‘Renaissance Comes to Bed-Stuy’

Granted, Bedford-Stuyvesant has come a long way from its days as a crime-ridden, drug zone. However, if you look around New York City, there is a major lack of housing, and affordable housing [“A Renaissance Comes to ‘The Alamo’ of Bed-Stuy,” David Lombino. Page 1, June 5, 2006].

Bedford-Stuyvesant is just one of a few places that newcomers, and those priced out of their middle-class communities, are going to, but is it because they desire to move there? I am not buying it.

Sure, urban areas in Brooklyn have made major comebacks. Coney Island and Red Hook are thriving, thanks to renewal in commercial properties such as Keyspan Park and Fairway Supermarket. However, if you didn’t know anything about Bedford-Stuyvesant and were to walk along Myrtle Avenue or Fulton Street, the main road, you would see a place not as rosy as your article states.

There are still vacant stores, graffiti, and a place if you were walking alone at 1 in the morning, you might be asking for a death wish, not a good time as you would find in other communities. The travel to Manhattan is still rather long on the M and J subway lines; the buses along Fulton Street move slowly.

It is nice to see the community making a comeback, in large part due to the newcomers and some new business improvements such as Home Depot and Bushaby’s restaurant. But the comeback is not completed. New residents have come only because property values everywhere in New York City are skyrocketing at never-seen-before levels, and longtime suffering residents are taking advantage of it. Bedford-Stuyvesant has a lot of work to do still.

THOMAS BRICE
Staten Island

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