After a five year battle against the Industry City rezoning proposal, the efforts of Sunset Park residents in Brooklyn came to fruition when developers pulled their proposal late night on September 22, 2020. The looming possibility of the proposed rezoning of the waterfront brought fears of the exacerbation of the gentrification process. With those fears at bay, new ones arise for low-income residents, and the fight continues.
“I don’t think that the threat of gentrification is over because what was happening with Industry City can still happen again, but in smaller clusters,” said Taisha Suriel, 24, a Sunset Park native, “It can be a little area [taken over] here, a little area there. A block over here, a block over there. Until eventually, Sunset Park is gone.”
Third Avenue was once a ghost town, occupied only by warehouses, shoddy businesses, and abandoned factories. Now, The New York Times is referring to it as the SoHo of Sunset Park. The development takes up 30 acres of the waterfront. Jamestown, one of the managing companies responsible for its construction, calls it “a complex of industrial, office and retail space and a bustling creative business hub.” Stores once only found in the City, such as Off Saks 5th, a branch of the Manhattan flagship store Saks Fifth Avenue, Bed Bath and Beyond, ABC Carpet, and several other amenities, can now be found across the Gowanus Expressway.
“I didn’t want it. I feel like we already have something like Industry City, it’s called Manhattan,” said Suriel, “of course not all of Manhattan, but Industry City literally looks like a piece of Manhattan, and they just took it and placed it into Brooklyn.” If approved, the proposal put in by developers back in 2015 would have provided them with an additional one million sq feet of commercial space. The waterfront would have become home to luxury hotels, more retail and office space, and a technical high school.
The proposal’s main takeaways included a surplus of jobs and the continued advancement of the neighborhood. However, it faced strong opposition from neighborhood organizations such as Protect Sunset Park and Uprose. City Councilman Carlos Menchaca was also a significant and robust opponent of the rezoning proposal. Menchaca took to Instagram on July 28, 2020, to announce his opposition, and asked developers to pull the proposal. While Menchaca’s vote faced challenges from other Councilmembers and City Planning Director and Commission Chair Marisa Lago, Sunset Park residents who feared the proposed rezoning’s repercussions backed his position.
Eventually, the plan’s denouncement by the district’s Representatives Jerry Nadler and Nydia Velázquez and including Yvette Clarke, and Hakeem Jeffries from surrounding districts served as the final blow to the proposal. The Reps. position echoed that of Sunset Park residents who view Industry City and developers as harbingers of social and cultural change and displacement. Industry City has no trace of the culture that once dominated the neighborhood. Even though Industry City is in the area, it is not a part of the community, nor do residents feel like it is for the community. “When I think about Sunset Park’s residential area and Industry City, I don’t think of them as a whole. I think of them as two separate things,” said Suriel.
Sunset Park residents are no stranger to change. Over the years, the neighborhood has witnessed positive transformations such as renovated parks and train stations and safer streets. However, what older longtime residents once viewed as a positive change, has converted into higher rent prices, cultural change, and displacement brought about by gentrification.
“So far, I’ve seen bike lanes built, parks being developed, and train stations being modified and improved,” said Esteban Orellana, 22, another Sunset Park native, “I do think those things go hand in hand with gentrification.” These are observations that he has made when comparing Sunset Park to other neighborhoods that have yet to undergo gentrification. Ultimately Orellana notes that those neighborhoods don’t get this treatment and, as a result, have a poor infrastructure in place.
Gentrification is essentially economic and social changes that are a direct result of an influx of higher-income residents. As the process continues, longtime residents are pushed out and replaced by what is often, yet not always, affluent white people. Gentrifiers come into the neighborhoods with several reasons to justify their move. For them, the prospects of moving into low-income communities serve as a smart and practical economic investment. Generally, their annual income exceeds the requirements for renting in these areas, while the people who already live in the neighborhood find it impossible to continue living there.
Feelings of becoming an outsider in what was once your home accompany physical displacement. “There are already white families that are moving around here that give us the dirty,” said Suriel, “like yeah, I may be talking a little loud on the phone, but that’s everyone around here.”
Rambunctious music and voices are characteristics that longtime residents regard with familiarity. New residents may view it as disruption. “They look at me like I’m doing something wrong, like ‘please be quieter,’ is what I feel like their eyes are telling me. Nobody else is complaining except you. You who just moved in here a month ago,” continued Suriel. Ultimately these newcomers are a better investment for landlords, so even if apartments become available, things like rent prices and income requirements make them unattainable to the low-income families and individuals in the community.
“People are forced to leave, and I’m not sure where those people go,” said Orellana, “or they’re forced to live in terrible conditions, with whole families sharing one, two, or three-bedroom apartments.”
“A lot of landlords are either selling their property or changing the way that they rent out the apartments,” said Suriel, who is a section 8 tenant herself, “there are some landlords around here that have gotten rid of their Section 8 tenants, just to have these white families move in and pay $3,000 in rent. They can afford that, and we can’t.”
While residents face their own set of issues caused by gentrification, the mom and pop shops that mark the neighborhood face possible shutdowns. Recently, the decision to build a Chipotle and a Taco Bell in the neighborhood received adverse reactions. “Chipotle has burritos for $10, and that’s just the burrito,” said Husen Abdelhamed, 21, a former Brooklyn resident, “instead you could go to Tacos Broncos or most of the restaurants in the area and get a superior meal with free nachos and guacamole on the side for the same amount.”
Whitney Hu, a candidate for City Council District 38, tweeted, “chipotle is moving into Sunset Park. If I see you in the neighborhood eating there over the hundreds of mom & dad restaurants with way superior burritos and free guacamole? I’m gonna @ you.” Other Brooklyn residents took to Twitter to share similar sentiments.
The possibility of a chain restaurant being built just down the block from the neighborhood park represents the influence of Industry City creeping up the avenues. However, some view this as a beneficial change to the neighborhood. Sally Goldenberg, the City Hall bureau chief at POLITICO, was one of the first to break the story on Twitter. There was an outpour of people regarding the proposal’s news with dismay and anger in the replies. Many of those in support of the proposal felt that dissenters cost the neighborhood businesses and jobs that would help it advance.
However, there was no guarantee that any of this would benefit the residents of the neighborhood. “There was no mandate that Industry City had that would have forced them to employ people from Sunset Park,” said Orellana. The supposed job creation was also not a sufficient incentive when considering immigrants make up nearly half of the population in Sunset Park. This is not including the percentage of undocumented immigrants in the neighborhood. According to Statistical Atlas, the majority of the demographic is made up of Hispanics/Latinos and Asians. “A portion of the neighborhood consists of undocumented people, and unfortunately, those people cannot take advantage of the jobs and opportunity gentrification creates,” said Orellana.
Language barriers and proof of residency or citizenship are barriers that make the jobs offered by Industry City and new amenities inaccessible to Sunset Park residents. Educational attainment level is another factor that can determine access to jobs. Statistical Atlas reported that an estimated 51.5% of the neighborhood’s population does not have a High School diploma, while only 28.3% of residents have and only 20.2% have achieved a higher degree.
“It’s not for the benefit of the current community,” said Mohammed Bhuiyan, 34, whose family has resided in Sunset Park for more than 50 years. The service and retail jobs currently offered at Industry City, and the jobs it currently offers and would have created do not necessarily allow room for social and economic advancement. “Essentially, it’s more of the same for brown and black people. [These] service jobs do not bring the wages needed to afford the rent prices that will come with development,” said Bhuiyan.
As the gentrification process intensifies, the low-income people of color that once dominated the neighborhood continue to face obstacles that make displacement inevitable. At the same time, new opportunities present themselves for outsiders. Residents are left to battle their continued displacement in the hopes of reclaiming their home.
“I’m luckily in the position and at an age where I can support my family. So if anything happens to us, we’ll be okay,” said Suriel, “I’m worried about those families that don’t have first-generation born kids educated in America. I don’t know if they have a place outside of New York City. If they can’t afford their rent, where are they going?”
Annie Abreu 