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)

The post Crown Heights – Franklin Avenue appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

 La Morada is a restaurant that multitasks. From the kitchen, flautas, enchiladas, mole, tacos are served up. In their dining room, the tables double as a community space, where the words “No Mas Deportaciones” and “Black Lives Mattered” are painted on doors and corners, where a flyer saying “Vote” and “Resist” is plastered repeatedly on the Mott, Haven, Bronx entryway.  

Last night it served as the venue for the Bronx Museum’s second installment  of their Bronx Speaks series, a program that combines art and social justice. Neighborhood women,street vendors, chefs, activists, teamed up with art collectives to trace their journeys to Mott Haven, their home. Throughout the night speakers took turn sharing what the community of Mott Haven meant to them. For the outsiders, from the art collectives, it was an opportunity to share why they became involved.

Yajaira Saavedra, the daughter of the owner of La Morada is one of those women who needed space to express her fear and frustration at the way her neighborhood is changing.  “As an undocumented immigrant, I can’t rely on the NYPD,” Saavedra said, her voice shaking. “I felt safer when they weren’t everywhere. I feel safer when it is just my community.”

She spoke at length about the need to fight back against the gentrification in the neighborhood, that an increased police presence was a danger to a largely black and brown community, to a community of immigrants, street vendors, and working class people.

Yajaira anecdotes are reflective of the neighborhood’s statistics: Mott Haven is 72 percent hispanic, and 25 percent black. Of the 94,000 residents in the neighborhood, 36 percent have a limited proficiency in English. Mott Haven has the highest percentage of adults who have not completed high school in all of New York City and 46 percent of the district lives below the federal poverty level. The neighborhood has the highest rate for child asthma in the whole city,  nearly three times the city average.

Her sister, Carolina Saavedra, the su chef of the restaurant, learned to cook in Mexico, at the Oaxaca Culinary Institute. Carolina was first in the first speaker in the series. Upon returning to the United States, she was dismayed to realize that her Mexican cooking experience wasn’t good enough for most restaurants. She looked around and saw the food of her culture, the precious mole which once used to be considered a gift to the gods, offered up in knock off restaurants for twice the price.

The art that Carolina made was for her children, and for the children she watched grow up in the neighborhood. She recreated “The Hungry Caterpillar” for the kids, and the culture she knew. The caterpillar munched on guacamole and rice and beans, not candy or sandwiches.

As she read her story, Carolina broke down in tears. So did many others who presented their art that night. A woman named Eutiquia Herrera, who sold coco helado immigrated to the U.S. from a poor, small village in Mexico. Juana Tapia, who learned to make her mother’s perfect mole sauce because she missed her so much, but could not return to Mexico – the mole was her only connection to home. Carmela, who made her art to smell like the flowers she misses in Mexico, and that she grows in the Mott Haven community garden.

David Keef, a war veteran and program director of the Frontline Arts group, used papermaking as a way to deal with his traumas – he taught the method to the women of Mott Haven, hoping to make a connection to the community and learn more about people different from him.

“As a veteran myself, I feel somewhat responsible and I feel guilt for the systemic racism, the nationalism and colonialism that America perpetrates,” Keef said into the crowded dining room. “I feel deeply betrayed by my country. A country that strips people of innocence and culture, a country that dehumanizes an entire population”

The betrayal Keef feels, one he tied to mass incarceration, increased deportations, and the criminalization of the poor – an average Mott Haven resident might have an experience with any, or all three, scenarios – Mott Haven has one of the highest incarceration rates in the city, nearly double the average for the Bronx.

For Keef, working with communities like Mott Haven was a way to teach his form of storytelling, one through art, to other people who would benefit from telling their stories. Mott Haven, which was recently almost renamed the Piano District in an effort to gentrify the area, is suffering from rising rents and increased costs at local retailers, a way to share personal experiences in a community setting was a needed catharsis.

Each woman could not separate the importance of their home, their community in Mott Haven, from the feelings of safety and happiness felt in their lives. All feared what gentrification and over policing could do to a community connected by street vendors.

“Who’s going to know us? Who’s going to see us? Who will we talk to?” Carolina Saavedra asked, while clutching the art that featured vignettes of her life.

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Protesters marched from Flatbush to Sunset Park yesterday to denounce gentrification and the rising cost of living in Brooklyn.

“Luxury equals displacement,” the protestors shouted. “Housing is a human right.”

The march was led by Brooklyn Anti-Gentrification Network (BAN), which demands universal rent stabilization in the city. BAN demands the protection of public housing and believes the city is being remade for the wealthy. Most of the marchers were from a variety of grassroots organizations that fight gentrification. They were also protesting ICE and police brutality.

Monica Underwood, who has lived in Boerum Hill for 35 years, is the steering Committee Chair of Families United for Racial & Economic Equality. She said a new neighborhood proposal would take away walkways and playgrounds for youth. Two large parking lots on her residence would be replaced by buildings that could be 16 stories high and unaffordable.

“I don’t want people to be displaced because the neighborhood is changing,” Underwood said.

Brooklyn is changing. According to a gentrification report by the NYU Furman Center, between 2000 and 2010-2014, Williamsburg and Greenpoint experienced a rent growth of 57.7 percent, Bushwick 44.5 percent and Bedford Stuyvesant 39.9 percent. Meanwhile the black and brown population decreased.

Michael Bailey, of gentrifying Crown Heights, lived in the now gentrified Bedford–Stuyvesant.

Bailey wants the state legislature and state senate to be more active in making sure there are protections for rent stabilized tenants.

He believes that gentrification is altering the core fabric of these neighborhoods. .

“Neighborhoods are losing the flavor they had when I was younger,” he said.  “It was community. It was neighbors looking out for each other, neighbors becoming part of your family.”

As a representative of tenants in housing court and a practitioner of landlord tenant law, Bailey said black and brown women are at a disadvantage.

“I see it wholesale, mainly black and brown women being evicted from their homes,” he said. “When you go outside the (housing) court on 141 Livingston Street, you’re going to see nothing but confusion and people of color. You’ll see about 100 people outside everyday.”

Marcela Mitaynes, a long-time resident of Sunset Park and organizer of Neighbors Helping Neighbors, believes that immigrant communities have specifically been targeted and driven out of their homes.

“The Latino and Asian side are being targeted,” she said. “They have substandard housing conditions and are being overcharged for the units their renting out.”

Neighbors Helping Neighbors helps empower middle and low income residents in Brooklyn.

“I want the tenants to know they are not suffering by themselves,” Mitaynes said. “The harassment is not something they caused. It’s landlord greed that’s pushing this. They need to be educated.”

Mitaynes moved to Sunset Park in 1979. In 2006, her landlord forced half of her neighbors out of the residence. When Mitaynes was subjected to the same fate, she attempted to fight in housing court, but she came to realize the inefficiency of it. Neighbors Helping Neighbors provided her with the support she lacked.

“We will use our voices to tell our stories,” she told the protesters in Spanish through a microphone.

The protesters and grassroots organizations ended their march in Sunset Park.

“Sunset Park no se vende!” they shouted in Spanish.

“Sunset Park is not for sale.”

The post Brooklyn protesters say no to gentrification appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

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.”

The post Protests against redeveloping Crown Heights’ Bedford-Union Armory continue appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Janet Goldner, sat in her 300 square foot studio space in South Slope Brooklyn. Void of windows, her only ventilation is the hole in the center of the ceiling. It is the last room on a cold hallway of closed wooden doors and concrete floors. She is a welding artist, something she describes as an added difficulty when it comes to finding affordable space to work.

“Welding is particularly difficult to find a place you can do it in New York…it’s not dangerous, but people think it’s dangerous,” Goldner, 63, said.

She bought a loft in Tribeca, where she lives now, over 30 years ago. That’s where she used to weld before her neighborhood changed into what she described as “gentrified beyond anything.”

“Tribeca got too fancy to get welding gas deliveries,” Goldner said.

In recent years gentrification has taken New York by storm, boosting real estate prices, ushering in big businesses and giving a facelift to historically impoverished neighborhoods. Rents have risen and so have the cost of artist studios.

“Artists are paying more for less square footage,” said Jenny Dubnau, an organizer for the Artist Studio Affordability Project (ASAP), an effort that began in 2013 after a group of artists were priced out of their studio space in Sunset Park’s Industry City.

“My first workspace was probably about 50 cents per square foot: it was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the late 80’s,” Dubnau said.

Now, she said she pays about $2 per square foot, which is considered a “good deal” though it is at the higher end of what she and most artists can afford.

What artist paid $400 in the late 1980’s, they would pay roughly $1600 today for approximately the same amount of space.

Half of a 360 square foot shared studio space in East Williamsburg is going for $472.50 a month according to New York Foundation for the Arts, an organization dedicated to empowering artists and art organizations.

While tight living and workspaces are not unique to New York City they do present big challenges for working artists because the size of studio space effects the size of the work an artist produces.

“I cannot have a small space because I have big sculptures and I have to store it somewhere,” said Gabriel Koren, 68, an artist who creates life size sculptures.

The Hungarian born sculptor of life size African-American figures, said her work requires more space, which costs more money

She is currently facing eviction, due to a raise rent, that she can’t afford. She lives and works in a 1000 square foot studio space, that she says in unlivable, her move out date is Dec. 31^st.

“I don’t know what will happen, I don’t know,” She said through tears. She has no where to put her work once the time comes for her to leave her DUMBO, Brooklyn studio.

“I don’t have a place to stage them and they can throw [them] to the garbage,” Koren said in tears over her Dec. 31st move out date.

Because Koren’s work is life size, her studio space has to be large enough to accommodate it, which she said could be upwards of $2500.

“I’m scared to death,” Koren said.

The city has made strides towards remedying this issue of affordable workspace, through mayor De Blasio’s initiative to have the city build 1,500 artist live-work spaces by 2024 for New York City’s artists, which is part of his Housing New York Five-Borough, Ten Year plan. But many artists feel that this will only benefit a small portion of artists and would much rather prefer separate living and work spaces.

“The projects that are coming down the pipe are like a drop in the bucket compared to the need,” said artist, Rejin Leys as she sat in her workspace that has dwindled to a small room on the second floor of her Jamaica, Queens home.

Leys, now in her 40’s has lived in New York City all her life and has had several work studios over the years, each move affecting the size of the work she creates.

“I feel like ideally housing and workspace would be addressed separately because there will never be enough artist housing for everyone,” Leys said.

She feels that the construction of live-work spaces in low-income areas essentially makes the incoming artists gentrifiers. While the needs of one community are met “there will still be a housing crisis for everyone else.”

This is why Leys said she, along with Dubau support ASAP’s efforts to secure “commercial space for people to work and housing for people to live” which she said will benefit artists, small business owners and local community members.

With all the efforts that have gone into addressing the issue of gentrification and its adverse effects on New York City’s artist community the fact remains that each artist faces unique issues with varying levels of severity.

“I feel like in the past I made it work better than I can figure out how to make it work now,” Goldner said. “It was expensive but possible, and now it’s expensive and impossible.”

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by Raz Robinson

A group of Lower East Side residents celebrated the first victory in the fight for a community’s rights to a building that has remained unoccupied for almost 15 years.

The crowd bellowed, “No lease. No Dorms” as Councilwoman Rosie Mendez took to the steps of the apartment building across from the abandoned CHARAS Cultural Community Center at 605 East Ninth St., yesterday. Mendez then announced that the Department of Buildings (D.O.B) has issued a Stop Work Order stopping land developer Gregg Singer, from turning CHARAS into a 200 bed dorm for Cooper Union and The Joffery Ballet.

“This building should be returned to the people of the Lower East Side and East Village,” said Mendez. “We will continue our struggle to keep that hope alive.”

Community organizers are now looking for a way that the building can be entirely given to the residents.
The building was originally erected as a public school in 1904. In 1977, four year after the school’s closing, various East Village and Lower East Side community organizations re-appropriated the building and turned it into a community center. Hundred of theater groups used the space.

In 1998 the Giuliani administration decided, after 34 years, to close the community center and put the building up for sale. Development was stopped as a result of discoveries made by the DOB regarding discrepancies between building codes and the agreement between Singer and the schools outlined in the lease.

A theme of yesterday’s event was discussing the difficulty of fighting back against the changes that hurt the neighborhood while embracing the ones that help it.

“The site of the former CHARAS facility was always intended for the public,” said New York State Senator Brad Hoylman. “We can’t allow developers to do end-runs around agreements put in place to ensure community use.”

Ralliers said the dorms would not contribute anything to the community, but rather open the door for development and further displacement of residents.

“We do not need for this to be a dormitory,” said Christian Valerio, a housing specialist with the Cooper Square Committee. “We don’t need some major institution to open up a center and start something. What we need is a grassroots based community center that’s open to the entire community.”

The CHARAS center for years before its closing served as an open space for the community to come together creatively as well as a space for discussion surrounding problems inside of the community.
“It was such an important part of the community’s vibrance and development,” said Sally Lelong, an artist and more than 30 year resident of the Lower East Side.“ In the 70’s and 80’s the city was in economic collapse, it was about to be torn apart by poverty, and this [CHARAS] created a means for people to sit, find common ground, and resist the destruction.”

Though the recent turn of events has temporarily kept the building from being developed further, Mendez and supporters of the rebuilding of the community center acknowledge that there is still more work to be done.

“We need to capitalize on this moment and ensure that we work even harder to bring a community center back,” said Anthony Feliciano a Lower East Side District Leader. CHARAS is more than just a building, it’s an institution that represents the Loisaida community.”

The post A community victory in Loisaida appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

It’s not quite an art gallery, not quite a language school, and not quite a music venue.

But El Taller Latino-Americano is a little bit of all those things, and most of all it has become a cultural institution on the Upper West Side over the last two decades. With rising rents, it’s about to be driven out of the area.

“Despite the fact that we are a not-for-profit educational organization, the rent which we engage in with the landlord is commercial,” said Bernardo Palombo, a founder of El Taller.

It’s expected to rise from $8000to $22,000 per month next year.

“What for us is human space is for others mathematics and numbers,” said Palombo.

This is not the first time Manhattan’s property market has forced them to move.

El Taller: language, culture and community on 104th Street from Pavement Pieces on Vimeo.

They started out on 19th Street and 7th Avenue almost 35 years ago, before moving a little further uptown, then across to the basement of a Russian cathedral in the Lower East Side. They’ve been in their current space on 104th Street and Broadway for the last 22 years.

“Now we are here, and probably next year we will be in Canada, because the whole history of gentrification pushes people to el norte, so we are going to el norte again,” said Palombo.

He has a plan for El Taller – to develop an urban garden, community kitchen, centre for immigrants’ rights and a three-penny university – if he can find a way to stay in the building.

The three-penny university would include workshops from current and former Columbia University professors and community members.

“Dona Maria, a Puerto Rican woman who lives next to my house, will teach handy 22 point crochet,” said Palombo, “And the younger characters that are selling drugs in the avenue will teach texting to the old farts like me.”

El Taller has submitted the proposal to two different arts foundations, suggesting they buy the building and help expand the organization.

But if the rent rises as expected, it is likely Palombo and El Taller will have to find a new home for these big ideas to unfold.

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Artist Alice Pasquini is shown painting her latest mural. She traveled from Rome to be a part of the Bushwick magnet. Photo by Gabrielle A. Wright.

BUSHWICK 2
Gabrielle Wright reports from Bushwick

Struggling artists and hopeful gallery owners fled to Bushwick in search of building a new art scene. They were also in search of cheap rent so they acquired Bushwick’s abandoned buildings. Now, hopes of the area becoming a breeding ground for a new, experimental art scene have become a magnet for more people, more businesses and anything else indicating “next big thing”.

With each next big gallery opening, Bushwick’s art scene moves a little closer to being a pricey twin to Williamsburg’s art scene. As a result, some older Bushwick residents aren’t only priced out of their neighborhoods, they’re also disconnected from the art community coming in. But some artists are attempting to connect.

William Powhida, an artist who relocated to Bushwick from Williamsburg a few years ago, highlights the “social significance of the $13 hamburger”, brought into Bushwick by a wave of artists in his piece, “Things I Think about when I Think about Bushwick”.

“There are changes that people in the community are in support of,” said Powhida. “There’s less crime, less shootings, there’s not a drug war going on anymore, but at the same time, prices of milk goes up. The restaurants come in and the hamburgers are $13 dollars. There’s not a lot of development centered around the community. It’s centered around artists and their tastes,” he said.

In turn, some of Powhida’s work and interests are centered on Bushwick’s art world and how gentrification pushes much of the community onto the outskirts.

“We are the harbingers of gentrification,” said artist, Jennifer Dalton. “One way of looking at it is neighborhoods change and that is natural, but another way of looking at it is artists are on the frontlines of ruining other people’s situations and space. It’s ethically complicated,” she said.

Dalton, co-curator of Auxiliary Projects, an art gallery in Bushwick which sells pieces for under $300 in order to make them available to a wider and more diverse audience. She feels that although many of Bushwick’s changes are centered on artists, they have supported the community by turning empty spaces into useable ones.

“Look, people are here mainly to show their work, not necessarily to represent the community,” said artist, Deborah Brown. “We artists need to think of ways to build their community and be a part of the art dialogue.”.
Brown is the owner of Storefront Gallery and also on Bushwick’s Community Board. Many of Bushwick’s issues, from street lights to education initiatives are familiar to Brown. She’s also very keen on the art community finding ways to become more involved in Bushwick.

“…the community doesn’t really go to galleries,” said Brown.”…it’s presumptuous; they’ve been here for 30 years. They aren’t interested in seeing white artists. Who’s going to do that?”

“No long-time Bushwick resident has stepped foot in [my] gallery,” said Dalton.

Joe Ficalora, creator of 5 Points Bushwick , an ongoing street art project between Wycoff and St. Nicholas Avenue on Troutman Street, said Bushwick residents would probably visit Bushwick’s 50-plus galleries more often if they could connect to them more.

“Kids should go home and pick up a pen after seeing these murals and say I connected to this…”

Joe Ficalora looks over his internationally recognized street art project, 5 Points Bushwick. The Bushwick native says it brings Bushwick – and his self – to life. Photo by Gabrielle A. Wright.

Ficalora grew up in Bushwick and said his exposure to baseball kept him out of trouble. He feels art could do the same for kids today.

“It’s about sharing,” he said. “Why can’t we be responsible for having that impression for the community, for the kids?”

Brown feels that that despite the changes in the physical landscape, artists should get to know their neighbors.

“We have totally different experiences but it gets you out of your cocoon,” she said. “The art community has their own lives and they’re not drawn into the larger community unless they want to be. Efforts are just at the beginning but artists have to get the ball rolling,” said Brown.

The post The art of gentrification in Bushwick appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

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.

The post Hair salon reflects changing neighborhood appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Pumpkins line the stoop of a brownstone in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Carroll Gardens. Photo by Jasmine Brown

Stuart Zagnit exited the Smith Street subway station and walked as quickly as he could toward his apartment on Union Street without drawing attention to himself. He was worried about getting hurt on that side of town, even during the day.

For the last 20 years, Zagnit, 58, has called the Brooklyn neighborhood of Carroll Gardens home. It has changed drastically over the years, and Zagnit has witnessed firsthand the role gentrification has played in the community.

“I think it has been phenomenal for the neighborhood,” Zagnit said. “We used to live on what was considered the edge of funkiness. The projects were very mixed. There was a certain element that was potentially destructive that would come over. That’s changed.”

Now, Zagnit raves about the accessibility and safety of the neighborhood. It has everything you need and is all walkable and safe, he said.

Carroll Gardens, a neighborhood of brownstones, is nestled in between the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Gowanus Canal. It is takes its name from revolutionary war veteran Charles Carroll and the neighborhood’s characteristic front gardens.

Stuart Zagnit pauses while running afternoon errands to take a photo with his West Highland terrier Charlie. Zagnit is an actor and landlord of a four-story brownstone in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Carroll Gardens. Photo by Jasmine Brown

Zagnit and his wife own a four-story brownstone on Degraw Street. Since 1996, they have lived on the first and second floors with their 15-year-old son and rented out the third and fourth floors.

Zagnit, an actor, has appeared in the Broadway productions of “Seussical the Musical” and “The Wild Party.” He has also been in numerous off-Broadway productions and a few national tours. And, going by the pseudonym “Stan Hart,” he was the voice of Professor Oak on the hit TV series “Pokémon” for nine seasons.

His hardest role: acting on a daily basis as the superintendent and manager of his brownstone. “I am handy enough to do a lot of fixing,” Zagnit said reassuringly. “I can fix toilets. I can do a little rewiring, but I also know my limitations.”

Zagnit was born and raised in Spotswood, N.J., a small town with fewer than 3,000 residents. His parents owned and ran a local grocery store.

Coming from a small town and a working-class background, Zagnit said community is important to him. It is one of the things he loves about Carroll Gardens.

“We have a nice community here. I know everybody; they know me. They know Charlie — he’s like the mayor,” Zagnit said referring to his West Highland terrier with a chuckle.

Smith Street, where Zagnit was afraid to walk 20 years earlier, now contains a seemingly endless supply of boutiques, coffee shops and restaurants.

A few Mom and Pop stores have managed to survive.

Wendy Benjamin, 55, a resident of nearby Park Slope, loves the neighborhood. She has a son who attends the elementary school in Carroll Gardens.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Benjamin said while watching her son play in Carroll Park. “What’s so nice about it is it’s very rich in its cultural and ethnic diversity. Even though there are a lot of yuppie families that have moved here from all over, there are still the old Italian families, the old Puerto Rican families and it still has the old mom and pop stores.”

Leo Coladonato, who immigrated to Carroll Gardens from Bari, Italy, in 1975, owns one of the few remaining mom and pop stores on Smith Street. He has owned and managed Joe’s Superette, a small deli with no tables or chairs and a sign outside missing a “u” for years, since 1985. In Carroll Gardens, his store is the last of a dying breed.

The store has been hit hard by the economy and the changes in neighborhood clientele.

“At one time there was only the mom and pop stores. Your customers were more loyal. Most of the time they only came and shopped with you. If you were closed, they waited until the next day to shop,” Coladonato said. “Now, with so many different shops and different places, everybody goes and tries something different.”

Zagnit worries that Carroll Gardens will lose its small town feel in favor of a more upscale and chic atmosphere, which caters to young professionals. But the young people who are moving in don’t have plans to stay, Zagnit said.

“It’s like they are here because they can get some really nice space and they lived in Manhattan, he said. “They are not connected politically. They are not connected culturally. They hang out the bars. There is not a stake in the neighborhood. It is just convenience for the time. Then they are going to buy their houses and move out.”

Zagnit and his family have no plans to leave Carroll Gardens, and Zagnit is just as concerned about the issues that affect the community as he was when he first bought his brownstone, maybe even more so now.

He hopes to one day pass the house down to his son.

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