anon1;
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It boggles my mind how even when we moved from East NY to Ridgewood back in 96' we made sure how the area was and whether it was a hispanic friendly area or would we have problems and sure enough before the area changed when we did the research we learned that the area was predominantly Italian with a strong puerto rican population and that Mafia presence was very high in the area... Afterwards, we learned what spots to avoid and what blocks to not walk on and we figured that compared to where we currently lived the QOL was no comparison...
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It was in 1967 when my wife and I, and two children moved from Woodside Queens, to Ridgewood. We found a nice five room apartment there on Gates Avenue,
in what could be called upper Ridgewood, we were bordered by Grandview Avenue (going down toward Brooklyn), and by Fairview Avenue (going toward Queens). In those
days the neighborhood was predominantly German, and another bonus for me, would be that there were bars on practically every corner of the block! I mean, there must
have been 15 bars within a five block radius of where we lived on Gates Avenue. I surely have had at least one drink, in every one of them. The neighborhood was peaceful
there, never had problems. Biggest annoyance was the busses that ran up and down Gates, a two-way street.The only other real problem was finding parking for my car, in
those days they had alternate side of the street parking, (probably still do), and you could park on one side of Gates Avenue but not the other. Ridgewood only seemed to
become multicultural (or diverse), as we were leaving there in 1973, when we moved out here to Long Island.
Our rent was set at $100 a month for the five rooms, we had no backyard and we were in a six family house, on the middle floor. The apartments were actually,
just like rowhouses, each building adjoining the next. Between each six family house, there was an airshaft – In the center of the middle room, one strange thing also, was
that there were double hung windows between each room, these windows installed and required because of other tenement fires that had some fatalities. I guess that it
was either a building department regulation, or mandated by the fire code. Although we only paid $100 a month for the apartment, only a few years ago my wife noticed in
the Daily News, that these apartments on Gates Avenue were now designated as historical, and also that the rents have increased to an average price of $1600 a month
for 5 rooms, in a cold water flat! As you went up Gates Avenue towards Wycoff Avenue, the neighborhood began to change almost by the block, the trouble spots usually
being down towards Wycoff Avenue.
My wife still has nightmares when she thinks of what it would have been like if we had never bought a home, and would have had to raise 5 children there on
Gates Avenue!
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