When No One Is Watching(29)
“Sounds good. See you then.”
I head back to the house I live in, I guess what most people would call home. Kim isn’t there, but I wave at the new camera as I go inside. My phone vibrates in my bag, and when I pull it out it’s Kim.
Make sure you lock the front door. You didn’t when you left last night. I know you think these people are harmless, but Josie’s friend a few blocks over said someone tried her doorknob a couple of days ago, and her tenant left his window open and had his photography bag stolen right off of his windowsill.
I sigh and turn off the phone.
Gifford Place OurHood post by Kaneisha Bell:
The video graphic with this article on gentrification is alarming. Look at the way the brown dots disappear and get replaced with pink dots in historically Black and POC neighborhoods. Harlem, Jackson Heights, Bed-Stuy.
Fitzroy Sweeney: Frightening!
Kim DeVries: Gentrification literally means an area that was once in disrepair being improved upon. Why does it matter whether pink or brown dots are doing the improving?
Jenn Lithwick: Hey, Kim, there’re a lot of studies about the harmful effects of gentrification on neighborhoods like ours. Jen and I read a lot about it before buying here, and we have links if you want.
Kim DeVries: I don’t need to study sociology to be a good neighbor. And if I posted an article saying all the brown dots are bad for the neighborhood, I bet that would go over well!
(30 additional comments . . . see more)
Chapter 7
Sydney
THE PAPERS MR. PERKINS GAVE ME ARE SPREAD OUT OVER THE kitchen table’s scratched and scuffed surface. I’m casually leafing through them like Theo isn’t sitting there, waiting for me to explain the project.
This all feels a little childish now. Mommy always treated me like I was so smart I could be anything. Could do anything. Instead, I’m a thirty-year-old divorcée working an admin job I hate and wasting time on a bootleg history tour sparked by pettiness.
“So, whaddaya got?” Theo finally asks. I glance up, try to act like I hadn’t zoned out.
“Sorry.”
He shrugs, though his gaze is probing.
“Are you going to talk about the history of the houses at all, like on the brownstone tour?” he prods. “Or are you going to talk about people who live here now, like you did?”
“A little of both.” I tug a printout from the pile of papers and hand it over. At the top is an image showing an aerial view of Gifford Place from Google Earth—our street looks mostly the same for now, though the area around us is missing all the new condos and storefronts. There are numbers written in five colors of Sharpie labeling several houses. Beneath the photo is a key, giving a brief explanation for each color and number.
“These are the ‘stops’ I have so far,” I say. “The green outnumbers everything because they’re the easiest—it’s what I did before, talking about some of the interesting neighbors we have now, instead of only the white people who lived here a hundred years ago.
“I went to the Brooklyn library and found specific information on some of the white people who lived in the houses, and if they had anything to do with Black Brooklyn, good or bad.” I tap a pink number on the Jens’ house. “An abolitionist lived here in the old days. Things got so heated that they had to move, because a mob of angry men showed up and tried to kill him and his family.”
“Whoa,” Theo says. “Here in New York? In Brooklyn?”
“Yup. Here in Brooklyn.”
“Okay,” he says. “So . . . what happened to the white people? Are you gonna talk about that? I’ve been wondering about that since the tour, actually. The tour guide talked about all these wealthy white families, but eventually the neighborhood became . . .”
“Black?” I fill in.
“Poor,” he corrects me. “I mean, everyone wasn’t poor. But whenever I used to hear about Brooklyn it was people warning me not to come here because it was dangerous and—”
“Black?” I cut in again, and this time he runs a hand through his hair.
“Well, they didn’t say Black.” He shifts in his seat. “I mean, it’s rude to just say it. But that’s what they meant, I guess.”
“Rude. Rude?” I lean forward a little as something dawns on me. “Oh. Oh shit! Is that why you guys always whisper it? Like, ‘My friend is dating a—’” I look around furtively and then lean closer to Theo and whisper, “‘Black guy’?”
He shrugs, embarrassed amusement dancing in his eyes. “You aren’t supposed to point out stuff like that. That’s what my mom told me, at least.”
I bust out laughing, imagining white people chastising their kids for literally describing a person’s race. I guess if you think being Black is an unfortunate affliction, of course it would seem rude. I could push and ask why so many of them are eager to say the n-word if Black makes them squirm, but I’m not trying to have to ring the Howdy Doody alarm while alone in my apartment with him.
“Okay, to answer your question. My tour is about Black Brooklyn, but I do go into why the white people,” I whisper the last two words and he laughs, “left. In more recent times, it was white flight to the suburbs. But back in the day, there was the Panic of 1837. Basically, the bottom fell out of the slave and cotton market, and then all the rich people had to sell their land to recoup their losses.”