The Local: In Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, It's 'Pure Poor People' vs. 'Gentrification People'

In the three years since Prospect-Lefferts Garden was dubbed a neighborhood “on the cusp,” life in the African-Caribbean enclave has changed markedly for long-time residents. The eastward migration of middle-class house hunters priced out of Park Slope has stretched the boundaries of gentrified Brooklyn, and pushed the cost of living in neighborhoods like Prospect-Lefferts Gardens up.

The six-block stretch of Flatbush Avenue between Parkside Avenue and Beekman Place bears few signs of the neighborhood’s reorientation toward a more upmarket (and often white) clientele.

Outside the Q train, a few people pushing shopping carts filled with cans line up to deposit them at a dingy Supermarket—a sight rarely seen in Manhattan anymore. Flatbush Avenue, the main commercial drag of Lefferts Gardens, is lined with dozens of hair salons, jerk chicken and Tunisian restaurants, African markets, and a smattering of Chinese and Arab fast-food shops. Down the street from the Halal Chicken and Pizza is Shalom Party Supplies. On a different block, the African Market III is sandwiched between a Dominican hair stylist and a Rastafarian-colored shop called “Smile for Every Sistah in You."

Though there are a couple of relatively polished Caribbean-themed eateries scattered along Flatbush, by all appearances, one would be hard-pressed to find a skim latte or brunch on Sundays. Lime, presumably a new arrival, sticks out like a sore thumb with its sleek black exterior and neon green sign.

To the locals, however, Lefferts Gardens' gradual transformation is evident in everything from the new vegetarian restaurant to the security cameras on Flatbush peering down at pedestrians. Even the street names are different, said the cashier at City Jerk and Seafood. The Vandevere Projects, for instance, are now called Flatbush Gardens. A street called Tennis Court has been reincarnated as Kensington.

“I came back to the city after five years in Florida and, man, have things changed. The neighborhood has gotten more sophisticated store-wise and there are more cameras on the streets,” the twenty-something man explained.

Since he started working at City Jerk in November, the food prices have gone up and the clientele has become more “mixed."

“I don’t want to say the white people or black people,” he said, searching for a politically correct word. “Yesterday I served more of the 'gentrification people,'” mimicking quotation marks around the euphemism with his hands.

“They’ve been trying to kick out all the non-gentrification types.”

The average residential sales price in Brooklyn increased 8 percent in 2007 to $661,000, according to the Corcoran Group’s year-end market report. Condo prices in Brooklyn Heights were up 14 percent last year—the biggest rise in any neighborhood surveyed in the report—from an average of $554,000 in 2006 to $630,00 in 2007.

Oswald Thomas, a Trinidadian plumber and travel agent who lives in Crown Heights, has seen many people leave Lefferts Gardens over the past few years and relocate to areas farther from the bridge where the “prices are still competitive," like Brookdale, the 90’s, East New York. Three years ago you could buy a three-family house in Crown Heights for less than $400,000, he recalled. Now the same house costs $750,000 to $1 million, “especially for the brownstones."

“Before 9/11 you could count the number of white people on one hand, now everyone wants to get out of the city and come to Brooklyn,” Mr. Jones recalled over dinner at a Caribbean restaurant. “The white people here have made it a little bit safer... there are more cops patrolling. I’m not happy with prices going up, but I feel safer.”

His narrative is similar to broker Peggy Aguayo’s, though she believes the area has improved with development.
She compares Lefferts Gardens to Park Slope 30 years ago. The transition began seven years ago when the first “pioneering couples and individuals” started moving to the neighborhood because they wanted interesting homes, but couldn’t afford to buy in Park Slope, she said.

Depending on the condition and location—property values in Lefferts Manor are higher than those on less desirable swathes of Nostrand Avenue—a house can fetch between $700,000 to $1 million.

Her brokerage firm, Aguayo and Huebener, is putting one two-family and one three-family home on the market in Lefferts Gardens this month, neither of which is in the manor. Each home is brick, has a two-car garage, and has had some cosmetic work done, and she estimates they will sell for around $800,000.

Within the next year, Aguayo and Huebener will also put new two- and three-bedroom condos on the market for between $400,000 and $500,000. The developments are geared toward new arrivals, most of whom are from Brooklyn, because “Manhattan people tend to go to more established areas," said Ms. Aguayo.

“I don’t see anyone being pushed out,” she said, “I see it as a heterogeneous group of people.”

Denese, the owner of an eponymous hair salon on Flatbush Avenue, and a 12-year resident of Lefferts Gardens, said the neighborhood has certainly been “upgraded” for the “new people moving here," but the “regular folks” have not benefited.

“Sure, there are more cops, but they’re not here to help us. They’re here to make sure we don’t get out of hand,” Denese said at her hair salon on a Wednesday evening in January.

In keeping with last year, when business was the worst its been since Denese moved to Brooklyn from Jamaica, the salon had no customers. Her teenage daughter and younger son sat quietly on purple leather hair-dryer seats while Denese and four of her friends watched a video of a reggae concert taken on a recent trip to Jamaica.

Denese gossiped rapidly in patwa and occasionally shouted out answers to questions about changes in Lefferts Gardens. The other four women seemed annoyed about the intrusion.

“If you’re going to change a place and make it better, it should be for the people who already live there. The landlords renovate your apartment and raise the rent, and they call it 'rehabilitation,'” she said ringing the word with quotation marks. “They say it’s for the economy, it’s for development. It’s for yourself, that’s who it's for.”

“It’s not the landlords' fault,” one of the ladies protested. “They’ve got mortgages to pay, they have no choice.”

Denese’s rent has risen by about $90 every two years, she said, but the last time she renewed the lease it had increased by $120. Since the economy in Lefferts Gardens shows no signs of picking up, she’s considering moving upstate or to Connecticut, where housing is more affordable.

“They are charging $700,000 for a house in a neighborhood with pure poor people, are they crazy? It costs $1,200 to $1,300 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, a one-bedroom. A single mother can’t afford that,” she cried.

One of the women jolted up from her seat and stormed to the bathroom, muttering, “I can’t listen to these questions anymore."

A few minutes later she re-emerged and explained herself. “You know it’s not a racial thing, but when you come here and ask these questions about white people coming in and rents rising... it almost provokes animosity, because it’s going to keep happening no matter what,” she said.

“DUMBO used to be all black people, now look at it. They can’t afford lofts in DUMBO now. You used to be able to get a $500 apartment in Bed Stuy. It happened there, it happened in Bushwick, it happened in Crown Heights, and it’s going to happen here. It’s just reality.”