well, not that I'm oblivious that that, yes, that is a factor.
00:26:44.079 --> 00:26:45.279
I'm aware of this.
00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:54.160
The tariffs have fucked all of us, but it's just dawning on me, and I'm putting it together that yeah, that is an issue, that is part of the problem.
00:26:54.400 --> 00:26:59.599
So, again, is gentrification just the issue that's bothering me for this episode?
00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:12.000
Does it make it does is this episode supposed to be about gentrification only because of what I've been feeling this past week in my my soul and my bones?
00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:14.480
Like, you know, everything is off.
00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:29.279
And as much as I try to keep a positive point of view and frame frame my brain that way, you know, and being creative and optimistic and all that, when I look at the world around me, I'm like, how are we managing?
00:27:29.440 --> 00:27:30.720
It's amazing to me.
00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:32.079
How are we doing?
00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:33.519
It's amazing to me.
00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:38.160
So yeah.
00:27:42.319 --> 00:27:56.079
But if I want to definitely bring it back around to gentrification, I would I would be curious as to what you all think.
00:27:56.240 --> 00:28:01.759
Like where you live in a major metropolitan area.
00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:08.319
How has how have you seen gentrification?
00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:10.720
How has it affected you and your everyday?
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:15.039
Um yeah.
00:28:21.680 --> 00:28:28.319
I know I was definitely that guy, get off my lawn when, you know, my very first apartment by myself.
00:28:28.559 --> 00:28:31.839
Um, you know, for some reason my stoop was the stoop to hang out on.
00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:34.559
I'm like, and I lived on the second floor and they would be blasting the music.
00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:36.480
I'm like, get the fuck out of here, you know.
00:28:36.559 --> 00:28:37.519
I gotta work in the morning.
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:38.799
Why are you doing that now?
00:28:39.119 --> 00:28:40.480
There's so many places you could go.
00:28:40.559 --> 00:28:41.359
Why here?
00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:42.319
You know.
00:28:43.279 --> 00:28:47.119
Uh there were quite a number of fights about that.
00:28:47.279 --> 00:28:49.839
But then they put a gate so you couldn't get on our stoop.
00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:52.960
So I don't know.
00:28:53.440 --> 00:29:01.359
Um and I remember being a kid, you know, hanging out on people's stoops, making noise back in the day.
00:29:02.319 --> 00:29:03.279
But I I felt bad.
00:29:03.359 --> 00:29:05.599
I was like, oh, sorry, I felt so bad.
00:29:05.920 --> 00:29:07.519
I didn't I didn't want to do that.
00:29:11.599 --> 00:29:13.279
Oh my coffee's cold.
00:29:16.240 --> 00:29:23.119
So yeah, folks, I mean what can what can we do?
00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:25.039
What can be done?
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:27.599
Well, I say I would say this.
00:29:27.759 --> 00:29:38.240
Um when you're when you're when you move to a neighborhood that you're not aware of, that you're not familiar with, get familiar with the culture, you know.
00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:42.000
I think that the the driving force is your finances.
00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:54.319
You move you need to move somewhere that's you know inexpensive, an easy commute to work, no hassles, you know, all amenities around you, you know, supermarket, urgent care, whatever it is that's on your list of priorities.
00:29:54.559 --> 00:29:59.680
That when you realize the neighborhood you're moving into has these things, there's a culture that comes with that neighborhood.
00:29:59.920 --> 00:30:13.839
And I would urgently express to you go there in the summertime and just walk around like after work, like 7 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m., to see what the neighborhood is really like.
00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:20.000
Because there are neighborhoods that, you know, people will jam out like all hours of the night on a Friday night until Saturday morning.
00:30:20.240 --> 00:30:37.359
And although you've busted your ass at work all week and you want to just crash on Friday and not wake up until Saturday morning, you may not be able to because the neighbors are hanging out front and they got their chairs out and they got the music playing, and you know, it's Friday, and you know, nobody nobody has to work the next day, but they just want to unwind.
00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:38.319
That's how they do it.
00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:43.359
Um, sometimes the block itself is just you know shut down and the whole bunch of stuff is happening.
00:30:43.519 --> 00:30:46.799
The major avenue is having stuff going on.
00:30:47.119 --> 00:30:48.079
Pardon me.
00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:53.440
You may like where my friend lives, there's a whole row of restaurants right at the foot of the building.
00:30:53.680 --> 00:30:59.039
And if you're in the apartments right above it, you're getting all the smells, you're getting all the noise from the bar, you're getting all of that.
00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:02.400
I personally would not live in that building because I know me.
00:31:02.799 --> 00:31:06.640
Um, but that's what you're you're choosing, right?
00:31:07.279 --> 00:31:14.160
So I would I would definitely definitely can take that into consideration.
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:18.880
So I don't know.
00:31:31.200 --> 00:31:37.279
Yeah, I feel like I feel like I don't know what I feel like.
00:31:38.880 --> 00:31:51.920
It's what I'm feeling right now is the sense of loss of not being able to live where I grew up.
00:31:52.160 --> 00:31:56.640
And that I think that whenever I do think about gentrification, that's what comes to mind right away.
00:31:56.799 --> 00:32:02.720
Um, I have acquaintances who I know who bought up houses and property.
00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:11.039
Um one has been documenting on Facebook the transformation of his house and the backyard and the neighbor building next door and all of that.
00:32:11.200 --> 00:32:19.200
And as much as I'm like, oh, that's wonderful, you you bought a house in my my hometown, and it's Europe, one of the reasons why I can't afford to live there.
00:32:19.839 --> 00:32:31.039
Um I just feel the loss of my neighborhood that what the part of me that helped forge me into the person I am today, you know.
00:32:33.039 --> 00:32:44.880
The memories of riding from one side of the town to the other, visiting family, you know, getting into fights, uh playing handball at the park, all that jazz.
00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:49.759
Messing around in the bushes with the boys and the girls.
00:32:50.480 --> 00:32:51.920
And that place doesn't exist anymore.
00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:54.960
They tore that down and built a condo on that park area.
00:32:55.440 --> 00:32:56.240
So fucked up, man.
00:32:56.559 --> 00:32:58.400
That was a fun spot to just kill.
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:02.160
Uh going to this the swimming pool.
00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:04.640
I think the public swim swimming pool is still there.
00:33:05.359 --> 00:33:08.240
A metropolitan Bedford, maybe?
00:33:08.799 --> 00:33:09.519
I think so.
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:10.720
Could still be there.
00:33:11.119 --> 00:33:11.839
I could be wrong.
00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:16.640
Um, yeah, I just think about the fact that I can't live where I grew up.
00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:21.359
That's I thought that that's what I would do when I moved back from California.
00:33:21.599 --> 00:33:26.000
I really that was on the the list, but things turned out the way they turned out.
00:33:26.720 --> 00:33:30.799
I'm not mad at that, but I I do miss my my hometown.
00:33:33.200 --> 00:33:34.960
Still in New York though.
00:33:35.839 --> 00:33:36.799
Alright, everybody.
00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:38.880
Um look.
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:49.519
I know it all of this is tough for a lot of people, and I I can appreciate that.
00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:59.680
But I don't want you to feel like you don't have a say in what goes on in your neighborhood.
00:33:59.759 --> 00:34:11.519
So what I would suggest is get in touch with your local politicians, get involved with what's going on locally, but whether it's political, social, all that jazz.
00:34:12.320 --> 00:34:19.199
And just to add to the whole idea, um, I went to Puerto Rico for the first time a couple years ago for my birthday.
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:20.719
Many of you know this.
00:34:21.599 --> 00:34:25.360
I thought I'm making Puerto Rico my retirement destination.
00:34:25.519 --> 00:34:29.920
I definitely want to live there, like when I'm old.
00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:31.440
I want to be there.
00:34:32.559 --> 00:34:38.800
I did, and and I started following a lot of the political environment, a lot of the real estate environment, all of that, because that's what I'm trained to do.
00:34:38.880 --> 00:34:44.639
Because I'm that's where the politics and real estate go, where the money goes, that's what follows, right?
00:34:45.039 --> 00:34:53.119
So I wanted to be prepared, like you know, what it would look like for me if I became a renter or if I put enough money to buy something modest for myself, right?
00:34:53.440 --> 00:35:03.519
And I I got quite the education now, mind you, I I did not, I'm not oblivious to what Hurricane Maria did to the island, and that's a possibility in the future again.
00:35:03.920 --> 00:35:13.119
But I wanted to know more about the politics because the politics is what affects everything, knowing that Puerto Rico is a commonwealth and not a state, um, just a territory.
00:35:13.199 --> 00:35:26.880
And there's so much to it that I think at it, looking at it logically, it makes no sense why someone would want to go there and relocate there.
00:35:27.280 --> 00:35:31.840
Financially, culturally, it's a it's a double-edged sword for me.
00:35:32.159 --> 00:35:39.840
Financially, if I build more of my business here, I can relocate there, and my taxes and overhead would be far less.
00:35:40.159 --> 00:36:01.679
Culturally, being half Puerto Rican and in the diaspora, knowing what I know now, what's going on there politically, and what what the people investing in the island from around the world are doing to the island, I would go there to help to help save for the is that what I want to say?
00:36:01.920 --> 00:36:10.239
To be a part of the the change and um protection of the culture and the island itself.
00:36:10.559 --> 00:36:32.320
And nothing nowhere else, as much as I would love to live in other places that I visited, nothing nowhere else has captured my essence and my soul, like when I was there, when I experienced the ocean waves myself, when I experienced the local cuisine, when I experienced the neighborhoods where my grandparents were from before they moved to the states.
00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:44.880
To know the history of where my great-great-great-grandparents migrated from Europe to the island, the ones who were slaves that were transported to the islands.
00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:51.440
All of that hit me in my understanding of myself being biracial and bicultural.
00:36:53.760 --> 00:37:11.679
So, with that said, understanding where you're going, um, get involved, be aware of before you make that that leap, because there's so much more than just you know picking up stakes and putting them somewhere and you know just living your life without being conscious of the life going on around you.
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:15.679
I think I think that's what I wanted to say.
00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:21.280
Yeah, so if that's what you're gonna do, try it out.
00:37:21.440 --> 00:37:24.639
Get involved, figure it out, learn more about the people around you.
00:37:25.039 --> 00:37:28.000
So all right, that's that's what I got for you this week, folks.
00:37:28.079 --> 00:37:29.199
Um, I hope I made sense.
00:37:29.280 --> 00:37:33.039
I feel like I'm I didn't quite make the the point.
00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:36.400
But if you made it this far, let's see.
00:37:36.639 --> 00:37:39.199
Uh drop a like.
00:37:39.679 --> 00:37:43.599
Uh what emoji should we use for this video?
00:37:44.400 --> 00:37:48.960
Um I don't know.
00:37:50.800 --> 00:37:52.159
How about the high fives?
00:37:52.239 --> 00:37:54.559
It looks like the praying, it's the high fives.
00:37:57.280 --> 00:37:58.559
Yeah, do that.
00:38:01.599 --> 00:38:02.559
We could do that.
00:38:02.719 --> 00:38:03.760
And let me know what you think.
00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:15.840
I mean, I would I would like to know uh how like I said before, how has the gentrification affected you in your life, in people coming into your neighborhood where you grew up or you're from, or are you going somewhere else and experiencing that?
00:38:16.079 --> 00:38:20.639
Or do you carry yourself differently when you're in a neighborhood that you just moved to?
00:38:21.199 --> 00:38:22.320
All that jazz.
00:38:22.559 --> 00:38:25.760
Um do you even give a shit?
00:38:25.840 --> 00:38:27.360
If you don't, just say I don't give a fuck.
00:38:28.400 --> 00:38:29.119
I don't.
00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:30.400
This is weird, Mike.
00:38:30.480 --> 00:38:31.440
I goodbye.
00:38:31.599 --> 00:38:32.639
Just do that.
00:38:33.920 --> 00:38:35.039
Uh all right.
00:38:35.199 --> 00:38:36.559
Thanks very much, everybody.
00:38:36.639 --> 00:38:38.239
If you're listening to this, thank you so much.
00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:39.039
I appreciate it.
00:38:39.199 --> 00:38:44.079
Um, like always, hit the like, star, share, all that jazz.
00:38:44.159 --> 00:38:49.679
If you are listening on Spotify, I love the fact that you're listening on Spotify.
00:38:50.079 --> 00:38:53.920
Hit the download because that will help me move up in the algorithm.
00:38:54.079 --> 00:38:56.800
The stars, give me five stars too there if you if you want to.
00:38:56.960 --> 00:39:00.079
Same thing on Apple Pod or wherever you listen to your podcast.
00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:12.239
Um also if you remember, if you want to send me um any kind of message, a direct message, it'll come to me through the Buzz Sprout uh uh app.
00:39:12.559 --> 00:39:16.480
If you're listening to me on Buzz Sprout, you can hit it where it says DM mic.
00:39:16.559 --> 00:39:18.880
You can you'll see right there at the top of the body.
00:39:19.519 --> 00:39:20.639
You can send a message.
00:39:20.719 --> 00:39:28.559
And if it's something cool that you want me to share, I can share it in in an episode, or maybe I'll just randomly choose someone and say, I got this letter from someone.
00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:32.480
And of course, if you go over to Patreon, you can see all the behind-the-scenes stuff.
00:39:32.559 --> 00:39:37.840
There, and this and I'm gonna announce it here since I feel like my this video was kind of a womp womp.
00:39:38.239 --> 00:39:49.199
Um there's uh a new Migrated Media Patreon that's gonna be that is launched, it's live, it's just being tweaked to be more of the production work that I'm doing.
00:39:49.360 --> 00:39:57.440
Then there's my podcast one that you're all aware of already, and there'll be more for each project that I'm that I'm working on.
00:39:57.519 --> 00:40:04.639
So you get to have uh a variety of ways and to support and follow along with everything that I'm doing.
00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:09.440
So um I'm working on well, I can't say yet.
00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:11.440
Okay, I'm working on a short film.
00:40:11.519 --> 00:40:12.800
I think I mentioned that before.
00:40:13.039 --> 00:40:15.199
Um I'm putting it all together.
00:40:15.360 --> 00:40:22.000
I wanted to shoot it next month, but it that's not gonna happen because of the way it's gonna have to go down, and I want it to be just right.
00:40:22.239 --> 00:40:29.519
So maybe in the spring, still have the same kind of um atmospheric conditions as the fall and early spring.
00:40:29.599 --> 00:40:31.920
Um, so we're gonna shoot it around April.
00:40:32.800 --> 00:40:34.400
April, yes, April.
00:40:34.719 --> 00:40:38.000
Um, that's one too.
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:40.719
Uh, a couple other things are coming your way.
00:40:40.960 --> 00:40:42.079
I think you're gonna like it.
00:40:42.239 --> 00:40:46.239
Um yeah, that's all I can say.
00:40:46.320 --> 00:40:48.320
But yeah, you have to follow along and subscribe.
00:40:48.400 --> 00:40:53.840
You and you don't have to like pay for anything to be a free uh uh member or visitor to the Patreon.
00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:56.320
You can just when you do that, you'll just get updates and all of that.
00:40:56.400 --> 00:41:00.079
And then if you hit down below and sign up for the newsletter, you'll get all that stuff too.
00:41:00.239 --> 00:41:05.119
And there's a lot of great things that that I think you're gonna love to be involved in.
00:41:05.199 --> 00:41:07.840
And when I say involved, it's not not just monetarily.
00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:16.239
You'll be able to come hang out with us when we have the events, when and we're out and about or being come visit and see how we're doing the things.
00:41:16.320 --> 00:41:17.519
It's it's really cool.
00:41:17.679 --> 00:41:21.840
You're gonna love it, and I'm excited to create this for you to see.
00:41:21.920 --> 00:41:24.239
So all right, my friends.
00:41:24.559 --> 00:41:27.760
Peace out, have a great week, and I'll see you next time.
00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:08.400
What's up everybody?
00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:09.439
Welcome back to the pod.
00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:20.399
I'm Mike Draden Figaro, and this is Unscripted and Unrehearsed, where I give you my take on news of the day, things I've seen, heard, experienced.
00:00:21.519 --> 00:00:22.640
All that jazz.
00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:31.359
Um, I I don't remember why I wanted this episode to be about gentrification.
00:00:33.039 --> 00:00:36.799
Uh I just can't remember why.
00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:41.759
And I have some notes, but I just can't figure out how to move forward.
00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:57.280
And I've I've been struggling putting it together all week because I've been trying to figure out how not to sound like I'm complaining when I'm experiencing gentrification every day.
00:00:57.679 --> 00:01:02.079
Um and we'll get into it.
00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:04.079
Um I think.
00:01:12.079 --> 00:01:23.120
Anyway, um so yeah, um, I don't remember like what I what I initially thought I wanted to do.
00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:28.239
I know for for a fact, um oh shoot, his name just left me.
00:01:28.719 --> 00:01:37.599
There's this incredible musician who's got this great, um I know you've seen it, and uh he he's singing haikus.
00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:46.079
And uh the one that really uh stands out is the one about gentrification, and and it plays in my head.
00:01:46.239 --> 00:01:48.560
I'm like, oh my god, I can't make a stop some days.
00:01:48.719 --> 00:01:49.840
Um, but it's true.
00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:52.640
Um gentrification.
00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:56.480
Rents are higher every day, everybody's white.
00:01:56.799 --> 00:01:57.280
Haiku.
00:01:58.079 --> 00:02:00.079
And I'm that is a brilliant haiku.
00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:13.120
Um uh yeah, so it it the thought to do this episode on gentrification came way before um I started seeing his posts.
00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:18.159
Um it'll be in the description below, because I can't remember unless it comes back to me.
00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:20.960
So yeah.
00:02:23.199 --> 00:02:24.319
We're you know what?
00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:28.800
First, check out this video and then we'll get into it on the other side.
00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:34.560
Sometimes gentrification is a way of saying we don't want to coexist, we want you out.
00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:36.639
Gentrification is in our neighborhood.
00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:38.240
What is gentrification to you?
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Do you see our community losing its cultural roots, or do you just see it embracing other folks coming in?
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I kind of see it like how some of the older generation probably sees it.
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We have people coming in that aren't from our community, don't know nothing about the people that make this place up oftentimes don't want to include them with the new creations that they're working on.
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And it's adding more to the erasure of our culture.
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For example, the story I was telling you earlier about the millionaire.
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And I feel like you know, it's like a like you know, this is more fairly they'll come up to people who don't have language around property ownership or who don't understand the value of what property is.
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Well, nothing of gentrification, nothing about housing and the politics of housing and like red line.
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And so I go all the way back.
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That's the deep filmmaker and meteoric.
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I'm thinking about the racial divide on how even the hill was created.
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So it's always been a tactic to keep kick us out.
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I feel like if we could have conversations with the community so you could hear them out and they they know what's happening too.
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Um, I think the conversation can be more how can we upgrade what we have right now?
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When we think about where we come from, we understand that we got lack of resources, education system is flawed, the things that we eat every day, right, is not as healthy.
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Why do we have to coexist when we are the marginalized?
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We are already going through you know life and trying to figure out what works for us.
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I think the conversation is more of why do why when white people come now, we start to have conversations around a whole foods being there's a reason when people say community don't like to come out to meetings because they've been used up in all these meetings, right?
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Folks will come in, do their focus groups, get a 25 hour gift card, so it becomes conditional even exchange.
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Uh right up um Lehigh, you know, the bridge, the little bridge, like Emerald Street, there's a little bridge underneath the folks down there with their tents and living underneath there.
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So our folks gotta put up with it, right?
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We gotta accept it.
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As soon as developers were buying property outside, it was cleared up that fast.
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So for the past 10 years, the community's been coming out with meetings and doing surveys and having all these discussions about we need our blocks safe from our children stepping on needles.
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But when a developer brought some property that was able to clear.
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For so many years, we've been reporting this, we've been going through this, and they're trying to figure out what is the difference.
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Sometimes justification is a way of saying we don't want to coexist, we want you out, so we're gonna put all these things in place.
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So the Whole Foods really is not for you, right?
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Because you can't afford how much it costs.
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All right, so now what I remember.
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Wait, okay, so I I I oh god, so many thoughts at once.
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Where I grew up in Green Point, um, we were, you know, the as far as I well, the the block was divided.
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Kingsland Avenue is very, very long between Nassau and Drake's.
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It's very, very long.
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It's like a Manhattan block, right?
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Um I would say halfway down the block, depending on your perspective.
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Like going, I want to say north ish toward Newtown Creek, was mostly white.
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And that's that's where we grew up.
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And then the other side going sort of south ish was um was this south?
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Anyway, going the other direction towards Driggs was more Spanish, I want to say, more mixed neighborhoody kind of.
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But it was like mostly no Germans and Polish people.
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And you know, that's what my family was on my mother's side, right?
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So we would we definitely stood out, my sister and I, because we were the only colored kids on the block.
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Um, not that we're like very melanated, but you know, we're though the we're the Puerto Rican kids on the block, as it as they would say.
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Um I lost my treno thought.
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Oh, okay.
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So I didn't really know what gentrification meant back then.
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No, nobody knew.
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It's just like the people were moving, people were moving in, moving out, neighborhood was changing.
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But it wasn't apparent like that in the 70s or in the like early to mid-80s.
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So when we moved, we moved to the projects, which was like right on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint.
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And uh it was like mostly all the kids I went to school with were like from there.
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Um, there were kids in the other neighborhood that went to public school with us, but you know, most of them were from the project neighborhoods in the projects and the houses around.
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And um again, to me, it was just a mix of different people and cultures or what have you.
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So it it growing up in Brooklyn, you back then there was I don't want to say this wrong, but although there was a division of neighborhoods and you knew your your borders, neighborhoods were for the most part mixed.
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It's far from my perspective, because I had family in all of the neighborhoods, so we just moved through them.
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So I digress.
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Um, I didn't start experiencing gentrification, I think, until I got my first apartment in Prospect Heights.
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And I mean, back then it was a very, very black neighborhood.
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Um at the more um towards uh Barclay Center, I want to say that you get got from like Bedford Avenue and Franklin Avenue going, I want to say west, I guess.
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Um the houses got nicer, there was more single-family homes, condos, conversions, um, a lot of people moving into that area, gentrifying a neighborhood for sure.
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Because the I think I want to say was the Grand Army Plaza station, which I think is the two, three, and the four and five.
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Or the no, the the three and the five.
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Three and the five?
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Yeah, let's just go with that.
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Um there, there, uh that station there was the park slope station for the most part.
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So um people living in Park Slope would get off there and go in that direction, and people living in Prospect Heights, which is a lot less expensive, then Park Slope would go in the other direction.
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And that's when you know people getting pri price out of Park Slope started drifting more into Prospect Heights, and then that's when gentrification there started blowing up, and realtors started giving these neighborhoods these cute little ridiculous names just to get people interested in this Bohemian change or what have you, or to be cool, which is a friggin' peeve of mine, anyway.
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So I I lived I lived in my apartment for I want to say maybe 10 years.
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So no, I was like eight, nine years uh before I moved uh to to um Fort Green.
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And I watched how the neighborhood started to change.
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Uh abandoned or you know, um unused storefronts were starting to see some life.
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Um there were hair salons everywhere and a lot of um black hair product stores all along Franklin Avenue, which was really cool.
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Um, a lot of um uh folks selling like African uh attire and incense and all of that.
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And the further deep into Brooklyn on that side you went, you you there was a lot of Koreans over there, a little um still very, very black because it was becoming Crown Heights um on that side, divided by um Eastern Parkway because this is the south south of Eastern Parkway was the Hasidim, and then the other side was black, but they were like bridging from Williamsburg south into there.
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So um I started noticing these these changes.
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I thought, oh, this is cool, you know, new a new laundromat that's more modern with better machines, as opposed to the one who there was always a shootout of some sort.
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I was like, uh now I get it.
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I started understanding, like, oh, so this new spot is there, people start going there.
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That place is gonna lose business, nobody wants to go there because you know, the last time they went there, there was a problem.
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Then there were uh people buying up the abandoned houses, white people.
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I'm just gonna say it because this is the point of the video.
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Um, a lot of white people, some with money, some, and this was at the height of the bubble, you had the real estate bubble about to burst because of you know the economic um craziness back then.
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Um, where people were given these incredible uh uh uh uh terms for mortgages.
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They bought these properties and then you know their terms changed as per the contract, and then they lost everything.
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Some.
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I don't know if not all, but definitely some.
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So they were there were these people getting these incredible loans, the purchase loan, the fixer-upper loan, all of that jazz in there, buying these houses and fixing them up um and changing the this the landscape of the neighborhood.
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You know, there were more families with kids coming in, they were you know starting the fixing up the front front part of the building, the the backyards were getting fixed up, and then there started to become conflict with neighbors on either side who were, you know, being themselves in their neighborhood that they've been all their lives.
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And here comes this new family.
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You know, you're being too loud, you're da da da da.
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You can't be smoking up, you know, don't smoke in front of your house because it comes to my house.
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All of this weird stuff that I actually witnessed myself showing people property to sell.
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Um, and it upset me because I felt like being being biracial and multicultural, I'm trying to, at this point in my life, I was trying to build a business or career that I could do because I enjoyed it, um, and not have to really break my back just constantly utilizing my smarts and following the markets and all of that.
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And it it's an exhausting kind of job to have when you have to constantly be doing math in your head.
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Um, it can get tiring.
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That's most brokers won't say that to you, but yes, you're constantly doing math because you're thinking about that person's finances and this market uh si signals there and what the Fed is gonna do and how it's affecting the banks, all of that hits your bottom line too, because if people aren't getting great rate, they're not buying, and you're not making money.
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Same deal with renting, same, it's the same animal.
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I digress again.
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Um I felt like I was contributing to the problem at one point where people were getting price out of the neighborhoods they grew up in all their lives, and new people with means were coming in and changing the the face and the landscape of the neighborhood.
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And it really hit home for me because I grew up in Williamsburg and Green Point up until I was 30, 29, 30, 30, 29, because I moved out of my mother's house at 29 um for the second time.
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Uh I got my apartment in in Prospect Heights and I watched and I watched my home neighborhoods just change back to back.
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And that's you know, my colleagues were part of that transformation with all of the the land grabbing and getting the the zoning rights changed, uh to which which allowed these developers to build these buildings, like Schaefer Landing, which was right on the on the plot where Schaefer Beer used to be.
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Their factory was there.
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Um, I think which is not far from the Domino Sugar Factory, which went through many iterations of conversion idea that never fully materialized.
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I think they did something with it finally, but um they had to keep the facade.
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I think that was one of the contentions because it was landmarked.
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Um and then uh the Domino Sugar Park, I guess it's called, underneath it, and all that, all of that stuff.
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I watched how all of those projects change the landscape that's just was a giant wave from South Brooklyn all the way up to Green Point and all the way into the neighborhoods where rents are in a simple this this just blew my my mind like crazy.
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In a simple railroad apartment, where for those of you who don't know, it's one room after the other.
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So your kitchen could be living room, whatever, bedroom, bedroom, or vice versa, what have you.
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The last room is the parlor, the little big room, whatever.
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We we call that the parlor.
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Those guys were going for almost six thousand dollars in some cases, that and I might can't wrap my mind around this, you know.
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It's not that long ago where you know prices okay, they do go up, but I'm looking at a four-room railroad apartment, in some cases, maybe five, six thousand dollars, four thousand dollars, fifty three hundred dollars.
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And I'm like, wow, this is insane.
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Is it gentrification partly?
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Aside from, you know, landlord greed, maybe maybe they they're jacking up prices because their overhead is more expensive.
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All of that.
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But what's killing me is how well a lot of it is upsetting to me.
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Because as a 56 57-year-old person, the kind of money I'm making right now, I could technically live by myself, but now I have two roommates.
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I should be able to have a nice cool little one-bedroom or studio with a nominal rent.
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To me, nominal is you know I don't know.
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It's hard to put a a dollar figure on that now because everything is so all over the place and everything is so astronomical.
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Like for okay, there's a three-bedroom apartment where I live in now.
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We have one bathroom, one kitchen.
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Great size living room.
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Awkward shape, but it's rectangular shape, not not so bad.
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Um it's not cramped and tiny that my dog doesn't feel like he's you know living in a box.
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He's got room to run around, and my cat's got room to run around.
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It's a decent apartment.
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I would say this apartment should go for maybe two grand tops than what we're paying.
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Separated by three people, not including utilities.
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I lost my train of thought.
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But um to me, what I think is nominal for like a one-bedroom should be at least, you know,$1,800.
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With the money I'm making now at what I do and my at my day job, with all my bills carried in and utilities and all of that,$1,800 would be at my top my top uh max for my budget for a decent place.
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And there are plenty of decent apartments out there or places to live.
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So and this is part of the reason why I had trouble putting this video together is because it's all interconnected.
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The the the ethos, I don't know if it's the right word for this, but um of gentrification and what that means with the people moving into a neighborhood and changing what with the dynamics and the culture of a neighborhood is one thing, but it also comes with the uh effects of higher rents and prices because people who are hanging on by a thread are being pushed out by people who are just about making it but can still make it at a low for them.
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This is one neighborhood would be a lower price point than where they were because they're priced out of that area and they're coming in with high expectations of what they'd had.
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And it just seems to me that because now they have a higher uh income level than the people who are already entrenched in the neighborhoods they are moving into, they use their entitlement um attitudes to force a change onto a cultural neighborhood, a cultured neighborhood.
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To a space that's not their that was not theirs.
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Instead of trying to and I and I don't say this for for I don't mean I don't mean that they should come and just be like the people they're moving into.
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They should come and absorb and experience it, maybe add to, but not expect people to stop being themselves because now they are in the room.
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I think that's the point.
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I think that's where it you do that when you go to a job too, right?
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You get a new job, you don't walk in thinking, okay, now you all gotta do and say and act the way I do at my last job, or where you know, I don't know if we're making any sense, but it's it's very frustrating.
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So right now in my neighborhood, um it's kind of awkward because I see uh changeover, it's it's cyclic cyclical here because like I've mentioned many times before, I live down the street from Columbia Presbyterian Presbyterian Medical School and the hospital.
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So when every spring when they're graduating, a lot of these buildings around me here, you know, they're emptying out, people moving on to other, you know, other schooling or whatever, or what have you.
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Um and uh new people come in to go to school.
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And what we see is rents going up, you know, or they stay about the same.
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Um I also see a lot of people, I was gonna say this is the sad part, but this is part of the the thing.
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The the a lot of people in the theater district used to live in Hell's Kitchen.
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And for those of you who don't know, let's say 39th Street from say Broadway to the river, all the way up to 57th Street, Broadway to the river is considered Hell's Kitchen or Clinton.
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And um, it's the theater district, and where the way um Broadway theaters are configured, they're in those within that block, like right off of Broadway up to 8th Avenue.
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Um and then people lived around it who worked in the theater.
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Actors, crew, front of house, all of us lived within those few block radius with great apartments and great neighborhood feel.
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But then gentrification happened downtown in Chelsea, then everybody moved up, prices went up, then they moved up, prices went up, and just again cyclical.
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Um yeah.
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I I found I found it hard to talk about all of this without Stuck in a vicious circle of how it's all interconnected.
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I mean, I think the biggest problem with gentrification, like in the video you just saw, is the what's the word for them?
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For us, for everybody.
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Um natives to have to deal with newcomers acting like their way of living or being is not right and they should conform to this other way of being.
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Without even getting to know your neighbors, right?
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Excuse me.
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I think yeah, that's one of the biggest issues.
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I have seen since I moved back to the to where I am now, I have seen that in the year that I moved away that the neighborhood it it's it's it's a lot more white for sure.
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There are a lot less Spanish families along Fort Washington.
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Um definitely a lot of m a lot more theater people, a lot uh a lot more medical school people.
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Uh yeah, the guys that lived next door to me when I moved into this new apartment next door to me, they worked downtown in the theater district.
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And I only know that because I could hear their conversations, they were talking about stuff.
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And their rent went up and they they they left.
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Uh people downstairs, the it was women downstairs who worked in theater, they moved out.
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Um the apartment below us, which was our initial um application before this one came open.
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Uh well, we they beat us by I think a half an hour, they got their paperwork in before we did.
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So, you know, first come, first order, but this one was open, so they we said yeah.
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Um they are in entertainment somehow.
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I think they I'm not quite sure.
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I don't think they're medical school people.
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Um I just feel like I think ultimately what's bothering me, and it's it's part of the animal, is how the expense of everything is really starting to get to me.
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In so much as I'm a pretty resilient person, I don't think don't bother me that much.
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But when I'm trying to stick to a budget and I'm realizing my staples are starting to become out of reach, like a package of chicken breasts or the other day, they were like 20 bucks, and I just stared at it.
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I literally just stared at it and then realized, do I get this or do I get something else?
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And that's never been an issue for me before.
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I just don't understand it.
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Um, but I see people, the white people around here, just filling up their carts like it's no problem.
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I I have noticed though too, like around the first of the month, people who are on public assistance, they usually get their infusion of food stamps and all that onto their debit cards.
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Um they will go to the the supermarkets, but they're not that many anymore.
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Before it used to be like, say maybe the first weekend of the month you go to the supermarket, it would be packed with people all day long, trying to beat the crowds, but all day long packed with people, long lines at the register.
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The last few times I popped in there just to see and maybe pick something up, dead.
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Absolutely dead.
00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:35.279
I have noticed that uh the bodegas are starting to be uh uh well, I've noticed their shelves are starting to empty out more and their prices are starting to go up, and I think that's more greed than anything else because you know I don't think or you know it just hit me.
00:26:35.359 --> 00:26:37.680
It could be the tariff situation too.
00:26:38.319 --> 00:26:40.079
Why prices are so much?
00:26:40.559 --> 00:26:43.920
Well, not that I'm oblivious that that, yes, that is a factor.
00:26:44.079 --> 00:26:45.279
I'm aware of this.
00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:54.160
The tariffs have fucked all of us, but it's just dawning on me, and I'm putting it together that yeah, that is an issue, that is part of the problem.
00:26:54.400 --> 00:26:59.599
So, again, is gentrification just the issue that's bothering me for this episode?
00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:12.000
Does it make it does is this episode supposed to be about gentrification only because of what I've been feeling this past week in my my soul and my bones?
00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:14.480
Like, you know, everything is off.
00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:29.279
And as much as I try to keep a positive point of view and frame frame my brain that way, you know, and being creative and optimistic and all that, when I look at the world around me, I'm like, how are we managing?
00:27:29.440 --> 00:27:30.720
It's amazing to me.
00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:32.079
How are we doing?
00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:33.519
It's amazing to me.
00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:38.160
So yeah.
00:27:42.319 --> 00:27:56.079
But if I want to definitely bring it back around to gentrification, I would I would be curious as to what you all think.
00:27:56.240 --> 00:28:01.759
Like where you live in a major metropolitan area.
00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:08.319
How has how have you seen gentrification?
00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:10.720
How has it affected you and your everyday?
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:15.039
Um yeah.
00:28:21.680 --> 00:28:28.319
I know I was definitely that guy, get off my lawn when, you know, my very first apartment by myself.
00:28:28.559 --> 00:28:31.839
Um, you know, for some reason my stoop was the stoop to hang out on.
00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:34.559
I'm like, and I lived on the second floor and they would be blasting the music.
00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:36.480
I'm like, get the fuck out of here, you know.
00:28:36.559 --> 00:28:37.519
I gotta work in the morning.
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:38.799
Why are you doing that now?
00:28:39.119 --> 00:28:40.480
There's so many places you could go.
00:28:40.559 --> 00:28:41.359
Why here?
00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:42.319
You know.
00:28:43.279 --> 00:28:47.119
Uh there were quite a number of fights about that.
00:28:47.279 --> 00:28:49.839
But then they put a gate so you couldn't get on our stoop.
00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:52.960
So I don't know.
00:28:53.440 --> 00:29:01.359
Um and I remember being a kid, you know, hanging out on people's stoops, making noise back in the day.
00:29:02.319 --> 00:29:03.279
But I I felt bad.
00:29:03.359 --> 00:29:05.599
I was like, oh, sorry, I felt so bad.
00:29:05.920 --> 00:29:07.519
I didn't I didn't want to do that.
00:29:11.599 --> 00:29:13.279
Oh my coffee's cold.
00:29:16.240 --> 00:29:23.119
So yeah, folks, I mean what can what can we do?
00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:25.039
What can be done?
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:27.599
Well, I say I would say this.
00:29:27.759 --> 00:29:38.240
Um when you're when you're when you move to a neighborhood that you're not aware of, that you're not familiar with, get familiar with the culture, you know.
00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:42.000
I think that the the driving force is your finances.
00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:54.319
You move you need to move somewhere that's you know inexpensive, an easy commute to work, no hassles, you know, all amenities around you, you know, supermarket, urgent care, whatever it is that's on your list of priorities.
00:29:54.559 --> 00:29:59.680
That when you realize the neighborhood you're moving into has these things, there's a culture that comes with that neighborhood.
00:29:59.920 --> 00:30:13.839
And I would urgently express to you go there in the summertime and just walk around like after work, like 7 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m., to see what the neighborhood is really like.
00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:20.000
Because there are neighborhoods that, you know, people will jam out like all hours of the night on a Friday night until Saturday morning.
00:30:20.240 --> 00:30:37.359
And although you've busted your ass at work all week and you want to just crash on Friday and not wake up until Saturday morning, you may not be able to because the neighbors are hanging out front and they got their chairs out and they got the music playing, and you know, it's Friday, and you know, nobody nobody has to work the next day, but they just want to unwind.
00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:38.319
That's how they do it.
00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:43.359
Um, sometimes the block itself is just you know shut down and the whole bunch of stuff is happening.
00:30:43.519 --> 00:30:46.799
The major avenue is having stuff going on.
00:30:47.119 --> 00:30:48.079
Pardon me.
00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:53.440
You may like where my friend lives, there's a whole row of restaurants right at the foot of the building.
00:30:53.680 --> 00:30:59.039
And if you're in the apartments right above it, you're getting all the smells, you're getting all the noise from the bar, you're getting all of that.
00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:02.400
I personally would not live in that building because I know me.
00:31:02.799 --> 00:31:06.640
Um, but that's what you're you're choosing, right?
00:31:07.279 --> 00:31:14.160
So I would I would definitely definitely can take that into consideration.
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:18.880
So I don't know.
00:31:31.200 --> 00:31:37.279
Yeah, I feel like I feel like I don't know what I feel like.
00:31:38.880 --> 00:31:51.920
It's what I'm feeling right now is the sense of loss of not being able to live where I grew up.
00:31:52.160 --> 00:31:56.640
And that I think that whenever I do think about gentrification, that's what comes to mind right away.
00:31:56.799 --> 00:32:02.720
Um, I have acquaintances who I know who bought up houses and property.
00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:11.039
Um one has been documenting on Facebook the transformation of his house and the backyard and the neighbor building next door and all of that.
00:32:11.200 --> 00:32:19.200
And as much as I'm like, oh, that's wonderful, you you bought a house in my my hometown, and it's Europe, one of the reasons why I can't afford to live there.
00:32:19.839 --> 00:32:31.039
Um I just feel the loss of my neighborhood that what the part of me that helped forge me into the person I am today, you know.
00:32:33.039 --> 00:32:44.880
The memories of riding from one side of the town to the other, visiting family, you know, getting into fights, uh playing handball at the park, all that jazz.
00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:49.759
Messing around in the bushes with the boys and the girls.
00:32:50.480 --> 00:32:51.920
And that place doesn't exist anymore.
00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:54.960
They tore that down and built a condo on that park area.
00:32:55.440 --> 00:32:56.240
So fucked up, man.
00:32:56.559 --> 00:32:58.400
That was a fun spot to just kill.
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:02.160
Uh going to this the swimming pool.
00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:04.640
I think the public swim swimming pool is still there.
00:33:05.359 --> 00:33:08.240
A metropolitan Bedford, maybe?
00:33:08.799 --> 00:33:09.519
I think so.
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:10.720
Could still be there.
00:33:11.119 --> 00:33:11.839
I could be wrong.
00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:16.640
Um, yeah, I just think about the fact that I can't live where I grew up.
00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:21.359
That's I thought that that's what I would do when I moved back from California.
00:33:21.599 --> 00:33:26.000
I really that was on the the list, but things turned out the way they turned out.
00:33:26.720 --> 00:33:30.799
I'm not mad at that, but I I do miss my my hometown.
00:33:33.200 --> 00:33:34.960
Still in New York though.
00:33:35.839 --> 00:33:36.799
Alright, everybody.
00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:38.880
Um look.
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:49.519
I know it all of this is tough for a lot of people, and I I can appreciate that.
00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:59.680
But I don't want you to feel like you don't have a say in what goes on in your neighborhood.
00:33:59.759 --> 00:34:11.519
So what I would suggest is get in touch with your local politicians, get involved with what's going on locally, but whether it's political, social, all that jazz.
00:34:12.320 --> 00:34:19.199
And just to add to the whole idea, um, I went to Puerto Rico for the first time a couple years ago for my birthday.
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:20.719
Many of you know this.
00:34:21.599 --> 00:34:25.360
I thought I'm making Puerto Rico my retirement destination.
00:34:25.519 --> 00:34:29.920
I definitely want to live there, like when I'm old.
00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:31.440
I want to be there.
00:34:32.559 --> 00:34:38.800
I did, and and I started following a lot of the political environment, a lot of the real estate environment, all of that, because that's what I'm trained to do.
00:34:38.880 --> 00:34:44.639
Because I'm that's where the politics and real estate go, where the money goes, that's what follows, right?
00:34:45.039 --> 00:34:53.119
So I wanted to be prepared, like you know, what it would look like for me if I became a renter or if I put enough money to buy something modest for myself, right?
00:34:53.440 --> 00:35:03.519
And I I got quite the education now, mind you, I I did not, I'm not oblivious to what Hurricane Maria did to the island, and that's a possibility in the future again.
00:35:03.920 --> 00:35:13.119
But I wanted to know more about the politics because the politics is what affects everything, knowing that Puerto Rico is a commonwealth and not a state, um, just a territory.
00:35:13.199 --> 00:35:26.880
And there's so much to it that I think at it, looking at it logically, it makes no sense why someone would want to go there and relocate there.
00:35:27.280 --> 00:35:31.840
Financially, culturally, it's a it's a double-edged sword for me.
00:35:32.159 --> 00:35:39.840
Financially, if I build more of my business here, I can relocate there, and my taxes and overhead would be far less.
00:35:40.159 --> 00:36:01.679
Culturally, being half Puerto Rican and in the diaspora, knowing what I know now, what's going on there politically, and what what the people investing in the island from around the world are doing to the island, I would go there to help to help save for the is that what I want to say?
00:36:01.920 --> 00:36:10.239
To be a part of the the change and um protection of the culture and the island itself.
00:36:10.559 --> 00:36:32.320
And nothing nowhere else, as much as I would love to live in other places that I visited, nothing nowhere else has captured my essence and my soul, like when I was there, when I experienced the ocean waves myself, when I experienced the local cuisine, when I experienced the neighborhoods where my grandparents were from before they moved to the states.
00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:44.880
To know the history of where my great-great-great-grandparents migrated from Europe to the island, the ones who were slaves that were transported to the islands.
00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:51.440
All of that hit me in my understanding of myself being biracial and bicultural.
00:36:53.760 --> 00:37:11.679
So, with that said, understanding where you're going, um, get involved, be aware of before you make that that leap, because there's so much more than just you know picking up stakes and putting them somewhere and you know just living your life without being conscious of the life going on around you.
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:15.679
I think I think that's what I wanted to say.
00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:21.280
Yeah, so if that's what you're gonna do, try it out.
00:37:21.440 --> 00:37:24.639
Get involved, figure it out, learn more about the people around you.
00:37:25.039 --> 00:37:28.000
So all right, that's that's what I got for you this week, folks.
00:37:28.079 --> 00:37:29.199
Um, I hope I made sense.
00:37:29.280 --> 00:37:33.039
I feel like I'm I didn't quite make the the point.
00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:36.400
But if you made it this far, let's see.
00:37:36.639 --> 00:37:39.199
Uh drop a like.
00:37:39.679 --> 00:37:43.599
Uh what emoji should we use for this video?
00:37:44.400 --> 00:37:48.960
Um I don't know.
00:37:50.800 --> 00:37:52.159
How about the high fives?
00:37:52.239 --> 00:37:54.559
It looks like the praying, it's the high fives.
00:37:57.280 --> 00:37:58.559
Yeah, do that.
00:38:01.599 --> 00:38:02.559
We could do that.
00:38:02.719 --> 00:38:03.760
And let me know what you think.
00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:15.840
I mean, I would I would like to know uh how like I said before, how has the gentrification affected you in your life, in people coming into your neighborhood where you grew up or you're from, or are you going somewhere else and experiencing that?
00:38:16.079 --> 00:38:20.639
Or do you carry yourself differently when you're in a neighborhood that you just moved to?
00:38:21.199 --> 00:38:22.320
All that jazz.
00:38:22.559 --> 00:38:25.760
Um do you even give a shit?
00:38:25.840 --> 00:38:27.360
If you don't, just say I don't give a fuck.
00:38:28.400 --> 00:38:29.119
I don't.
00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:30.400
This is weird, Mike.
00:38:30.480 --> 00:38:31.440
I goodbye.
00:38:31.599 --> 00:38:32.639
Just do that.
00:38:33.920 --> 00:38:35.039
Uh all right.
00:38:35.199 --> 00:38:36.559
Thanks very much, everybody.
00:38:36.639 --> 00:38:38.239
If you're listening to this, thank you so much.
00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:39.039
I appreciate it.
00:38:39.199 --> 00:38:44.079
Um, like always, hit the like, star, share, all that jazz.
00:38:44.159 --> 00:38:49.679
If you are listening on Spotify, I love the fact that you're listening on Spotify.
00:38:50.079 --> 00:38:53.920
Hit the download because that will help me move up in the algorithm.
00:38:54.079 --> 00:38:56.800
The stars, give me five stars too there if you if you want to.
00:38:56.960 --> 00:39:00.079
Same thing on Apple Pod or wherever you listen to your podcast.
00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:12.239
Um also if you remember, if you want to send me um any kind of message, a direct message, it'll come to me through the Buzz Sprout uh uh app.
00:39:12.559 --> 00:39:16.480
If you're listening to me on Buzz Sprout, you can hit it where it says DM mic.
00:39:16.559 --> 00:39:18.880
You can you'll see right there at the top of the body.
00:39:19.519 --> 00:39:20.639
You can send a message.
00:39:20.719 --> 00:39:28.559
And if it's something cool that you want me to share, I can share it in in an episode, or maybe I'll just randomly choose someone and say, I got this letter from someone.
00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:32.480
And of course, if you go over to Patreon, you can see all the behind-the-scenes stuff.
00:39:32.559 --> 00:39:37.840
There, and this and I'm gonna announce it here since I feel like my this video was kind of a womp womp.
00:39:38.239 --> 00:39:49.199
Um there's uh a new Migrated Media Patreon that's gonna be that is launched, it's live, it's just being tweaked to be more of the production work that I'm doing.
00:39:49.360 --> 00:39:57.440
Then there's my podcast one that you're all aware of already, and there'll be more for each project that I'm that I'm working on.
00:39:57.519 --> 00:40:04.639
So you get to have uh a variety of ways and to support and follow along with everything that I'm doing.
00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:09.440
So um I'm working on well, I can't say yet.
00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:11.440
Okay, I'm working on a short film.
00:40:11.519 --> 00:40:12.800
I think I mentioned that before.
00:40:13.039 --> 00:40:15.199
Um I'm putting it all together.
00:40:15.360 --> 00:40:22.000
I wanted to shoot it next month, but it that's not gonna happen because of the way it's gonna have to go down, and I want it to be just right.
00:40:22.239 --> 00:40:29.519
So maybe in the spring, still have the same kind of um atmospheric conditions as the fall and early spring.
00:40:29.599 --> 00:40:31.920
Um, so we're gonna shoot it around April.
00:40:32.800 --> 00:40:34.400
April, yes, April.
00:40:34.719 --> 00:40:38.000
Um, that's one too.
00:40:38.079 --> 00:40:40.719
Uh, a couple other things are coming your way.
00:40:40.960 --> 00:40:42.079
I think you're gonna like it.
00:40:42.239 --> 00:40:46.239
Um yeah, that's all I can say.
00:40:46.320 --> 00:40:48.320
But yeah, you have to follow along and subscribe.
00:40:48.400 --> 00:40:53.840
You and you don't have to like pay for anything to be a free uh uh member or visitor to the Patreon.
00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:56.320
You can just when you do that, you'll just get updates and all of that.
00:40:56.400 --> 00:41:00.079
And then if you hit down below and sign up for the newsletter, you'll get all that stuff too.
00:41:00.239 --> 00:41:05.119
And there's a lot of great things that that I think you're gonna love to be involved in.
00:41:05.199 --> 00:41:07.840
And when I say involved, it's not not just monetarily.
00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:16.239
You'll be able to come hang out with us when we have the events, when and we're out and about or being come visit and see how we're doing the things.
00:41:16.320 --> 00:41:17.519
It's it's really cool.
00:41:17.679 --> 00:41:21.840
You're gonna love it, and I'm excited to create this for you to see.
00:41:21.920 --> 00:41:24.239
So all right, my friends.
00:41:24.559 --> 00:41:27.760
Peace out, have a great week, and I'll see you next time.
