A Girl And Her Blog

It would appear that politicians (and the developers to whom they are beholden) have done a smashing job of removing “urban blight” (READ: the working class/poor) from north Brooklyn. Who needs nuclear bombs when re-zoning, complicity and bureaucratic incompetence/apathy will do the job? Nonetheless the end product is more or less the same: a community whose quality of life has been compromised.

Follows is a revue of developer-induced blight in north Brooklyn I captured yesterday, April 5. I have entitled it After The Gold Rush.

The sad reality is re-zoning, tax bennies, and easy credit have done little to benefit my neighborhood. There were once businesses that gave people decent, well paying  jobs. Affordable rental property was once in abundance in Greenpoint as well. No more. Thanks to our city’s leadership much of my wonderful neighborhood has become a wasteland peppered by vacant lots, failed condominiums cum overpriced rental property, illegal hostels and super-sized tourist destinations operated by and for the affluent.

The time is long overdue for north Brooklyn to be developed in a manner sensitive to the needs of the people who constitute this community, not the ones Mayor Bloomberg’s rich cronies envision living here.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Miss Heather

P.S.: This one’s for you, Bob.