Comments for My Brooklyn - a documentary film by Kelly Anderson and Allison Lirish Dean

Comment on The Film by Takako

Takako — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 12:55:56 +0000

Hi. I saw your film through Kanopy yesterday and we really enjoyed it. I live in Boston for a long time and have meant to go to Brooklyn but haven’t done it yet because it is expensive. After watching it, I felt it was right not to go. what happening in Brooklyn is same with what happens in SF and Boston. I am surprised those stores are not allowed to get into new building with much affordable rent. the place that doesn’t have diversity, just bring rich white yuppies are not attractive place to visit. After watching film, I tried to find more information on google but couldn’t find many more than this site. I know big developer corporations and politician paid to erase all the info that is inconvenient for them.

Comment on Five Things You Can Do About Gentrification in NYC by Bonnie

Bonnie — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 19:54:07 +0000

How come noone is addressing those of us who are working, middle class who can’t
get affordable housing because we make more than $34k per year but under $60K
and yet still have problems affording rents? We are the majority of the population
who get left lost in the loopholes. Too much money to get on public assistance, yet
too poor to afford high rents as well. What to do?? This is happening in ALL boroughs
not just Manhattan!

Comment on The Film by Ramu Dhara

Ramu Dhara — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 15:27:43 +0000

Hello all

I’ve lived in Brooklyn since 94 from Caroll Gardens to Park Slope and now a homeowner in Bedsty having bought in 2008 before the current craze. As an graduate international student back in 94 I discovered Brooklyn along with other students as the affordable student housing rental stocks and its charming sense of history long before its current hipness status. I watched my rent control shared apartment go on the market in 95 before moving out , left brooklyn and came back in 2000 and finally bought in 2008 and finally bought in 2008 with my partner who’s french. We see Bedsty changing in good and bad ways before us and since we bought. Increase in diversity is great can only be for the better culturally speaking as it brings fresh perspectives but as a student I valued affordable housing and retails and still do. That is the downside of this current craze and madness. I still don’t get the need for big chains considered development or Barclays or the atlantic mall either from the late nineties but clearly the local government and a section of Brooklyners seem to want it. Bedsty has changed too since the 19th century if you follow it history.

Can the city offset and also provide incentives for small business’s and stores to flourish simultaneouly?

Comment on Trailer by Tucson_Jim

Tucson_Jim — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 04:26:58 +0000

Allison,

Thank you for making this doc. I caught the second-half tonight (17 Jun 14), and won’t be able to catch it again at 10PM…

But, I have seen this story unfold many times before, in real-life, unedited, unsensored, on a smaller scale, across the nation in virtually every city or town I have lived… a dozen of them, in five states.

I watched for four years as the local city council fed lies to the local NJ newspaper in an effort to rally community resentment against a tiny, privately-owned country airport, so they could condemn it and buy it with “Farmland Preservation Funds” to ultimately be traded for a piece of worthless “farmland” elsewhere in the boondocks, and the airport property developed into an upscale and trendy community.

This is the result of enabling government at all levels to meddle in commerce. Bloomberg’s personal history, accomplishments, and values were public record long before he was ever elected to office… but, people didn’t pay attention. They focused on what he was going to do “for” them, not what he would do TO them. In the future, they still will NOT elect officials who reduce the size and power of government.

This is the cycle: Politicians get elected by promising to do things for constituents… after elected, they trade taxpayer dollers to private, for-profit organizations to get those things done which will buy more votes… lather, rinse, repeat.

It is in the best interests of politicians to increase the tax base, so they can buy more votes without increasing infrastructure to support all those additional tax payers they need… conserve water and electricity, recycle, drive less, bicycle, car pool… whatever it takes to defer the cost of infrastructure while building permits are frantically issued to increase population base and thereby, revenue.

Follow the money, and see whose son-in-law gets the landscaping contract, the paving contract, or the development contractor’s attorney’s fees, and you will see the personal spiffs and bennies for politicians promoting this type of bait and switch deception.

It’s not personal… old, run-down neighborhoods are on the best real estate… they are old neighborhoods because the best land is what you build on first… the newer the development, the crappier the locations typically are… swamp-land, unstable land, land near garbage dumps, land near stagnant water, land under final approach… what’s left? Go and tear down old buildings on good land in nice locations.

What you nearly alluded to, but failed to explore in the portion that I actually saw, was the devaluation of personal property… businesses have value. Sole proprietorships are personal property. Forcing relocation disrupts the revenue stream of those businesses, causes loss of customers, and essentially steals marketable clientele base and future revenue from the owner. Our Constitution assures that citizens will be fairly compensated for property commandeered through eminent domain… which, in itself is a “Due Process of Law” not adhered to here… but, then again, the Constitution is an antiquaited document no longer pertinent in modern society… and, “Due Process” is whatever government decides it should be at the moment.

It’s poetic justice, really, but, to those of us who pay attention to such things… it’s infuriating that so many people are so easily duped into voting for such soul-less liars, cheats, and thiefs.

My roots are much deeper here than most, my family descends from Scotsmen who date back to Jamestown… we are hillbillies and rednecks who have a hereditary repulsion from anything that looks or smells like a politician…

There need to be more of us in this country, and fewer Loyalists eager to abdicate their “well-being” and “personal power” to others…

Your program pissed me off. Thank you. I hope it pissed a lot more people off too, it’s healthy for them.

Comment on My Brooklyn on TV Jan. 14th! by Robert

Robert — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 09:13:44 +0000

Having just watched the documentary, I am reminded of how the Communist government in China have bulldozed thousands of homes and historic neighborhoods in pursuit of a modern China with its urbanizing cities of high-rise towers and corporate logos. But here we are in the USA, and the effects are uncannily and sadly the same. What a sad indictment where our democratic values have been subverted to enrich the powerful and wealthy few at the expense of most everyone else. Many decades earlier, I am reminded that Jane Jacobs fought earlier battles to preserve such vibrant and diverse neighborhoods from the ambitions of the City and its developers. How clearly we have forgotten those lessons and no less from same City and the same city officials who claim Jacobs as one of its heroes today.

Comment on The Film by My Brooklyn

My Brooklyn — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:57:52 +0000

Hi Georgia, thanks for your comments. As you suggest, there are period of investment and disinvestment in the history of cities, and Downtown Brooklyn is returning to a moment where it is catering to the needs of more affluent shoppers. The point we were trying to make in the film is that these cycles are not natural, and reflect a system where regular people are displaced by larger forger that make money by moving them in and out of neighborhoods. That’s why we focused on redlining, and the accompanying racism that you speak about in BedStuy.

Thanks for tuning in!

Comment on The Film by My Brooklyn

My Brooklyn — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:53:57 +0000

Thanks so much for the insightful comments! You are right that that is a national situation, and global too. Really appreciate you tuning in.

Comment on The Film by HAB

HAB — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 14:21:23 +0000

watched it on PBS, great movie, very sad to see the history & the people easily erased with money.
wondering where this country going? nobody is learning from history. law makers keep making the same mistake again & again. Keep up the fight.

Comment on What People are Saying about My Brooklyn by AMERICABEV

AMERICABEV — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 16:20:51 +0000

Yankees are constantly claiming the south is racist. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the board members that serve the govenors office. He couldn’t couldn’t find ONE person of color for that board? That is outrageous! Sometimes I feel the word racist is overused by people to claim a person who disagrees with them or their politics is racist, but COME ON, the governor is definitely a racist if he put together that board!

Comment on The Film by Bill Browning

Bill Browning — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 18:49:10 +0000

Wonderful film and I got to see it by chance. A friend said she had seen it via hulu (“Reframed…is not carried by either of the local PBS stations in Tampa). As a former Brooklyn resident, I participated in the original gentrification of Park Slope. Friends held cocktail parities in their house on President St. for bankers in 1960s in then red-lined Park Slope. I consider that period as a gentrification for the people. Individuals were buying brownstones and limestones and converting them from rooming houses to single for two-family residences. It took nearly 10 years to convince my wife to move there and join our friends pushing the boundaries south, beyond the historic district. We had lived in Sheepshead Bay and Manhattan Beach. She was a native, born and bred, I, an ex-pat from the South. When we divorced in ’93 she stayed and I got transferred by my company to Florida. I still consider Brooklyn my hometown and get back every chance I can. In July, my wife and I took her twin granddaughters up for their first visit. Prior to departure I “googled” my old Slope address. Up popped a Zillow page. My former townhouse had been sold in April for $1.721 million! I write that and I am still stunned by the number. Despite wanting to return to live in Brooklyn, it’s impossible. Who can afford that? The gentrification you depicted is not the kind I’m familiar with. The current gentrification of north Brooklyn, including the Slope, Ft. Greene, Williamsburg and Bed Sty, is big money gentrification. I liken it to the “Enclosure Movement” in Britain, where the Gentry grabbed the common land of the lower classes. I was also struct by how the lessons provided by Jane Jacobs are still evident. In July we did a bus tour of downtown Brooklyn and saw all those ritzy highrises. The streets out front of those monoliths were virtually empty. If there were shops on the street level, they were big retail chain brands. None were occupied by those small businesses that disappeared from the Fulton Mall area. Jacobs criticized the same powerbroker attitudes that are present in your film. It seems like urban renewal – rather ethnic cleansing – by another name. Keep on the story. Oh, I hear that Detroit is the next Brooklyn. Maybe I’ll strike out in that direction.