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Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

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Bedford-Stuyvesant (pron. \ˈstī-və-sənt\) (also known as Bed-Stuy) is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City, USA, borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 3, Brooklyn Community Board 8 and Brooklyn Community Board 16.[1]

Bed-Stuy is bordered overall by Flushing Avenue to the north (bordering Williamsburg), Classon Avenue to the west (bordering Clinton Hill), Broadway and Van Sinderen Avenue to the east (bordering East New York), Park Place to the south and Ralph Avenue to the east (bordering Crown Heights) and as far as East New York Avenue to the south (bordering Brownsville).[2][3]

For decades, it has been a cultural center for Brooklyn's African-American population. Following the construction of the A line subway between Harlem and Bedford[4] in the 1930s, blacks left an overcrowded Harlem for more housing availability in Bedford-Stuyvesant. From Bed-Stuy, blacks have since moved into the neighborhood as well as in surrounding areas of Brooklyn, such as East New York, Crown Heights, Brownsville and Fort Greene.

The main thoroughfare is Nostrand Avenue. Bedford-Stuyvesant is actually made up of three neighborhoods: Bedford-Stuyvesant, Tompkins Park North and Stuyvesant Heights.

Early history

The neighborhood name is an extension of the name of the Village of Bedford, expanded to include the area of Stuyvesant Heights. The name Stuyvesant comes from Peter Stuyvesant, the last governor of the colony of New Netherland.

In pre-revolutionary Kings County, Bedford, which now forms the heart of the community, was the first major settlement east of the then Village of Brooklyn on the ferry road to Jamaica and eastern Long Island.

With the building of the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad in 1832, taken over by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in 1836, Bedford was established as a railroad station near the intersection of current Atlantic and Franklin Avenues. In 1878, the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railway established its northern terminal with a connection to the LIRR at the same location.

The community of Bedford contained one of the oldest free black communities in the U.S., Weeksville, much of which is still extant and preserved as a historical site. Ocean Hill, a subsection founded in 1890 is primarily a residential area.

Establishment as an urban neighborhood

Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstones

In the last decades of the 19th century, with the advent of electric trolleys and the Fulton Street Elevated, Bedford Stuyvesant became a working class and middle class bedroom community for those working in downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York City. At that time, most of the pre-existing wooden homes were destroyed and replaced with brownstone row houses. These are highly sought after in the neighborhood's contemporary renaissance. Many consider the area to be the African American cultural mecca of Brooklyn, similar to what Harlem is to Manhattan.

Ethnic changes

During and after World War II, large numbers of African-Americans, migrating from the Southern United States upon the decline of agricultural work and seeking economic opportunities in the North, moved into the neighborhood. They often preferred it to the available housing in Harlem, then the city's pre-eminent African-American community. In addition to blacks arriving from the south, around the same time West African immigrants began arriving as well.

Post-war problems

A series of problems led to a long decline in the neighborhood. Some of the new residents who had been rural workers had difficulty finding reasonably paid work in the urban New York economy. The city itself was in a period of steady decline, exacerbated by abandonment of parts of the transportation network, disappearance of industrial jobs, decline of public facilities and services, inability to deal with increasing crime, and difficulties in municipal government. The movement of significant parts of its population to suburban areas ghettoized a racially diverse neighborhood.

1960s and 1970s

The 1960s and 1970s were a difficult time for New York City and affected Bedford-Stuyvesant seriously. One of the first urban riots of the era took place there. Social and racial divisions in the city contributed to the tensions, which climaxed when attempts at community control in the nearby Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district pitted some black community residents and activists (from both inside and outside the area) against teachers, the majority of whom were white; many of them Jewish. Charges of racism were a common part of social tensions at the time.

In 1964, race riots broke out in the Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem after a white Irish NYPD lieutenant, Thomas Gilligan, shot and killed a black teenager, James Powell, 15.[3]. The riot spread to Bedford-Stuyvesant and resulted in the destruction and looting of many neighborhood businesses, many of which were Jewish-owned. Race relations between the NYPD and the city's black community were strained as crime was high in black neighborhoods and few black policemen were present on the force.[5] In black New York neighborhoods, crimes related to drugs and homicides were higher than anywhere else in the city contributing to the problems between the white dominated police force and black community. Coincidentally enough, the 1964 riot took place across the NYPD's 28th and 32nd precinct located in Harlem, and the 79th precinct located in Bedford-Stuyvesant which at one time were the only three police precincts in the NYPD that black police officers were allowed to patrol in.[6] Race riots followed in 1967 and 1968, as part of the political and racial tensions in the United States of the era, aggravated by continued high unemployment among blacks, continued de facto segregation in housing, the failure to enforce civil rights laws, and the murder of black people.

In 1977, a power outage occurred throughout all of New York City due to a power failure at the Con Edison Plant. As a result, looting was widespread throughout the city, especially in poor Black and Puerto Rican areas of Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn. Bedford-Stuyvesant and neighboring Bushwick were two of the worst hit areas. Thirty-five blocks of Broadway, the street dividing the two communities, were affected, with 134 stores looted, 45 of which were set ablaze.

Current renaissance

Beginning in the 2000s, the neighborhood began to experience a renaissance that continues to the present day.[7]

The two significant reasons for this are the affordable housing stock consisting of handsome brownstone rowhouses located on quiet tree-lined streets and the marked decrease of crime in the neighborhood. The latter is at least partly attributable to the decline of the national crack epidemic which occurred in the late 1980s and through the 1990s, and also to improved policing methods which New York has used in the last decade.

In July 2005, the New York City Police Department designated the Fulton Street-Nostrand Avenue business district in Bedford-Stuyvesant as an "Impact Zone". [citation needed] The Police Department has also ranked Bed-Stuy as one of the neighborhoods that has experienced a steady decline in crime and has had improved safety [citation needed] The designation directed significantly increased levels of police protection and resources to the area centered on the intersection of Fulton Street and Nostrand Avenue for a period of six months. It was renewed for another six-month period in December 2005. Since the designation of the Impact Zone in Bedford-Stuyvesant, crime within the district decreased 15% from the previous year. [citation needed]

Despite the improvements and increasing stability of the community, Bedford-Stuyvesant has continued to be stigmatized in some circles by a lingering public perception left from the rough times of the late 20th Century. In March 2005 a campaign was launched to supplant the "Bed-Stuy, Do-or-Die" image in the public consciousness with the more positive "Bed-Stuy, and Proud of It". [citation needed]

Through a series of "wallscapes" (large outdoor murals), the campaign hopes to honor famous community members, including community activist and poet June Jordan, activist Hattie Carthan, rapper and actor Mos Def, and actor and comedian Chris Rock.[8] Additionally various artistic and cultural neighborhood events and celebrations such as the neighborhood's annual Universal Hip Hop Parade[9] seek to show off the area's positive accomplishments to the rest of New York City as well as visitors.

This ongoing revitalization and renewal of Bedford-Stuyvesant has prompted an increasingly diverse range of people to seek affordable housing among the many blocks of handsome brownstone rowhouses. The appeal of affordable homes and apartments that are still numerous in Bedford-Stuyvesant along with convenient access via mass transit to Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan is fast making the area a favorite for students, artists and young families.

As a result, Bedford-Stuyvesant is becoming increasingly racially, economically and ethnically diverse, with an increase of white population as well as immigrants from French speaking West Africa. As is expected with gentrification, the influx of new residents has sometimes contributed to the displacement of poorer residents. In many other cases, newcomers have simply rehabilitated and occupied formerly vacant and abandoned properties.

Some long-time residents and business owners have expressed the concern that they will be priced out by newcomers whom they disparagingly characterize as "yuppies and buppies". They fear that the neighborhood's ethnic character will be lost. Others point out that a 70% African American population remains. Furthermore Bedford-Stuyvesant's population has experienced much less displacement of the African-American population, including those who are economically disadvantaged, than other areas of Brooklyn, such as Cobble Hill.[10] Many of the new residents are upwardly mobile middle income African American families, as well as immigrants from Africa and Europe.

Some people believe positive neighborhood changes will benefit all residents of the area, bringing with it improved neighborhood safety and creating a demand for improved retail services along the major commercial strips, such as Fulton Street (recently renamed Harriet Tubman Boulevard),[11] Nostrand Avenue, Tompkins Avenue,Greene Avenue, Lewis Avenue, Flushing Avenue, Park Avenue, Myrtle Avenue, Dekalb Avenue, Putnam Avenue, Bedford Avenue, Marcy Avenue, Malcolm X Boulevard, Gates Avenue, Madison Avenue and Jefferson Avenue. Such changes can bring an increase in local jobs and other economic activity.

The Honeymooners 50s and 60s situation comedy starring Jackie Gleason is set in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Gleason's character Ralph Kramden lived at 328 Chauncey Street, the address where Gleason lived growing up. Bedford-Stuyvesant is featured in the 1971 film The French Connection where NYPD narcotics detective Popeye Doyle is assigned to a Brooklyn police station that appears to be located in Bedford-Stuyvesant as mentioned by his supervisor Walt Simonson. On a 1997 episode of NYPD Blue "Taillight's last Gleaming", NYPD Lieutenant Arthur Fancy requests that an officer who pulled over him and his wife in a racially motivated manner be transfered to a Bedford-Stuyvesant precinct as punishment to learn how to better interact with various African American citizens.

Bedford-Stuyvesant's neighborhood identity is due in part to the neighborhood's portrayal in a variety of popular media. Director Spike Lee has prominently featured the streets and brownstone blocks of Bedford-Stuyvesant in his films, including Do the Right Thing (1989), Crooklyn (1994), Clockers (1995), and Summer of Sam (1999). Chris Rock's UPN (later CW) television sitcom, Everybody Hates Chris, portrays Rock's life growing up as a teenager in Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1982. Billy Joel's 1980s hit single, "You May Be Right" mentions the neighborhood with the lyrics "I was stranded in the combat zone / I walked through Bedford-Stuy alone / even rode my motorcycle in the rain" when discussing crazy things the singer had done in his life. The neighborhood was also the setting of Dave Chappelle's 2004 documentary Block Party, in which Chappelle and many prominent Rap and Soul artists performed an impromptu concert at the Broken Angel house.

Template:Hip hop portalA large number of well-known hardcore rap, and hip-hop artists have come out of Bedford-Stuyvesant, including such notables as Aaliyah, The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Lil Kim, Big Daddy Kane, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Busta Rhymes, Fabolous, and GZA.

In "Scan," an episode of the television show Prison Break, fugitive Fernando Sucre flees to Bedford-Stuyvesant to meet his friend, only to find out that his sweetheart will be getting married in Las Vegas.

The Notorious B.I.G. song "Unbelievable" starts with the line referring to himself as "Live from Bedford-Stuyvesant, the livest one." Also the song "Machine Gun Funk" contains the lyric: "Bed-Stuy, the place where my head rest" referring to Biggie's roots in the neighborhood.

Notable natives

Landmarks

References

  1. ^ Brooklyn Community Boards, New York City. Accessed December 31, 2007.
  2. ^ [1], New York City Department of City Planning. Accessed April 25, 2008.
  3. ^ [2], Neighborhood overall description. Accessed April 28, 2008.
  4. ^ Bed-Stuy on the Move
  5. ^ No Place Like Home Time Magazine.
  6. ^ Police Fraternity and the Politics of Race and Class in New York City, 1941-1960 Regional Labor Review Spring 2000
  7. ^ http://urbanology.org/BedStuy/ Bed-Stuy On the Move
  8. ^ http://gothamgazette.com/community/36/news/1340 Daily News, March 5, 2005
  9. ^ http://www.universalhiphopparade.org/index.html Universal Hip Hop Parade
  10. ^ http://66.111.110.102/newyork/DetailsAr.do?file=features/499/499.thebattlefor.html "The Battle for Bed-Stuy: The Price of Art" Time Out New York April 2005
  11. ^ http://www.bedstuygateway.com/ Bed-Stuy Gateway Business District
  12. ^ Vasquez, Emily. "Brooklyn-Born Rapper Is Arrested After Being Shot", The New York Times, October 18, 2005. Accessed October 7, 2007. "Mr. Jackson, raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, became famous in late 2001 with his debut single, "I Can’t Deny It.""
  13. ^ Ogunnaike, Lola. "A Flourish, and Lil' Kim Goes From Star to Inmate", The New York Times, September 20, 2005. Accessed October 19, 2007. "Ms. Jones spoke about her rise from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, to stardom and about her deepening relationship with God."
  14. ^ Lee, Felicia R. "Where Everyone Loves to Love Chris", The New York Times, October 30, 2006. Accessed October 6, 2007. "It was a scream heard all the way down the block on Decatur Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant. If you know TV, or if you know that Brooklyn neighborhood, you know it’s a sweet stretch of well-tended homes and the setting for "Everybody Hates Chris," the comedy series on the CW network inspired by the adolescent adventures of the comedian Chris Rock."
  15. ^ Beck, Howard. "PRO BASKETBALL; Wilkens Denies He Was Asked to Go", The New York Times, September 28, 2005. Accessed November 20, 2007. "A native of Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Wilkens had added motivation to succeed in New York, which made leaving so quickly that much tougher."
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