Strolling through Ridgewood, Queens, one doesn’t get a sense right away that change is imminent.
The main commercial corridors crisscrossing the neighborhood — Seneca, Myrtle and Fresh Pond avenues — are still a jumble of local businesses, discount retailers and mid-range, mall-style chain stores.
In keeping with Queens’ international character, the sidewalks teem with a cross-section of residents and vendors selling DVDs, mobile accessories and street food.
But in the tree-lined grid between the busy corridors, small things are percolating and creating a buzz that has put Ridgewood on the map as the next big thing.
Expanded M line subway service and lower rents are attracting those priced out of Brooklyn hot spots like Bushwick, Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and other gentrifying Queens neighborhoods like Astoria and Long Island City.
Samantha Zulch lived in Bushwick for four years moving to Ridgewood for “less rent and a quieter, better community.” She reduced her monthly nut by $150. Filmmaker Adam Kerchman pays $1,500 for a one-bedroom that he says “four blocks into Bushwick would be easily $2,000.” But more than the lower rent, Kerchman says he moved across the border for a more real neighborhood.
“There’s a lot of hipster nonsense in Bushwick, and there’s not too much of that in Ridgewood,” says Kerchman.
Not yet, anyway.
See, the thing is that the B.S. that Bushwick puts up with is not exactly welcomed in Queens. It appears that Ridgewood is going to miss out on a full-scale hipster invasion, because the rents are doubling and the types of new businesses that are opening are catering more toward the yuppie crowd than the youngsters.
16 comments:
Ridgewood is going nowhere. It's in the middle of nowhere. But it's a great place to live, sleep and shop in.
Filmmaker Adam Kerchman pays $1,500 for a one-bedroom that he says “four blocks into Bushwick would be easily $2,000.” But more than the lower rent, Kerchman says he moved across the border for a more real neighborhood.
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Don't worry, you sap. A few more of these "Ridgewood is the next best thing" articles, and you and the rest of the rubes will be paying Bushwick prices in your new "cheap" neighborhood. In the process, you will succeed in pricing out scores of old families who have called Rigewood home for generations.
This is a case where gentrification is nothing more than "the illusion of progress," I'm afraid.
Now, we've all seen what happened to neighborhoods like Hoboken, New Jersey (and that was back in the late 1980s), and more recently throughout the 1990s, with Park Slope, Williamsburg, Greenpoint--and now the very last bastions of what was maintained for decades as Bushwick and Ridgewood middle class stability. So, it's only a matter of precious time before the "hipster terrain evolution" crosses over into the rapidly vanishing "old world" neighborhoods---yet another buzz word and catch phrase for untenable rents that attempt to keep pace with ever rising inflation, except the formula is always flawed, because income inequality overshadows the process, as it simultaneously displaces stable residents into obscurity, while ushering in a transient, non-native hipster ne'er-do-well replacement crowd.
Then, these formerly stable communities become vapid, hollow dwellings, where there is no longer a "there" there. Nevertheless, the landlord gentrification bandwagon continues to slowly creep over and into the next borderline neighborhood, until yet another stable community is forced to vacate!
Alas, the formerly curious and interesting neighborhoods that fully served and supported the stability that for decades defined the rank and file, are now betraying their residents with a vengeance, because the goal here is to attain higher rents that overlook the many social ills that are left in its wake.
In the end, not every 'Supply And Demand' should be met, especially when community and living standards are at stake.
But, greed is more powerful than any measure of purported modern day ethics, standards and integrity that I've ever seen---that is almost always a 'Cause And Effect' of false, fake and failed political leadership, that is tainted from the top of the pyramid scheme.
R. Iritano must be channeling Bill Moyers, because that is the best summation of the high end pestilence and the urban blight hidden in plain sight I have read in the comments section here.
I always thought that Generation Gentification were just yuppies in disguise anyway. The skinny jeans, kiddie shoes,hair dye and facial pubes just replaced the suits and hair gel. But the vapidity remains.
If there is any optimism to gleem from this news, a big if, is that a tipping point (sorry for the Gladwell reference) is going to hit soon. And the only way for that to happen is if all the fiends responsible for the moral and structural decay, and the astounding impunity of those involved from the predator developers, scoundrel landlords and their goons, and spineless whore electeds and of course REBNY and BerlinRosen will get busted for causing all this strife and worry for the working classes from middle to poor and the diabolical social engineering they made.Lord, how soon Mr. Bharara?
But for now, I am reveling in schadenfreude at the geek mentioned above who is now struggling to keep pace with the violent market rate of renting an apt, I'm sure he'll be struggling to make even his current rent to a point that his skinny jeans will get baggy and might have to borrow oshkosh from his cousin Zooey or Dakota
That is very well said, JQ!
My only fear is that a 'lone star' like Preet Bharara will tragically end up in the Intensive Care Unit, before the completion of ridding Albany and City Hall of the rampant, never ending scourges of lawlessness and Neo-Fascism that have involuntarily entrenched our hijacked government, for decades! Or, worse, Bharara himself becomes the target of a warning bullet (unsurprisingly, from within the faulty corridors of corrupt, Albany power), that will succeed in shutting down his ongoing operation, faster than it took 'Awfully Unimpressive Andy' to pull all pretense of life support from his purported 'ethics commission' (before any actual ethics reforms were ever achieved, no less)!
So, until we see a criminal sociopath like Sheldon Silver, behind a fortified jail cell (right next to his high level entourage of low life pals, like Dean Skelos, Vito Lopez and way too many other 'friendly robbers' to name), then nihilism, fear mongering and paralysis will continue to immobilize our defunct system of a democracy that has been long ago overthrown---and we 'Sheeple' have only ourselves to blame.
In the end (as in the beginning), democracy itself demands that authority (ALL authority) must always be challenged, without threat of fear and retaliation.
However, sadly, the new breed and generation of freshly imported Queens County puppets and peasants, play right into the hands of the county's increasingly desperate, diabolical and progressively collapsing political base, all of whom have been rejected and abandoned by anyone with critical thought and conscience (read, the remnants of a stable, blue and white collar middle class).
What's left is the stench of hollow liberalism, perpetuated by false and predatory leadership, where the only dire concern is for cradle-to-grave self enrichment that always leaves their constituency in a virtually bereft state of anger, horror and disbelief!
What is the definition of "Neo-Fascism"? Why aren't the clowns in Albany considered Neo-Bolsheviks?
Ridgewood ain't exactly the Holy Land.
When we run out of "up and coming nabes" hipsters will be happy to pay 2 Gs a month to live on a san pan in the Gowaus canal.
Iritano, as in long winder and irritating. You might add irrelevant.
Yes, 'georgetheatheist,' what Albany is foisting upon we, the ever objecting taxpayer (besides monstrous taxation without representation), is a branch of Bolshevism, sovietism, collectivism and revisionism (which is any dangerous departure from the teachings of Marx).
Whereas, these insidious branches of Albany's revisionist history are once again repeating themselves (and finally, or still making their debut on American shorelines), the city council has been operating under a veil of Neo-Fascism, which is a political movement arising in Europe after World War II, and characterized by policies designed to incorporate the basic principles of fascism (as nationalism and opposition to democracy), into existing political systems, without public consent, referendum and due process.
In the end, America is no longer a democracy, as evidenced by the New York-adopted policies above, that have agressively, forcefully seized all power and control of our erstwhile freedoms and democracy that are still Constitutionally guaranteed---but no longer credibly enforceable by the new, active breed of Neo-Bolshevik, Neo-Fascist dictatorship government led by Andrew Cuomo and his henchmen, as well as the entire city council, which is also governed by the intensely incompetent, unseasoned leadership of Melissa Mark-Viverito (better known as Bill de Blasio's pal)!
I trust that my explanation of how the new, revisionist politics of NYS government continues to work against its purportedly free citizens, George, for all of the sobering reasons above!
This, from someone aptly named 'Anonymous,' (not to mention directionless and clueless), who hides under the virtual obscurity of cyberspace, but who can still name call me (a real, verifiable identity), without benefit of any argument to support a theory of emptiness---exactly like the head from which it came out of--yet, according to you, it is I who is irrelevant!
Thankfully, you are clearly in the minority here, and better yet, I can now cross off 'brain surgeon' from your resume. But, please don't let me stop you from seeing one yourself---the sooner the better!
Iritano makes some good points but I'd cite two errors: the United States is a republic, not a democracy (or maybe that should be was) and there is no nationalism in any of these governments - I wish there were - they hate America and its culture, at least it seems they do by importing an unprecedented number of people from every non-Western nation imaginable and celebrating everything that stands in opposition to our northwestern European heritage.
Otherwise, Richard, not bad.
Richard, stop picking on people for posting anonymously. Many of us are gainfully employed and would put that at risk if we posted under our names.
Attention, Anonymous: You are confusing a fact for a jab! I am not picking on anyone, as you incorrectly stated---least of all the last Anonymous, who left a vacuous, name calling comment about me, without any trace of a credible argument to support his empty ridicule, much less!
But, for anyone to remain anonymous while still having their say, doesn't exactly lend any credibility to whatever argument they attempt to make---at least not in my orbit.
In fact, the reason why nothing ever changes (as far too many from the online 'Anonymous" set continue to vote for the same broken and corrupt system of politically failed leadership), is because no one is willing to put their names on the line anymore, under any circumstances.
Could it be that the Stasi Police have stepped into a time machine transponder of the future (from 1970s Leipsig), crossed the Atlantic, and found their way to Queens County Borough Hall? Because that is how unbelievably frightening and alarmist your reply sounds.
Now, I completely realize and understand what a filthy, corrupt world it is out there (and especially within the narrow, coveted circles of Queens political splendor, versus rampant public squalor), but when levels of fear and paralysis become so entrenched within a purportedly free and democratic society, then how can there be any platform for real change---when there isn't even any real, identifiable people to challenge a system that appears to be running solely by the graft that is now exclusively controlled by empowered idiots and unresponsive tyrants, on all voracious cylinders, no less?
So, if you're not comfortable lending your name to a complaint on this thread, then by all means, please, abstain altogether---and leave the real work of challenging a bastion of endlessly corrupt, dishonest authority to people and leadership who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty---and there's more fresh dirt in Queens every day than there is in the vast graveyards of the borough that collectively defines it!
Richard, brevity , brevity, brevity. Good Lord, have mercy.
No, Richard, it could be that not all of us have a pending case against the state for our income, but have jobs with private sector employers who do not want their people making political statements online. But you keep thinking were all pussies and you're the fuckin man.
For all of the Anonymous people on this thread, drawing adverse comments, I quote Benjamin Franklin, who wisely stated: "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither."
As for the last Anonymous who made a personal comment against me, about a matter that is unrelated to this thread, is a vile testament to the well established theory of what "Attack and retreat, Accuse And Evade" really looks like--and the cowards who continually divert attention from the real issues of Queens County, and its never ending trail of grinding corruption and graft. Politicians benefit the most when their subjects willfully pit themselves against one another, as evidenced by your inappropriate remarks.
But, every knock is a boost, Anonymous. And if you don't like what you hear, then either don't respond at all, or find another, genuine way to accountable leadership and leadership accountability---without maligning anyone else with personal attacks, as a substitute for the social ills that you wish to purportedly address.
Sadly, this is a case where corruption in Queens (any corruption) continues to empower and exalt the very predators and hustlers who least deserve it---where everyone else pays the price---and the public be damned.
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