Our first episode takes listeners to Crown Heights, a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in central Brooklyn, where two high rise residential towers threaten to block the sunlight upon which the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s greenhouses rely. Rents are rising fast in Crown Heights, and affordable housing is increasingly hard to find, but will community members welcome more housing even if it comes at the expense of a thriving botanic garden?

Additional Reading:

• Supply Skepticism: Housing Supply and Affordability (Vicki Been, Ingrid Gould Ellen, Katherine O’Regan)
• City NIMBYs (Vicki Been)

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According to the National Weather Service, this is the warmest winter of the last 40 years in New York and 47 other states. Last year, on this same date, the average temperature in the city was 13 degrees.

Samuel Dee, 66, has run the County Pharmacy on Nostrand Avenue for more than 25 years. For Dee, warm winter weather  means change in his clients’ needs. 

“The temperature is a big determinant of what people can catch,” Dee said. Approximately 50 clients come in every day during winter, and between 60 and 65 visit him daily during spring to treat their allergies.

“This year, we have sold a lot less of the most commonly used antibiotics to treat colds and much more cough medicine and injections, which people need to treat the flu,” said Dee. “Temperatures below 20 degrees are too cold for flu to spread. That is when you see a significant increase in colds. In [this year´s] temperature, you see either both or more severe cases of flu.”

The pharmacist explained sales of facemasks are rising. His customers are worried about the Coronavirus. The city has seen its third suspected case of the rapidly spreading virus. 

According to  the World Meteorological Organization  global warming has caused an increase of 33 degrees in the world’s temperature in the last five years. Still, there is no direct link between long-term global trends and short-term variations we experience from day to day. Wind speed, humidity, atmospheric pressure, and the soil’s absorption of sun rays determine the weather.

Alysta Garvey, 70, the owner of Garvey’s Hardware, has done plumbing work in Brooklyn since 1980. He said winter is typically peak time for his business—but not this year. 

“Since this winter has not been that cold, the stress on the pipes around here has been less than usual, he said. “We haven’t gotten calls about burst or frozen pipes, and I don’t remember any other winter when this had happened. Luckily, we still get a lot of calls about radiators and heaters.” 

Alysta Garvey, owner of Garvey’s Hardware in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said warm winters  has kept pipes from bursting.  Photo by Ximena Del Cerro

But the winter is far from ending. The Climate Data Organization forecasts the next snowfall for Wednesday  even though the temperature will not drop below 32 degrees.

Business in the winter is always slow for Shelley Marshawn, the owner of Island Pops, an ice cream store in Crown Heights Brooklyn.

For Shelley Marshawn, 34, winter always means a drop in business. She is the owner of Island Pops, an ice cream store on the corner of Nostrand  Avenue and St. Marks Avenue  and from October to March, her work mostly consists of making coffee. 

“It is not very cold outside, but people are still in a winter mindset, and they don’t buy much ice cream during these months,” said Marshawn. “With the exception of a couple of weekends during January, when we sold a few cones and pints, this winter is no different for the business.”

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On Thursday morning, Vaughn Armour, 67, stood outside City Hall wearing a shirt that read, “Bad For Crown Heights,” with bold emphasis on the B, F, and C.

“I made up this up myself,” he said.

Armour and fellow New Yorkers were continuing a months-long protest against the redevelopment of the Bedford-Union Armory. The project, led by private developer BFC Partners, would convert the former National Guard building in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, into a mixed-use neighborhood complex, featuring rental apartments, condominiums and a public recreation center. The city gained ownership of the building in 2013. It has remained mostly vacant ever since.

Armour, a Crown Heights resident of 17 years, worries that developing the armory will further gentrify his neighborhood.

“That armory is one of the biggest gentrification projects in Brooklyn,” he said. “So it’s going to have a big effect. (Developers and new tenants) come in and the longtime residents like me and my neighbors will be pushed out.”

Earlier this week, the City Planning Commission approved the plan to redevelop the armory. The City Council will review the plan before the end of the year. It currently has Mayor Bill de Blasio’s support.

Protesters chanted, “kill the deal,” a refrain of encouragement geared toward Laurie Cumbo, City Council Member of the 35^th District, where the armory is located. Cumbo’s office said in an email statement that the Council Member’s position on the deal has not changed. She voiced her opposition in May 2017 and still plans to vote no.

Protesters say that the city council is likely to follow Cumbo’s lead about whether to approve the project.

“That’s not by statute, but it’s local tradition,” said Esteban Giron, 39, a Crown Heights tenant. “The city council follows whatever vote the local council person has.”

Esteban Giron, 39, a Crown Heights resident, holds a bullhorn for a protest to “Kill The Deal” outside City Hall. Photo by Claire Tighe

BFC Partners’ current plan offers the neighborhood 330 rental apartments units and 60 condominiums. Half of all the units will be considered affordable by city standards.

In statements to Commercial Observer and Patch, BFC Partners spokesman Sam Spokony said, “We’re committed to providing a new affordable recreation center, affordable office space for nonprofits and affordable housing for the Crown Heights community. As the Bedford-Union Armory continues to sit vacant, this is an opportunity to make it a place that truly serves local families.”

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Dozens of people gathered in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and chanted “I watch your son, you watch mine.” “Enough is enough.” They held signs that read, “Youth Matter, Black Lives Matter.”

They rallied, they marched, they held vigil  yesterday in memory of Carey Gabay and the 94 Brooklyn victims of gun violence. Carey Gamble served as an attorney in Governor Cuomo’s administration, and was killed by a stray bullet during a West Indian Day celebration on Sept. 17th.

City officials, residents, chaplains, community outreach organizations, and residents of all races, walked a mile, praying and chanting to Ebbets Field.

Marcher, Devine Alexander of St. Albans, Queens, is a member of Guns Down Life Up (GDLU), an organization that works to dissuade youth from turning to guns. Alexander, who was once an inner city kid himself, understands it can be hard to escape violence. He believes there are better ways to cope with the struggle inner city kids may face. His group provides mentoring and an outlet for kids to have someone to talk to.

Devine Alexander is a member of Guns Down Life Up (GDLU) an organization that aims to dissuade youth from a gun-violent lifestyle. Crown Heights, Brooklyn. photo by Taisha Henry.

“There’s a lot of unsaid reasons why kids go the way they go, maybe not being financially secure, not having a place to live, or just no no one to talk to, “Alexander said. “So we’re here just to set an example that you can change your life and be a prime citizen of society”.

Alexander believes that his organization and others like it, provide action and change in the community. He said he has seen kids in his organization move away from a violent lifestyle and lead others to do the same.

“We’re trying to start a mindset when they’re very young to educate them, that guns do kill people and guns are dangerous,” he said.

Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo, one of the officials who led the rally, believes that boroughs should have an office dedicated to gun violence with responders who come within 72 hours of a gun-violence incident.

As of June, 72% of New York City’s murder victims were killed by guns, a 15% increase from last year, according to a New York Daily news article.

And according to NYPD’s weekly crime statistics, between September 7 and September 13 there have been 33 incidents of gun violence in Brooklyn, and 51 incidents city wide.

Cumbo is also working to gain funding for Operation SNUG, a project funded and implemented by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, which aims to end gun-violence.

Febe Kennedy who marched with Dr.Martin Luther King believes that the youth need to learn respect and love before any real change can happen. Photo by Taisha Henry

Feber Kennedy, a Coney Island resident, who attended the rally said, that the most important thing that young people need to learn is to respect and love one another.

“I’m one of the old folks, I remember marching with Dr. King,” he said. “We had love back then and I think the love needs to continue up here.”

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by Ellie Miao

Residents, affordable housing advocates and elected officials rallied yesterday morning, to protest Alma Realty’s announcement of converting Brooklyn’s rent-stabilized Jewish Hospital Crown Heights apartment complex into market rate.

“Where am I going to live as a single mom?” asked Alethea Adsiet, a PE physical therapist for the New York State Department of Education in Brooklyn. To raise her child alone, she is also working as a dancer and choreographer—and still barely making her ends meet. “This is my home, I have lived here for 11years, but now I may have to leave.”

Adsiet said she was shocked when she received the market rate lease renewal from Alma. “What happened to my rent stabilization?” she asked.

The Crown Heights complex was part of the former site of Brooklyn Jewish Hospital—a property around Prospect Place and Classon Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, which was purchased by Alma in the early 2000s. When the tenants sighed the lease for the first time, they were offered a rider from Department of Housing and Community Renewal promising that these unites were rent stabilized and were protected under the Emergency Rent Stabilization Act.

“Alma wants to deregulate all of the apartments here,” Adsiet said. “I cannot afford this high rent. I think I can’t afford to live in this city anymore.”

Over the past decade, while rents in Crown Heights community have increased dramatically, the Jewish Hospital complex remained affordable—this made it a choice for living for young professionals and the working class.

“I was specifically looking for rent stabilized housing and I found this one,” said Elizabeth Glowierht, who just graduated with her master’s degree in social work and has lived in the building for five years.

“I would never have moved in here if I had known that this wouldn’t be a long-term residence for me,” she said.

Community leaders think that the increased rent not only affects the tenants’ quality of life, but also the diversity of the neighborhood.

“What we want is the preservation of affordable housing and diversity in our borough,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. “So that the working class doesn’t have to struggle to stay.”

Adams said this is a citywide issue and believes there is great possibility that Alma will apply the same action to its residences in other boroughs.

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Raising Chickens in NYC from Pavement Pieces on Vimeo.

When Noah Leff moved into his Crown Heights brownstone six years ago, he never imagined he would become Brooklyn’s resident chicken expert. Now, as the owner of Victory Chicken, Leff helps New Yorkers become part of the city’s growing urban agriculture movement.

When he first moved to Brooklyn, Leff, 40, became involved in his neighborhood’s community garden and started working with the chickens that live in the neighborhood’s coop. Through his work with the neighborhood birds, Leff had the idea to start his “quirky little business” which builds and installs coops in and around New York, provides hens for egg-laying and educates New Yorkers on how to raise chickens in their communities and homes.

“I quickly realized it was super easy to keep chickens in the city and kind of like a lot of fun for me,” he said.

While urban farming in New York has been on the rise for years, chicken raising has only recently started to boom as New Yorkers embrace the concept of slow food , and the movement’s idea that locally grown and sourced food is healthier and more environmentally sound.

For Leff, this increased desire meant that there needed to be an easier way for interested New Yorkers to get chicken coops started and have eggs and some meat sourced as locally as possible: from their own backyards and gardens.

“You can’t just go to the pet store and buy chickens or buy a chicken coop,” Leff said. “I just realized that people needed an easy way to do this. They needed an easy way to get chickens, to get coops because after we’ve helped them do that, it is super easy to maintain.”

For Leff, who currently uses the chickens for their eggs but plans to eat his family’s three hens once they reach around five-years-old and are past their egg-laying years, keeping chickens in the city is a “really reasonable way” for New Yorkers to take part in farming.

“From an urban agriculture standpoint it is very effective,” Leff said. “It is essentially the same cost as going to the supermarket so it seems very possible to me that a lot of people could just start doing this in their backyard and not have to buy factory-farmed eggs.”

While Leff says that chickens are essentially “gerbils that lay eggs” and that maintaining birds on his property is easy, keeping chickens in the city is not without its challenges.

Last spring, Lisa Heller, who lives in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, started raising chickens as what she believed would be a “fun project” for her and her 5-year-old son, Jackson. What she did not know then was that her project would become a long struggle with lead-contamination issues.

“I had my soil tested at Brooklyn College and, sure enough, my soil sample came back really high,” she said. “It had really high levels of lead and the eggs had really high levels of lead. I’m a mom, I can’t feed my kid lead.”

According to Leff, lead is a “real issue for urban farmers,” and all urban chicken-raisers need to remediate their land in order to keep their food supply safe. When Victory Chicken sets up a coop, Leff said he always makes sure that new hen owners—roosters are illegal in New York due to crowing and aggressive behavior— know about soil contamination issues.

“The thing is, if lead is going to be a problem in your chickens, if you are raising them in a high-lead environment, that environment is also not one where you can grow most vegetables or one in which you can even really hang out,” Leff said. “Chickens in a high-lead environment will get lead in their eggs as well as in their flesh.”

For Heller, this “lack of remediation” in her backyard meant getting rid of her original animals but, even so, she plans to continue farming her Brooklyn yard. Now, she is in the process of acquiring new birds and replacing soil in a section of her backyard so they will not come into contact with lead-contaminated soil.

“What I would say is that I love animals and I enjoyed having the chickens as pets,” she said. “If you are an urban farmer and you are doing this for the eggs only, the lead can be a lot of work for just some eggs.”

For Leff, the fact that his company is thriving despite lead issues demonstrates that urban agriculture is “working its way into the mainstream” of New York City society.

“A lot of people who keep chickens in the city were thought of as being people who want to live off the grid or are kind of hippyish” he said. “We’ve done rooftops, we’ve estates in Greenwich, we’ve gone to Long Island. This does not need to be an eccentric or fringe thing to do.”

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It was 10 p.m. on a recent Friday night and business was booming at The Experience Unisex Salon in Crown Heights. An interracial couple held an intimate conversation in French while they sat in the waiting area. A stylist tightly sewed wavy blonde extensions into her African-American customer’s hair. VH1 Soul played on the two large flat screen televisions filling the spacious salon with R & B.

Black-owned businesses like The Experience Unisex Salon are all over this working class neighborhood, which, according to the 2010 Census, is 72 percent black. But as gentrification seeps into the neighborhood, diversity has brought hope and new clients to this busy salon.

“We have clients of all backgrounds, Indian, White, Latinos, and Blacks,” said Khalil Wright, 37, the salon’s co-owner.

Wright and his partner Zakeyah Ryan, 32, opened the salon in 2006 and within three years noticed a change in clientele.

Blue-eyed and blond-haired, Nate Olson,29, has been a client of the Experience Unisex Salon since he moved to Crown Heights from Iowa three years ago.

“You can come here and talk to anyone about anything,” Olson said. “It’s definitely a place where all types of people catch up to talk about things going on in the community.”

The number of white residents in Crown Heights has increased 20 percent, according to the census data. For many of the black salon customers, this was their first time sharing a salon with white neighbors.

“I grew up in Crown Heights and before this shop, I’ve never been to a barbershop and a white man was in the chair,” said Amaechi Aneke, 30, as he watched his barber cutting a white customer’s hair.

On a recent visit, every customer was greeted with a hearty welcome from the staff and then waited patiently for a free stylist in one of the red, blue or yellow chairs.

“We are a black-owned business, but we don’t focus on the color of people, we see hair,” Ryan said.

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