Outer Boroughs Have completely changed in last 10 years (Hudson, Greene: middle-class, transplants)

[samyn on the green]

NY has changed tremendously since I was in HS in the early 1990's. The whole paradigm has changed and new blood has been injected into the equation and much of the old players are nowhere to be found.


Yes I went to public school and it was dangerous. We had the Jews, the Italians, the Greeks, the Irish, the Puerto Ricans, the Koreans, the blacks and the Chinese. Back then there where frequent battles between each of these groups minus the Jews who seemed to be content to allow a little abuse to avoid the violent battles. The curriculum portion of the NYC education was OK and it was superior to many suburban schools if you paid attention. The real value was in living in a microcosm of the world. It was great preparation for the real world. This experience was superior to suburban districts but you had to be prepared to defend yourself at all times at a NYC HS. At least back then it was mostly Knives, clubs and fists and not the guns we hear about today. The street education of enriched experience far exceeds any of the social engineering brainwashing taught at colleges about tolerance and equality. Combine this enhanced racial education with a decent curriculum and the experience was enriching. In 2007 the racial balance does not exist anymore. there just are not many European Americans in NYC public schools.


Today as we turn the calender into 2007 the influx of immigrants and yuppies have completely changed the outer boroughs from 20 years ago. Those that have resigned themselves and moved out to the palookaville suburbs are dead and will be swallowed up into the American culture which is a complete void.

The character of the outer boroughs that some are lamenting is mostly a memory. NY outer boroughs is a different beast now. New immigrant groups have streamed in and replaced the working class whites in the outer boroughs. Also streaming in is the yuppies and hipsters who have gentrified the warzones of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, but for me the Yuppie culture is not something i can relate to. I would have liked to see an American trust fund hipster walk around Williamsburg circa 1982, talk about beatdown city. All of these migrations have changed the substance of the outer boroughs and if you have left NYC and want to come back, be warned it is not the same. If you want to come here it might not be what you expect, but it still has more substance than where you came from. With all of this migration it has placed intense pressure on the long time residents to keep up. Housing has been in short supply for a while and is oppressively expensive for working class swells. NY is increasingly a place for the rich and the poor. If you want to come back better be prepared to hustle and make lots of money.



The people that have moved here in the last 10 years are completely foreign to me and the most foreign are the actual Americans not from here. The hipsters/yuppies go nuts for DiFaras Pizza in Midwood Brooklyn like it was some kind of living museum piece but sadly this type of working class dive joint was common 25 years ago. Now they line up around the block for that type of pizza.

For Ethnic working class NYC whites who have no intention on fully assimilating into the melting pot American McCulture. You have 3 options. Stay and fight the good fight and hunker down keep the traditions of our parents alive so our children will have something beyond a Target to call there own. Blood is thicker than water. The 2nd option is release the pressure and move to palookaville and die a nobody in nowheresville. The final option is to move back to the old country Europe where our blood was formed by hundred of generation of struggle.

[mead]

#3 isn't even a real option because those countries probably wouldn't even accept us if we tried to move back.

It certainly is a Brave New World though. Ethnic whites in the NYC area are a dying species, and NYC will be much the worse as a result. Hipsters and FOBs are no replacement for the Irish/Italians/Jews who built this area.

[UrbanQuest]

When I went back recently I noticed lots of Eastern
Europeans around. Is it possible that they along with
the Asians and Latins could give us a nice balance.
In my mind at least half of the immigrants coming to NYC
should be Eastern Euros with the other half everybody else.
We should try and keep the ambience of this city somewhat intact,
and when I say somewhat I acknowledge that change is inevitable and change is good in most situations.

[Viralmd]

I would agree with UrbanQuest. Our strength is in our diversity.

[Lax]

I partly agree with the OP that the hipster and the yuppies are ruining things in places. Manhatten sucks when places like CBGB's close and the surrounding neighborhood turns into a yuppie playground. I'll take a place with character over some "new and improved" neighborhood with a bunch of bratty hipster jerkoffs running around.

[Swimmom32]

I absoutley agree, born raised and grew up in Brooklyn and I have to say my best friend is stuck there now with kids and well its no way to live anymore...Unfortunatley it has changed not for the good which is why I guess all of us moved out years and years ago.....I would NEVER change my up bringing and personally when I was growing up it was alot easier than today..... I am 38 now....

[NickL28]

Its more of yuppie & hipster in the outer boros and less immigrant & working class. Astoria, Jackson Heights, Forest Hills & Woodside Queens are now as expensive as Park Slope or the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Much of it is overhyped 'trend' and many of the people are not even from NYC but transplants from another part of the country.

In eastern & southern queens (not Bayside) you can still find some reasonable neighborhoods where someone making less than $100,000 can live adequately.

[Sgoldie]

I agree that NY has become very expensive. So have many other places, especially urban ones as that's where the money, jobs, and excitement are.

Let me recount my experience of the late 60's-early 70's. Everyone had large attack dogs and the streets were filthy with litter as well as dog droppings. There was graffiti everywhere. It was even being taught in college as an art form. People on the street or subway would size you up well in advance and without exception divert their eyes downward when near. You were always afraid of being robbed or attacked. Mace, knives, guns, and drugs were everywhere.

Now, more recently, the city is clean, safe, and friendly. People talk to you on the street and are helpful. It's safe for women to walk alone after dark. The size of dogs has shrunk considerably, having to do with picking up after them, and are now cute instead of lunging. I see more businesses in total and fewer ones with massive bars on them. Sections of Manhattan that had been pretty gruesome have been cleaned up (meatpacking, seaport, etc). All in all, a much nicer place I think.

True, the mix of immigrants has changed. That's nothing new either, it started with the Dutch moving up the Hudson and will change in every generation. I haven't met a single immigrant, or any person for that matter of any race, who wasn't extremely nice (and glad to be here). If you're lamenting the sparcity of European heritage you can thank Sen. Kennedy whose first official act was to do away with quotos that favored them.

As to the characterization of palookaville - life, and everywhere you reside are what you make it. If it's not your cup of tea, move, or change it. Everyone has power. Keep your good memories. Things change in life, that's one of it's big lessons.

[nunoco]

Here's what's going on in the outer boroughs: Manhattan has become the weatlthy world's second home, a theme park for Russian oilgarchs, Shanghai industrialists, Saudi sheiks and South American and Euro-money of all sorts. It's pushed out white-shoe lawyers to places like Brooklyn Heights, stockbrokers to Cobble Hill, doctors to Park Slope and Queens, etc... Outside of housing projects and Chinatown tenements, and a few strongholds of people who bought coops in the early 80s and the early 90s downturn, there are no middle class/working class/poor/bohemian areas left in Manhattan. So those people have been pushed into the boroughs or out of the city altogether.
The reason they've come to the outer boroughs? Immigrants made it safe for them. In Brooklyn's Cobble Hill, Arabs stabilized Atlantic Avenue's shopping district when the shipping biz died. Pioneering Caribbean doctors and nurses--along with progressive-minded teachers--were the ones who made northern Park Slope and Fort Greene brownstone blocks turn around, when many of the old-school white folks were moving out. You see the same thing happening in other areas: Coney Island is becoming a boho hangout because of a few middle-class coop owners who never left, and because of former Soviet, South Asian and East Asian working class immigrants who rebuilt business districts.
On top of that, give some credit to African American and Latino families who, with the help of better policing, said no to the crack epidemic and stopped the early 90s crime wave.
Yes, it's sad to see the old outer-borough Irish and Italians getting squeezed out, but it's not like it was always paradise there. Read about the 40s and 50s and early 60s in the outer boroughs sometime, when it was dominated by white ethnics (Truman Capote, Hubert Selby, Pete Hamill). It was no picnic.
Now that it is a picnic, nobody without 7 figures can afford to live comfortably there.

[NickL28]

Originally Posted by nunoco

Here's what's going on in the outer boroughs: Manhattan has become the weatlthy world's second home, a theme park for Russian oilgarchs, Shanghai industrialists, Saudi sheiks and South American and Euro-money of all sorts. It's pushed out white-shoe lawyers to places like Brooklyn Heights, stockbrokers to Cobble Hill, doctors to Park Slope and Queens, etc... Outside of housing projects and Chinatown tenements, and a few strongholds of people who bought coops in the early 80s and the early 90s downturn, there are no middle class/working class/poor/bohemian areas left in Manhattan. So those people have been pushed into the boroughs or out of the city altogether.
The reason they've come to the outer boroughs? Immigrants made it safe for them. In Brooklyn's Cobble Hill, Arabs stabilized Atlantic Avenue's shopping district when the shipping biz died. Pioneering Caribbean doctors and nurses--along with progressive-minded teachers--were the ones who made northern Park Slope and Fort Greene brownstone blocks turn around, when many of the old-school white folks were moving out. You see the same thing happening in other areas: Coney Island is becoming a boho hangout because of a few middle-class coop owners who never left, and because of former Soviet, South Asian and East Asian working class immigrants who rebuilt business districts.
On top of that, give some credit to African American and Latino families who, with the help of better policing, said no to the crack epidemic and stopped the early 90s crime wave.
Yes, it's sad to see the old outer-borough Irish and Italians getting squeezed out, but it's not like it was always paradise there. Read about the 40s and 50s and early 60s in the outer boroughs sometime, when it was dominated by white ethnics (Truman Capote, Hubert Selby, Pete Hamill). It was no picnic.
Now that it is a picnic, nobody without 7 figures can afford to live comfortably there.

The 'Outer Boros' are following in Manhattan's footsteps as well especially most of Northwest Queens & Brooklyn. Astoria, Williamsburg & Jackson Heights & now the 'hottest' trendiest neighborhoods where you cannot find a one bedroom apartment for less than $300,000 or rent one for less than $2,000 a month..

There are really no middle class people left in the entire NYC metro area. You have to go out to Eastern CT, South Jersey, or to eastern Suffolk to find a reasonably priced home.