Meet Your Neighbors: Episode 8
Welcome back to “Meet Your Neighbors,†a weekly feature on the Bed Stuy blog that serves to make the introductions between you, our readers, and other people who live or work in Bedford Stuyvesant.
I’ve got to say, this early heat wave has severely dampened the ole’ motivation, but in my sweaty misery, I am at least reminded how living through a steamy Brooklyn summer, and absorbing the slow, minute details of a hot day lived in slow motion, has served as the inspiration for many artists. Of most noteworthy would be Spike Lee’s depiction of Bed Stuy on one sweltering summer afternoon in the seminal classic Do The Right Thing. If you haven’t seen the movie in a while, bust open that closet that houses all of your old VHS tapes and watch it again. It is simply one of the best films of all time – in my opinion. And the cool thing is – you can even go out on an easy field trip right in your own ‘hood to see the corner where the film was shot. Should I tell you what block and corner it was on, or are ya’ll way ahead of me?
In the meantime, I bring you one young lady who even amidst the dense Brooklyn heat, managed to look relaxed, cool, and ready for her close-up. Ready to meet a new neighbor?
Name: Monteka Maddox
Lives: Malcolm X Blvd between Macon and Halsey
Age: 25
Born: California (Oakland)
Cultural or ethnic heritage: My mother is a beautiful African American woman and my father – I hear – was a white guy.
How much do you feel like your cultural or ethnic background defines or influences your identity?: On a scale of 1-10, I think it’s influence is about an 8 (3 years ago I would have said 10).
Years lived in Bed Stuy: I moved here in August of 2006.
Where else have you lived during your lifetime?: Oakland, Philadelphia, and Maryland.
Renter or home owner?: I rent…unfortunately.
Lives with: I have two roommates and two pets (as you can see) and the occasional squatter mice.
What is important to you about your individual home and/or the community you live in?: That I feel safe.
Do you participate in community events?: Yes, because they are usually pretty cool. Also, because I think it’s important to get out there and interact with the individuals you share space with.
What do you, or did you, do for a living?: I used to run an afterschool program for a non-profit.
Do you enjoy what you did for work, or no?: I did enjoy it for a while because there were moment when I felt like I shouldn’t be getting paid for having that much fun, and I felt like I was making a difference.
What kind of job do you wish you could have?: Wishes…hmmm. I would love to be a successful fashion designer or actress…along with 40% of NY. I would like to own a boutique and spend my days in search of the next fabulous vintage item in a thrift store across the country (or ocean).
What are some of your favorite hobbies or interests?: Vintage, sewing, reading, and loving my pups.
What is your most dreaded household chore?: Washing dishes, because the end result is not a clean kitchen…because the roommates hate to wash their dishes, too.
What is your favorite household chore?: If any of it was my favorite, then it wouldn’t be a chore.
What is one of your favorite books, movies or music artists?: Book- Salt Roads. Movie- Braveheart. Music Artist- Curtis Mayfield.
What do you like best about living in Brooklyn and/or Bed Stuy?: I LOVE brownstones. I love to look at them with envious eyes. I love their detailed construction…I just love them.
What do you like least about living in Brooklyn and/or Bed Stuy?: The occasional yellow “caution police” tape and the blatant gentrification…but when you have less of one, you get more of the other…sadly.
What would you change about the neighborhood if you could?: For once, I want the street named after a great leader of African decent to actually be one not covered in filth, crime, and run down buildings.
Are there any businesses or services that your part of the neighborhood is lacking?: A great quality mini/supermarket. I hate pushing around those blue carts.
On average, how much time do you spend in Manhattan?: I would say 25% of my up time is spent there.
Other than your own ethnic or cultural background, what other ethnic groups, cultures, or countries do you have an affinity for and why?: Japanese people are just fly.
Are you religious, and if yes, do you attend local worship services?: No, I aspire to be spiritual.
How does your religion, or lack thereof, affect your life or your identity?: Due to the fact that I was raised Penticostal, I am always in conflict with myself and others indirectly. I try not to let a set religion affect who I am and how I view myself. I generally just try to be a good person.
If you are not religious, or disassociated yourself from your family’s religion, would you like to share your thoughts on religion or why you are happier without it?: I feel that if we based our actions on love of self and one another in this life, and we were not so preoccupied with where and what our neighbors will be doing in another life…we would just be better off. Who “needs” religion when you have love? The basic premise of God (yours, mine or his) is love.
11 June 2008, 10:32 am
Wonderful picture! I wanna know the doggies’ names!
11 June 2008, 11:54 am
A couple of things. I love this feature, and I look forward to seeing the diversity of Bed Stuy residents profiled on “Meet Your Neighbors.” And Ms. Maddox strikes me as an insightful person. But I don’t understand why we have to bash gentrification. And I find it fascinating that we (I say “we” because I have been guilty of this, too) can bash gentrification in one breath, then wish for a “quality” bodega in the next. As someone who has lived in the nabe for less than five years, I understand that I am part of the blatant gentrification. So if I am one of those who persistently asks bodega owners to stock one percent milk and whole grain bread (not unreasonable requests, I think), then I say we need more blatant gentrification. If I have to be one of those who reminds the management of C-Town that the Bed Stuy CSA was sold out weeks before the season began, and that C-Town might consider getting some organic veggies, I’m perfectly willing to contribute to that chorus of blatant gentrification.
Of course, I understand what we signal when we bash gentrification is a fear that change (which is the one constant any NYC neighborhood can rely upon) will somehow extinguish, what is in this case, African American culture. But we’re not talking about some obscure dialect near the Bering Strait where there are like five native speakers left in the world. No, gentrification poses no cultural threat to historic Bed Stuy.
What threat could there be then? Economic? It seems to me there is no lack of low income housing in Bed Stuy relative to any other part of Brooklyn. What there is less of is middle income housing. And indeed, the people who most lament the effects of gentrification are typically members of the middle class who romanticize the poor as a way of distracting from their own class (read gentrifying) ambitions.
It saddens me that we so often view the black community in terms of victimhood when, in fact, many of the instigators and architects of this decades old process of gentrification are the ones from whom we bought our homes in the last five years or so. They did very well for themselves. I hope our generation of homeowners can do as well for our families.
11 June 2008, 1:42 pm
My comment is soooo much less insightful.
Hay! Monteka, I love this girl!
11 June 2008, 2:06 pm
i think the key word here is ‘blatant.’ she is part of the gentrification process as well, but seems to have her heart in the right place. ‘blatant gentrification’ would be a calculating view of the neighborhood, probably by unsympathetic developers, who see Bed Stuy as ripe for the picking. they’re the forces that build ugly ‘luxury’ condos and charge more than they’re worth, bringing in the folks who have less and less a connection to the area. gentrification is a thing of degree, even the best-intentioned newcomer can be seen as an ugly threat to a lifer; we’re all a little tainted by it.
11 June 2008, 2:23 pm
reconfirming my belief that bed-stuyers are a styling bunch.
11 June 2008, 2:41 pm
I am not sure why she doesn’t see herself as part of the gentrification process. I find it frustrating that people throw the word gentrification around as if nothing at all good can come from it. I would say that many of the homeowners in the nighborhood have benefited greatly from gentrification. Most of my neighbors own the homes.
11 June 2008, 4:46 pm
I’m so glad you guys picked up on the ‘blatant gentrification’ comment. I did, too, and was wondering some of the same things you are: if someone has moved to Bed Stuy in the past 5 years, aren’t they a gentrifier too? I think the interesting thing is that one has to dig deeper into what an individual’s interpretation is of what “gentrify” means to really get where they’re coming from. To some “gentrification” is purely economic, to others it’s about new faces and businesses, and to some, it’s about race. I do request that subjects elaborate on their own definitions of gentrification, but perhaps I need to prod harder to get some more detailed answers??
Also, I am so far surprised that no one has yet talked about how Bed Stuy was, at one time, a racially mixed, middle class neighborhood, with a large population of Jewish and Irish families, as well as African Americans. I have heard from some residents that many of the businesses along Malcolm X Blvd. were predominantly Jewish-owned well into the 1960’s, yet in doing a quick Google search, the Stuy is mainly referred to as an African American community. I have not yet done any exhaustive research on this, but as plenty of old-timers have talked about it, I’m wondering if you all have anything to add to that?
Anyone care to share on that one??
11 June 2008, 7:47 pm
I’m dying to know where DTRT was filmed, it seems like I knew before but now I’ve forgotten. Please enlighten us!
11 June 2008, 9:36 pm
Well, my dad was born in what is now Clinton Hill, but what was then Bed-Stuy in 1918. According to him, the Bed-Stuy of his childhood was a working class neighborhood that also included wealthy blacks. Blacks with money purchased homes here because it was one of the few neighborhoods where they could, while the rest of the neighborhood was composed of Irish, Jewish, Italian and Black families that rented.
He attended Old Boys High with my uncles while my aunts went to Old Girls High. Their classes were anywhere from 10 to 40% African-American. The area really started to change over in the 40’s and 50’s and by the time Jackie Robinson came to Ebbetts Field, Bed-Stuy was a predominantly black community, but one that had a great class diversity. Homeowners were professionals, but there were plenty of bus drivers, train porters, and factory workers at the Navy Yard that had saved enough money to buy a home and raise their families.
My dad had great stories about growing up here. His love for this neighborhood is one of the reasons I grew to love it (warts and all) and why I chose to stay and raise my family here.
12 June 2008, 8:31 am
Somewhat of a gentrification sidenote, sometime around 2002 I saw Do The Right Thing for the first time since it came out in the late 80’s. NYC back then was VERY tense, i’ll even say Summer ‘89 specifically, around when DTRT was out for a bit. Seeing it again in ‘02, you can really FEEL what NYC felt like back then, I was like, Holy $hit!! Most surprising, was the part in the movie, when the loudmouth guy with the wire rimmed glasses was giving the white guy with the Celtics shirt crap, yelling at him about ‘Gentrification’. After the passage of time having not seen DTRT for so long, I was a bit taken aback to hear gentrification referenced and complained about, at a time in our City’s history, when it felt like our City had completely gone to $hit!
12 June 2008, 9:10 am
i saw DTRT when it came out in ‘89. i’ve seen it many times since and very recently in fact. it’s still an important, relevant film. and wow if he doesn’t just capture the heat in brooklyn and all of the tension that comes with it. at the same time he also paints quite an endearing picture of bed-stuy and its community. same with “crooklyn”.
i will say i paused on the “blatant gentrification” comment as well but i took it to mean something else, more in the line of what jimmy legs previously stated. sometimes i think “gentrification” and “development” are terms that get interchanged and while related and somewhat dependent on each other they have two distinct meanings. i think i appropriated her words to mean the latter. when i see new construction slapped up and landlords that have no ties to the community whatsoever i see it as “blatant development”…
12 June 2008, 9:18 am
also, the street sign outside of sal’s pizzeria in DTRT says stuyvesant ave.
wondering about the cross street?
12 June 2008, 9:45 am
nerd alert: i googled and found that the address of sal’s was supposedly 162 stuyvesant avenue. according to google maps that puts it between lexington and quincy. i do, however, think it was shot closer to fulton because i feel like i knew the cross street at one point. bainbridge?
12 June 2008, 10:17 am
It is on Stuyvesant Avenue, at the corner of Quincy. I thought it was the empty storefront at the corner of Stuyvesant and Macon, but nerd alert here too; while watching DTRT we paused the tape on the garbage can that was thrown through Sal’s front window, noted the street address, then Googled it. If you go to that corner, there are empty lots (where they must have built the set), but you can also see buildings still standing that were in the movie!
12 June 2008, 11:24 am
the block between quincy & lexington was used for the main block shots. did you guys ever see the criterion collection DVD? it has tons of extra stuff, including spike returning to the bock as it is today (or a couple years ago). it’s a little depressing to see those lots still empty.
12 June 2008, 12:00 pm
haven’t seen the criterion collection (i want to now) but i do own his “do the right thing” diary that has tons of production notes in it. will have to re-read and see what he says about the location. btw… that’s a fascinating read and producing that film was pretty much a miracle given what he had to contend with.
12 June 2008, 8:41 pm
Most people who oppose gentrification translate it as: #1. Higher Rent- Shucks, I’ve got to move again. This will be the third time in 2 years. My Section 8 housing is turning into a Co-op?? #2. More Expensive Food- So long to the 25 Cent bag of Bravos and 10 Cent Icy for lunch. #3. Does there really need to be a 3?
Much easier and cheaper to champion the status quo for most people. Life is just easier with less change.
14 June 2008, 1:08 pm
Gentrification always brings on many defenders among the folks doing it. Whom would you wish to sway? Long-term residents you don’t have relationships with? Developers who already have their money? Random folks on blogs? I don’t see an audience to win here. You can have power or pity, but not both. (Leonard Pitts said that.)
this defense (usually a pointing to technical gentrification benefits and lacking iteration of cultural benefits) points to the heart of the problem: cultural responsibility. We should be dealing together if we’re living together.
Instead of defending presence, apply time and economic weight to lobbying against the automatic “gentrification = displacement†equation. Lobbying for whole grain bread in the bodega is less powerful than an integrated group consistently pushing for change that benefits the whole neighborhood. Amenities don’t really need a lobby – Pale Ale and Sam Adams are already here. Those amenities come with the demo change. Instead, spend more time with Hakeem Jeffries as he lobbbies and rallies for G-Train service to improve.
Fundamental, integrated, consistent, strategic neighborhood change is where we can all get down. But you should start on your block by being aware, being yourself, and just being people. Real recognize real – and cooperation can come from that.