Bay Ridge

Doing a subway research project for a mapping firm in San Francisco finds me in Bay Ridge at 11:00 at night with some excess energy - what better way to exhaust it than to knock off a few more tracts?

There are a lot of churches (including a beautiful Episcopalian one at 99th and Ft. Hamilton Parkway), and a lot of really cheesy clubs in Bay Ridge. One such club advertises "Tila Tequila winner Bobby" appearing. That, and the gorgeous view of the Verrazano, pretty much sums up the neighborhood. It hasn't really progressed that far from its Saturday Night Fever days.

I mostly walk up Third Avenue with a few side street detours. I haven't been to Bay Ridge for a while (I used to schlep down to a great Greek place on 86th and 4th every once in a while), and kind of thought it would have changed more demorgraphically than it has. The neighborhood isn't quite as Arabic (the newer immigrant group in the neighborhood) as I thought it would be, the Irish-Italian, Joey Bagadonuts character strongly remains, much more so than in other Southern Brooklyn neighborhoods. Layout is your typical borough variation of mixed-used avenues, large apartments on the corners, and homes on the side streets. Some side streets, especially west of Third Avenue, feature large detached homes, others more simple rowhouses. I make my way by the out-of-place Bay Ridge towers, under the Robert Moses-built monsterous merger of the Gowanus Expressway and Shore Parkway, and over to the 59th street N stop to head back home.

Neighborhoods: Bay Ridge, Sunset Park. Tracts walked: B162, B54, B56.01, B56.02, B58, B60, B62, B64, B66, B68, B70, B72

Heart of the Stuy

Up Nostrand, back down Marcus Garvey. Around the southern part of the area there's some really lovely Brownstone blocks - Stuyvesant Heights seems to be the sub-neighborhood. Some blocks are even landmarked as part of Stuyvesant Heights Historic District, but I don't see any of the telltale brown streetsigns. This is also the oldest African-American part of Central Brooklyn. As far back as the 1940s the greater Stuyvesant Heights area - basically between Atlantic, Lafeyette, Bedford, and Malcom X Blvd - was predominantly African-American, while neighboring neighborhoods like Brownsville were still 80% Jewish.

Central Brooklyn 2008 is a far cry what it used to be. Everything's developed - empty buildings or storefronts area at the very most one per block. A vacant lot filled with old bicycles was really the only reminder of the old Stuy I ran into. Still, Bed-Stuy is the kind of place that varies greatly from block to block. If I had turned right rather than left a couple of times I might have had a different idea of the area. In New York, even within an area as small as a census tract - or even a block - there can be really different kinds of areas.

I'm always interested to see who gets up this far out into the hood. There's plenty of local folks I don't recognize. Of the All-City types, JA is (of course) up a lot, and I see a DRO tag (old though) also. I also see a KUMA tag, and I have to say, I'm beginning to revise my estimation of the guy as only being up in Lower Manhattan and North Brooklyn. Surprisingly I run into no Jesus Saves tags. Other than maybe JA, Jesus Saves is the most All-City guy out there, although I've never seen him in tunnels, or really anywhere off the street.

The neighborhood turns from Brownstones (and the occasional other interesting architecture - some Tudor apartments and and what appears to be an old armory turned into a men's shelter) into projects as I go north. There is none of the Hassidic bleed down south of Flushing over here like there is around the Marcy Projects - Flushing avenue still serves as the dividing line between African-American Bed-Stuy and Puerto Rican/Hassidic Williamsburg.

I also take in a few tracts south of Atlantic in Crown Heights. What's interesting to me is that the Lubavitchers have no presence north of Eastern Parkway, even around Brooklyn Avenue where the community is centered. I go nuts for a Hassidic lady in a tight long jean skirt pushing a stroller down Eastern Parkway. The Lubavitchers are definitely becoming more and more secular influenced in dress and lifestyle. I wouldn't even really call them Hassidic anymore (although definitely frum) - they're more of their own strange thing. It's hard for me to tell where Crown Heights becomes predominantly Caribbean rather than African American - again, I'm going to go nuts for the 2010 census data.

Neighborhoods: Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Stuyvesant Heights, Williamsburg. Tracts Walked: B339, B341, B313, B269, B267, B265, B263, B261, B259.01, B257, B507, B283, B281, B279, B277, B275, B273, B311, B343

South Ozone Park

Number 7 on stuff white people like - diversity. As a result, there's a lot of press in New York-centric publications about the various diverse neighborhoods around town. Jackson Heights in Queens, followed by Ditmas Park and Kensington in Brooklyn and Sunnyside in Queens, get the most press for this (probably because they're the closest to Manhattan and Northwest Brooklyn, and as such, to the people who write about this kind of stuff). One neighborhood that usually gets slept on is Ozone and South Ozone Park.

After dropping the lady off at JFK I decided to save $5 on the Airtrain fare. You used to be able to walk out the other side of the Howard Beach station to the Aqueduct stop (about 10 minutes), but they've fenced that off now, so it's tough to do, especially with luggage. So instead I get off the Airtrain at Lefferts Boulevard. It's much more than a 10 minutes walk to the train from here, but I've got time to schlep through Ozone Park.

Ozone Park itself is pretty much the definition of nondescript Queens - blocks of wood-frame detached houses account for the vast majority of the neighborhood. Aqueduct Raceway is kind of interesting - they have guards around the back at the entrance for horses and trainers. Someday I'll go to the track and write up that tract properly. I can't in good faith check it off the list quite yet. In fact, looking at the map, I realize I've walked borders pretty much the whole way. I can really only say I walked one tract - 846.01

I head around the racetrack and across the main commercial thoroughfare of the area, Rockaway Parkway. It's kind of a hybred between a regular neighborhood commercial thoroughfare like, say Roosevelt Avenue, and a more industrial-commerical thoroughfare, like Northern Boulevard. You get these kind of streets out in the less densely populated parts of the boroughs. I grab some beans and rice (three bucks!) jump on the A train and head on back.

Neighborhoods: Ozone Park, South Ozone Park, Aqueduct Raceway. Tracts Walked: Q846.01

South South Bronx

While on about 140th street a car passed us blasting Boogie Down Production "South Bronx." My companion does not recognize the song, making me feel old. I met KRS-One once - quite honestly he was a little freaky. He had this HUGE smile and kind of reminded me of an evil clown.

The walk itself was nice. A friend lives in the very-mildly gentrifying corner of the Bronx right over the Third Avenue Bridge. We headed along Bruckner and 132nd to Randall's island. It's a little-known fact, but there is one place where you cross between Bronx and New York counties without using a bridge or swimming (not counting Marble Hill). It's not quite a direct land connection, but there's a sort of makeshift pedestrian bridge made out of concrete between the two - I'll let you find it yourselves. A crew is there doing drilling. Something might have gotten lost in the translation, but I think one of the crew members indicated they were taking soil samples and planned on making a (real) pedestrian bridge. As an added bonus, there's a REVS sculpture there. It's always fun finding the interesting stuff other people (very often REVS) have left behind in out-of-the-way, and sometimes very out-of-the-way, places around town.

They're currently doing a number on Randall's Island. The new Queens bike ramp seems to be done, which is cool, and they're currently demolishing some part of the Triboro Bridge Plaza. A lot of stuff is fenced off due to construction and renovation going on - a new stadium, new ballfields, all sorts of stuff hopefully will be ready for this summer.

We head back to the Bronx a more orthodox way and wander up to St. Mary's Park. I consider doing the walk through the old freight rail tunnel underneath the park, but it's at least six inches deep in muck. We head through the park instead (one of the first places outdoor hip-hop concerts took place back in the 1970s), and up to where there's no more muck in the tunnel. We plan to head back later with more folks, admire PK and Kid's handiwork on the old Bronx Night Court I once almost killed myself in (I never did figure a way onto the roof like those two did - I'm kind of jealous). This has always been one of my favorite parts of the Bronx, and one of the last to be redeveloped. It's only been in the last 5 years or so that the small rowhouses and condos have popped up where the vacant lots have been (and there's still a few there). One cool thing is that the New York Botanical Garden has preserved a lot of the casitas in the area, which are still around. There's also still a few other less interesting abandoned courthouses and government buildings in the district - one's been demolished to make way for a new Boriqua College building.

After some more wandering around the general area we head over to the Concourse, and then check out the new Yankee Stadium being built - I've been out of town a while, I had no idea it was even underway yet. From there it's over to one of my favorite parts of the city, the Harlem River Waterfront (on both sides of the Bronx River). But those stories I'll save for another time.

Neighborhoods: Randall's Island, Ward's Island, Grand Concourse, Yankee Stadium, Mott Haven, Morrisania, Melrose, South Bronx. Tracts Walked: BX 81, BX15, BX 17, BX 33, BX37, BX71, BX 137, BX173, BX 187, M240

Ridgewood to Maspeth

After walking up from Crown Heights, through Bed-Stuy and East Williamsburg to Queens, we continued on. We actually couldn't quite tell where Brooklyn ended and Queens began - the Ridgewood/Bushwick boundary is growing more fluid by the year. There's no difference in the street grid - I've always thought a much more natural borough boundary would either be Broadway, which separate Bushwick and Bed-Stuy, or the Ridgewood/Maspeth border, where the grid becomes the regular Queens street grid - you know, the one with 4 or 5 streets for every number.

There used to be a demographic boundary - Ridgewood was middle-class, largely white Queens, while Bushwick was low-income, mostly Puerto Rican Brooklyn (in all probability a result of racial housing discrimination in Queens). Up until the 1990 census there was a stark demarcation right along the Brooklyn/Queens border. Politically, the border was almost always the boundary between different legislative districts. Now, however, demographically Ridgewood can really be viewed as where Bushwick blends into Queens - while the area slowly grows whiter and more affluent the further you get from Brooklyn, there is certainly not the stark demarcation along the borough boundary that there used to be. And politically, city council and state legislative districts now encompass both sides of the borough border.


We walk through Ridgewood a bit, and then work our way up through the residential part of sleepy Maspeth, over to the industrial section on the west. My Hagstrom's map says that the Hagstom's factory is there, but I can't find it. The terrain is a bit hilly, yielding some beautiful views of various industrial scenes against the New York City skyline in the background. We somehow make our way under the BQE/Queens-Midtown Expressway cloverleaf up into Sunnyside. Sunnyside is kind of a poster child for the outer borough, multiethnic neighborhood, and as a result the commercial streets are generally pretty interesting to walk along. We walk along 48th Avenue for a bit (where 48th crosses Greenpoint Avenue is a pretty cool commercial area, with a Spanish-Language Theatre), then head up to Roosevelt where we eat at an overpriced restaurant (should have had my man Sietsema's Guide to Cheap Eats with me!) and catch the #7 back home. It's been one of the more long and satisfying borough trekking days I've had in a while.


Neighborhoods: Ridgewood, Maspeth, West Maspeth, Sunnyside. Tracts Walked: Q549, Q589, Q587, Q593, Q601, Q599, Q525, Q527, Q529, Q219, Q205.01, Q205.02, Q235, Q185, Q189

Bed-Stuy to Bushwick

A lovely walk with a lovely lady up Nostrand through Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy, and then over through East Williamsburg into Queens. Nostrand's an interesting enough commercial drag, pretty typical working-class borough fare, nice Brownstone side streets as you go further up. Around DeKalb the area starts to change to Hassidic, with a smattering of Pratt art student types (is this considered "Clinton Hill" yet by the Real Estate crowd)? By the time I get to Marcy it's almost entirely Hassidic - in addition to the people, apartment buildings with a million tiny balconies (used to house Sukkahs for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot) give it away. I have to give it the Hassids - instead of the ticky-tacky used to throw up pretty much any housing development today, all the new buildings are legitimately made solidly out of brick.

We head up into Hassid Williamsburg, and walk the main the main commercial drag for a bit. The strollers are everywhere, and signs saying "no strollers in store" are also everywhere. The default seems to be to just leave the stroller (complete with baby) outside while you shop, knowing someone will keep an eye on everyone.

I'll be interested to read the language data for the area in the 2010 census. According to the 2000 census data, Yiddish still seemed to be the lingua franca of the community, but judging by what I hear and read on the streets, English seems to be becoming the dominant language. There's still some Yiddish signs and conversation in the streets (although a lot of Hassids have a habit of mumbling so low while talking it's pretty much impossible for a passerby to even tell what language they're speaking, much less what they're saying), but I'd say it's running about 60-40 English nowadays - still though, a lot more Yiddish is used than other Hassidic communities, never mind Jewish communities in general.

There's actually a lot more interesting Demographic differences among the different Hassidic communities. If you're super-interested in this stuff, you can download (Word Format) my paper demographically comparing the Crown Heights and Williamsburg Hassidic communities.

We leave the Hassidic area and head East into the industrial part of Williamsburg by Newton Creek. There's a few loft conversion of the old industrial buildings, and we encounter some 20-something hipsters doing skateboard tricks on one of the streets, but in general it's pretty empty - lots used for old auto storage, stuff like that. I cut my head open ducking through a hole in the fence to take a leak behind an abandoned factory. We cross the Grand Street bridge and head Southeast to Bushwick.

I figured there would be some stray exiles from Williamsburg, but there also a couple young ladies of the big-sunglasses, ill-fitting tight designer jeans variety around the Jefferson street L-train stop (although they are looking lost). We make our way down St. Nicholas and Wykoff, before heading north into Ridgewood. I can't tell who the recent arrivals are - the area seems to be becoming more Mexican and maybe a bit South American as the older Puerto Rican population moves out. Again, I can't wait for the 2010 census data.

Neighborhoods: Crown Heights, Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy, Williamsburg, Southside, South Williamsburg, East Williamsburg, Bushwick. Tracts Walked: B317.01, B317.02, B315, B247, B245, B243, B241, B239, B531, B509, B511, B505, B493, B483, B455.97, B447, B445, B443, B441

Flatbush

It's - well, it's Flatbush. Brooklyn. Not much more to say. A combination of Flatbush, Ocean Avenue, and various side streets to take me south to DiFara's. Dense, bustling on some streets, with various business typical of the not-so-rich parts of the boroughs and large apartment buildings; quiet, beautiful old Victorian houses on others, dirty light industrial areas on other thoroughfares. While this might seem a bit of a conflicted neighborhood, the general feeling of comfortable shabbiness holds it all together. It's Flatbush. Neighborhood gets less Caribbean and more orthodox Jewish further south, but there's always at least little pockets of everybody. The area around the Newkirk Avenue Q-stop pretty much is the neighborhood is microcosm. I hit DiFara's to discover they've raised their prices and the line is out the door. Forget it. Unfortunately it's Saturday. That means nothing else is open in this neighborhood. I continue on South, finding an interesting little Turkish area down Coney Island Avenue and King's Highway where I grab a bite. I feel nice, comfortable, relaxed, at home the whole walk. It's Flatbush.

Neighborhood: Flatbush, Ditmas Park, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Prospect Park South, Madison. Tracts Walked: B798, B796, B508, B510, B514, B518, B520, B764, B762, B532, B534, B540, B542, B554