REAL ESTATE RACISM…

shoes

DP Real Estate Advice: Wherever you see shoes hanging buy some property.

I grew up in one of New York City’s typical outer borough communities. Detached one family houses that were big enough to keep all of your cousins on one floor. A nice little backyard that couldn’t hold more than a rose bush and a crab apple tree. This was the typical working class ‘hood. Fuck what you heard about the urban blight. The sun would still rise every day at 6:30am and that meant you had a chance to do something with your life.

I can’t say enough about how the drug trade changed my neighborhood. Fuck that, it changed the entire city. It made neighborhoods even more segregated than they already were. Not just on some Black and white type shit, but on some haves and have nots type ish. From running through my next door neighbors open kitchen doors when we played manhunt to everyone becoming shut ins and friendly homes becoming locked away castles. Veritable jail cells for those that lived inside.

When I walked through the neighborhood the other day I was amazed to see the final results of the crack epidemic. Instead of seeing my old friends and neighbors emaciated and pale like zombies what I saw was more stark and depressing. The city has changed the zoning and construction codes for the community. The generation old texture of one family homes has been supplanted by multi-story multiple dwelling that have no regard or respect for the scale of the community.

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This is my boy JUMA’s family home. It looks like they are some of the few holdouts still left. You don’t get an accurate feel for the bastardization of scale that has been allowed when you look at JUMA’s house from the front door elevation.

From the side view you can see how truly monstrous these construction code changes really are. The new building on the property adjoining JUMA’s family house is more than twice the bulk (overall square footage) of the existing homes.

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shoes

These multiple dwellings are filled to the gills with round the clock renters who tax all the neighborhoods resources especially the infrastructure (roads, water and sewer services). This becomes especially pronounced since their isn’t enough mass transportation to move people in and out of this community efficiently. This is real estate racism.

This shit went down in Corona Queens because we were a predominantly working class Black neighborhood and we were ravaged by illegal drugs.

There are still a few holdouts, but they will eventually be overcome by this unbridled development. This is TASHA COX’ family crib. TASHA was the prettiest girl in the park. Her cousin played for the Mets and nobody effed with her. Her grandfolks still live in the house. They are too old and too proud to leave their home.

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There goes TODD HAGINS’ family home and BARRY BROOKS(R.I.P.) mother’s crib. When your children are dead or in jail you don’t even have someone to continue the legacy of home ownership. When developers pounce on a community like a pack of ravenous jackals you can’t fight them all off.

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corona
My parents left Corona two decades ago, but we maintained our old neighborhood ties through the church on Northern Boulevard, the little league at the Louis Armstrong school, and the fact that I moved into the upstairs of my uncle’s crib on 100th Street when I was 17. My folks went to Long Island to save my younger brother from the sirene call of the streets that I could not resist. Most of the other folks in Corona weren’t as fortunate as my parents. The sunlight is once again being taken from these peoples’ eyes.

corona

You know when a developer is godless? When he builds his multiple dwelling, his own personal cathedral to commerce right alongside a church and he dwarfs the church by comparison. Would developers be able to run roughshod over residents of a more politically wealthy community. I don’t think so.

GOTHAMist: Chinatown Residents Object to Rezoning Exclusion

35 Responses to “REAL ESTATE RACISM…”

  1. LM says:

    Bingo. Great piece, Dallas. You’re too good for Huffington.

  2. Combat Jack says:

    Translation:

    Juma, Tasha Cox (great name), Todd Higgins and Barry Brooks’ (RIP) family an’ em, plus Southern Methodist Baptist Church AME BEST be moving the eff off the block sooner than later!!!

  3. Maxine says:

    Yeah…damn homie, I never knew you were from Queens. I always just figured you had that Brooklyn Cool.
    Eh, standing corrected.

  4. Marvelous Mo says:

    I’m gonna have to cosign with CJ. old heads are too stubborn to roll out. that form of real estate “civil disobedience” isn’t going to last.

    **well, not unless you wise up like Combat Jack: buy your shit, rent it out, and cake off of the movement. Then again, that was a building. CJ, you still own your building?**

    the city has been trying to do this shit for years around my neck of the Bx but the whole community is holding it down and runs shit on its own. Especially since part of the ‘hood lives by the water and have decks and shit.

  5. NIMISISKRASH says:

    YO D THAT SHIT IS CRAZY!! I SEE THE SAME DAM THING WHEN I GO AROUND THE WAY IN CROW HILL,EMPIRE RINK…GONE,BEDFORD BOWL….GONE. EVEN ON MY OLD BLOCK ON CROWN ST. IT DONT “LOOK” DIFFRENT BUT IT “HAS” CHANGE SOOO FUCKIN MUCH. NEW FUCKFACE HEADS THAT MOVED ON THE BLOCK THAT THINK THEY ARE THE SHIT. IN BROWNSVILLE IT’S THE SAME SHIT!!! I CAME HOME LAST SUMMER AND WAS LIKE DAM THIS AINT NEW YORK!!!!BUT SAD TO SAY ..YES IT IS.

  6. Candice says:

    Great post. The same is happening here in Philly as well as in my hometown of Crown Heights. One of your best drops.

  7. F says:

    wow that shit is crazy…great post D.

  8. Vee says:

    The answer to you last question . . . Real money talks.
    I really do hope that those home-owners are able to hold out for a long period. I feel for Juma, that would really piss me off. I can only imagine what he had to hear during the construction period.

  9. CeezDiem says:

    Cest la vie. I was just down in my hometown of DC this weekend. The new building next to my folks place? TOWERING over there’s. But the dude building it gets a pass cuz he’s latino. The (new) white neighbors loud ass deck party keepin me up? Not so much.

    Who’d a thunk it. White neighbors throwin a loud party in Shaw.
    Where’s Bizarro Jerry when you need him?

  10. Combat Jack says:

    ^”Then again, that was a building. CJ, you still own your building?**

    Still own, just rented.

    Gotta lotta hope and love and hope for my peoples, but last summer, a lil nigga, prolly 16-18 years old, bust his gun for jokes, no more than 3 feet away from me and my baby daughter (then about 3/4 months). Can’t wait for niggas like that to get priced the eff out the hood, effin bastard.

  11. Lion XL says:

    Every time some one talks about flipping a house, flip em the bird. Too many wanna be Donald Trumps out there Caking mostly off of some one else misfortune.

    In my neighborhood (Shaolin) they are putting up single family homes. Problem is they tear down one ‘old house’ and cram 4 or 5 ‘new houses in its place. So you now own a big peice of nothing. Most of them have no yard, and all them are built poorly.

  12. the black pixar says:

    its a weird double edge sword though, because as much as nyc is not the same as it was in the 80s/90s is it necessarily worse? i mean i miss old new york as much as the next dude, but i dont miss nigs on the corner 24/7, i dont miss nigs trying to run my chicken and broccoli when i was 12. like you said the drug trade fucked up neighborhoods HARD making them complete shit too be in. can you really blame anyone for leaving/selling? moving money/new people into the neighborhood has in a degree made them better. its just fucked up we couldnt get shit right and stay where we were.

  13. Guy Real says:

    I feel you brother, but did the residents actually fight the encroachment of these buildings in their neighborhood? Were there any zoning meetings or permit meeting or something that could of been done.

    But this is an capitalist society and if you own the land and you have the permits then . . . . .

  14. wax says:

    this shit is all over.

    city park where I currently live in Denver, same shit.

    cherry creek, the richest area of Denver? used to be a neighborhood next o a landfill (landfill now being a mall) – you see all kind of huge mcmansions next to dinky tiny houses.

    so the cycle goes dawg

  15. 911 says:

    *Cries*

    Seen it like Zenith…I remember being about 15, running the streets doing what those facing similar circumstances and no “modus operandi” would do. I also realized the affects were detrimental. The older folks who had helped to raise us in and around the “hood” were moving, “niggas” like us would move in. Those who succumbed to the allure of using any of the litany of “recreational drugs” we sold, were soon gone too. House foreclosed, unsold and boarded up. Of course we’d tag it with what the street was already called plus our names in association. Thus, deepening the ditch. Wash, rinse and repeat for a 15 mile radius in any direction from where I was raised and you have East Cleveland. I quit early, most quit late after being made to do so by a mandatory sentence. At 16 I opined to my Granddad to not move, this place is going to be a mint years from now. He didn’t. And later I bought me a foreclosed home too.

    I laugh now as investors circle the hood like vultures with checkbooks (I can be smug at times). I cry because I was at liberty to do more.

    So Dallas I can relate. What’s worse is that too many of us can. We’re being evicted…the value of money has trumped the value of human life:and what is right and what is not. No one cares and those that do care aren’t in favorable positions.

    I’m always looking for answers…it appears things are to far gone for us. We need miracles and I’m fairly sure no ones walking around turning water into wine…

    *Votes Obama* Pwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaa!

  16. Tony says:

    Awesome post D . . . Those pics were telling as well. Too bad this kind of thing happens all over and the coming recession just means more opportunity for it.

  17. the_dallas says:

    Peep the very last photo…

    Notice that the new multiple unit dwellings have NO windows on their property line walls.

    The developers plan to acquire these adjacent properties one day soon and give the entire neighborhood this post-modern tenement look. Four to five story walkups with railroad apartments for people to occupy in shifts.

    How else do you expect the new immigrant community to afford monthly rents of $2000?

    Coming to a neighborhood near you.

  18. Marvelous Mo says:

    Yo D,
    That’s how they are starting to build (modern) buildings in Japan except their houses > those jawns in your pics.

    I seen this one building built like a big ass cube but each person had their own floor-no walls/doors and they can literally walk to each corner of their apartment and not feel locked in. Shit looked kinda dope.

    Them houses up top look like jail though…

  19. Enigmatik says:

    Powerful post yet again…ish is effed in the a.

  20. Amadeo says:

    Same thing here money…even when they build homes they are hella expensive cause they don’t want locals moving in they want outta town money…then the locals rent starts to go up cause taxes are going up. I was glad when the housing thing went down cause ish was getting crazy 400k to live in Pigtown…nah.

  21. prynsex says:

    Move to Texas, they have mansions under 200k.

  22. Doc says:

    Corona is my stomping grounds. I lived on 100th St. til I was 7 and then moved to Lefrak, but I still have family over there. My family has a house on a block near Elmcore along with another family. the entire neighborhood has changed. PS 143 used to be an all black school & now there hardly no black people there, teachers included. Same goes for the block the house is on. They have these weird grey houses that look so outta place on both streets. & we have 2 daycare centers on the same block.

  23. CommishCH says:

    let me join the chorus and say we got the same thing here in Denver; North Denver was home to generations of Italian and Mexican families- complete with churchs that still have Italian mass, mad authentic restaturants and corner bars and bodegas. Now “condos” stacked on eachother and Starbucks and the like. The old community is disjointed and spead far and wide throughout the suburbs. Sad.

  24. Amadeo says:

    People with money want the city back!

  25. Tiffany says:

    Dang D, this was an awesome post and so moving. Made me made as hell.
    It’s happening here too though. We got some folks with a lot of damn money moving on MLK Drive here (use to be a total working class community). Condos going for 270K and better..taxes are getting high as hell too…

  26. Weasel says:

    Great post, but I don’t see why you attribute this to racism. This type of overdevelopment is happening all over NYC, including nice YT areas like Bayside. Your claim that YT caused the crack epidemic is ludicrous but typical. You nigs love to blame all your problems on YT don’t you?

  27. “You nigs love to blame all your problems on YT don’t you?”

    And why not?

    The YeTi is the OG nigger.

  28. kapitan95 says:

    nice pic’s of coronas over developement. I grew up on a block from the 7 train.moved out finnally in 04′. no one cares about overbuilding. on my old block alone ,12 1 family homes knocked down for 60 apartments. the verge of overcrowding even more of a problem.look at 108 street, from roosevelt to 34th ave some much history down the drain. lokk at 105 between 37th and 34 ave,102 street between 54th ave ? to 57th ave. some of the most historic well keptl homes knocked down for over developement. i walked down junction blvd and saw so many people and children.this is a huge change from the 70s and 80s…

  29. the_dallas says:

    The biggest issue that I have to stress regarding the over-development is the abuse on the neighborhoods infrastructure. Roadways, water service and sewers that were constructed for one family dwellings are now being horribly overtaxed. Infrastructure improvement must precede over-development.

    I get sad when I go back home. Even though my family left the area a long time ago that neighborhood will always be like my home away from home.

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