A Successful talk about renters rights in the wake of Gentrification

Before the event (I'll post a better photo later)

Last night's talk about Gentrification was better than I'd hoped. The organizer of the meeting Neta Alexander screened two films "Rent Freeze" which documented the struggle to install a five year rent rate freeze for all stabilized and rent controlled apartments in New York City. And "A Snowboarding Day in Brooklyn" by Jason Scott Jones, which captured a moment of bless ruined by the inequity certain New Yorkers often face.

The event was well attended with an active audience and four guest speakers Donna Rachel and the filmmakers. Topics of renters rights were heavily discussed. I met great people and came away more optimistic and with specific ideas on what we can all do to increase the sustainability of longstanding communities while uniting with new comers to the neighborhood to make Crown Heights in particular and the once neglected neighborhoods of New York city as a whole, vibrant functioning places again.

I'll post more about the discussion event, and some inspired thoughts that came out of it, and hopefully some new ongoing reporting that may be featured on this blog.

SAVE ROGERS AVE GARDEN!

On the corner of Rogers Ave and Park Place in Crown Heights ("western" crown heights as the new comers say, because obviously a neighborhood of two miles requires geographic annotations) there is a small lot that had been neglected by the owner. Concerned citizens long ago transformed the lot into a community open, garden.

The garden has stood for at least ten years. I remember the mural painted on the wall above it for at least that long.

Recently developers, one can only imagine who, tracked down the owner, who I was told, was living in Florida and beset with back taxes for the lot. It seems developers purchased the lot for below market value and are now attempting to developed the site.

Rogers Ave recently got a make-over in the form of an express bus lane. The lane stretches from near Brooklyn College in the Flatbush/Midwood section, connecting with Bedford Ave where it and Rogers merge at Atlantic Ave and continuing to Williamsburg.

I've been talking up Rogers to friends for years because it has lacked aesthetic charms but had lots of available rentals. Leading in the lacking amenities on Rogers is greenery, specifically flowers, trees. No double entendre here.

So the fact that there is a garden on Rogers which is fueled by new and old residents who want to keep the neighborhood on the upswing is a great reason in my mind for this site to remain green, and open to residents and especially local kids at the elementary school down the block.

I spoke with a volunteer who was putting the finishing touches on large painted letters spelling out "SAVE THE GARDEN" (pictured above) and he explained these details as well as the hope that local residents will contact our elected representatives, in this case Mayor DeBlasio, Public Advocate Tish James, as well as the City Councilmember for this site, Robert Cornegy(RCornegy@council.nyc.gov) and request the city take over the site as a result of owed taxes and lease the land to the community garden.

For more information on how to help save the garden, go to www.rogerthatgarden.org