You are currently browsing the stories about the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood

Real Estate Rhetoric: A User’s Guide

by 03/02/2014
Neighborhood: All Over, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick, Chinatown, Harlem, Hell's Kitchen, Williamsburg

 Affordable housing. For most New Yorkers the term is an oxymoron. Niklas and I moved to the West Village when we got married a few years ago, a romantic notion if not an especially realistic one. In the beginning we joked that we could live on love. But a sandwich is also nice sometimes. As […]

Revo, like Revolution.

by 01/30/2013
Neighborhood: Bedford-Stuyvesant

I met a man at the corner bodega by my brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant on Friday. The conversation started like this. “Hey, man. What’s going on?” I said while heading to the beverage coolers. “Not much, how are you?” “Can’t complain. Just a lazy Friday. What do you think, Colt 45 or Olde English?” “Colt 45 […]

The Bed Story (Or Why I Never Sell on Craig’s List Anymore)

by 08/22/2012
Neighborhood: Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights

Over the course of two years living in Brooklyn, I moved six times, including a failed attempt at cohabitation with my then boyfriend in what turned out to be an illegal sublet. The first thing I did when I moved into my second place, located in the West Indian section of Crown Heights was buy […]

I Would Have Wasted Those Thirty Dollars

by 04/06/2012
Neighborhood: Bedford-Stuyvesant

There is a siren screaming past outside my apartment but it has nothing to do with me. My roommate is in his room and I wonder what he is doing. I want him to come out so I can ask him what he is doing. But if he did come out I wouldn’t be able […]

Robbed in Bed-Stuy

by 01/08/2012
Neighborhood: Bedford-Stuyvesant

“I was robbed in front of my apartment on Thursday night,” my ex told me the other day. “The guy said he had a gun.” “What?” I squawked, genuinely surprised. It was the week of Thanksgiving. We were meant to be discussing favorite trimmings alongside the turkey, not armed robbery. “So you’ve lost everything. Keys, […]

Don’t Feed The Crackheads

by 03/06/2011
Neighborhood: Bedford-Stuyvesant

Tay Tay was my first friend in Bed Stuy. Yes, she stole my money, and yes, she nearly got me kicked out of my apartment, and yes, our relationship further alienated me from my neighbors, but she stuck around. Tay Tay, she was like glue. Let me explain.  Crackheads are like seagulls: you feed one, […]

Hood Books & High Culture

by 05/22/2006
Neighborhood: Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

What if books are the new crack? In the 80’s, Bed-Stuy had crack. Now, we’ve got literature. The New York Times publishes plenty of articles on the fluctuations in Bed-Stuy’s crime rate, and on the neighborhood’s gentrification, but they are not reporting on this: literature. Perhaps it’s not fit to print. I make my modest, […]

Letter From Bedford-Stuyvesant

by 04/29/2005
Neighborhood: Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

An urgent tapping sent me scurrying to the front window of my brownstone garden-floor apartment located in Bedford-Stuyvesant. I peeped through slats of the wooden shutters and saw two T-shirt clad white men with badges hanging around their necks. “Yes?” I inquired. “Police,” they called out authoritatively. “Someone upstairs must have called for you” I […]

The Uprooting

by 02/10/2002
Neighborhood: Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

It’s been one year since I moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant from Fort Greene, where I’d live for about fifteen years. Like most change, uprooting myself was uncomfortable, but not nearly as painful as I thought it would be. I remember telling people that if I ever moved from Fort Greene, I’d be moving out of New […]