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Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
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Bedford-Stuyvesant (pron. \'sti-v?-s?nt\) (also known as Bed-Stuy or The Stuy) is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City, USA, borough of Brooklyn. Formed in 1930, the neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 3, Brooklyn Community Board 8 and Brooklyn Community Board 16. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 79th and 81st Precincts.
Bed-Stuy is bordered by Flushing Avenue to the north (bordering Williamsburg); Classon Avenue to the west (bordering Clinton Hill, although, prior to the 1980s, the area now called Clinton Hill was considered to be Bedford-Stuyvesant as well); Broadway and Van Sinderen Avenue to the east (bordering East New York); Park Place to the south; Ralph Avenue to the east (bordering Crown Heights); and as far as East New York Avenue to the south (bordering Brownsville).
For decades, it has been a cultural center for Brooklyn's African-American population.
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Encyclopedia
Bedford-Stuyvesant (pron. \'sti-v?-s?nt\) (also known as Bed-Stuy or The Stuy) is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City, USA, borough of Brooklyn. Formed in 1930, the neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 3, Brooklyn Community Board 8 and Brooklyn Community Board 16. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 79th and 81st Precincts.
Bed-Stuy is bordered by Flushing Avenue to the north (bordering Williamsburg); Classon Avenue to the west (bordering Clinton Hill, although, prior to the 1980s, the area now called Clinton Hill was considered to be Bedford-Stuyvesant as well); Broadway and Van Sinderen Avenue to the east (bordering East New York); Park Place to the south; Ralph Avenue to the east (bordering Crown Heights); and as far as East New York Avenue to the south (bordering Brownsville).
For decades, it has been a cultural center for Brooklyn's African-American population. Following the construction of the A line subway between Harlem and Bedford in the 1930s, African Americans left an overcrowded Harlem for more housing availability in Bedford-Stuyvesant. From Bed-Stuy, African Americans have since moved into the surrounding areas of Brooklyn, such as East New York, Crown Heights, Brownsville and Fort Greene.
The main thoroughfare is Nostrand Avenue, but the commercial thoroughfare is Fulton Street due to the fact that it has the most commercial activity of all Bedford-Stuyvesant. It also lies above the main subway line for the area (the A and C trains) and Fulton Street runs through the length of the neighborhood while intersecting with many of the neighborhood's most utilized streets such as Bedford Avenue, Nostrand Avenue and Stuyvesant Avenue. Bedford-Stuyvesant is actually made up of four neighborhoods: Bedford, Stuyvesant Heights, Ocean Hill and Weeksville.
Early history
The neighborhood name is an extension of the name of the Village of Bedford, expanded to include the area of Stuyvesant Heights. The name Stuyvesant comes from Peter Stuyvesant, the last governor of the colony of New Netherland.
In pre-revolutionary Kings County, Bedford, which now forms the heart of the community, was the first major settlement east of the then Village of Brooklyn on the ferry road to Jamaica and eastern Long Island.
With the building of the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad in 1832, taken over by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) in 1836, Bedford was established as a railroad station near the intersection of current Atlantic and Franklin Avenues. In 1878, the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railway established its northern terminal with a connection to the LIRR at the same location.
The community of Bedford contained one of the oldest free black communities in the U.S., Weeksville, much of which is still extant and preserved as a historical site. Ocean Hill, a subsection founded in 1890 is primarily a residential area.
Establishment as an urban neighborhood
In the last decades of the 19th century, with the advent of electric trolleys and the Fulton Street Elevated, Bedford Stuyvesant became a working class and middle class bedroom community for those working in downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York City. At that time, most of the pre-existing wooden homes were destroyed and replaced with brownstone row houses. These are highly sought after in the neighborhood's contemporary renaissance. Many consider the area to be the African American cultural mecca of Brooklyn, similar to what Harlem is to Manhattan.
Ethnic changes
During and after World War II, large numbers of African-Americans, migrating from the Southern United States upon the decline of agricultural work and seeking economic opportunities in the North, moved into the neighborhood. They often preferred it to the available housing in Harlem.
Post-war problems
A series of problems led to a long decline in the neighborhood. Some of the new residents who had been rural workers had difficulty finding reasonably paid work in the urban New York economy. The city itself was in a period of steady decline, exacerbated by abandonment of parts of the transportation network, disappearance of industrial jobs, decline of public facilities and services, inability to deal with increasing crime, and difficulties in municipal government. The movement of significant parts of its population to suburban areas ghettoized a racially diverse neighborhood.
1960s and 1970s
The 1960s and 1970s were a difficult time for New York City and affected Bedford-Stuyvesant seriously. One of the first urban riots of the era took place there. Social and racial divisions in the city contributed to the tensions, which climaxed when attempts at community control in the nearby Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district pitted some black community residents and activists (from both inside and outside the area) against teachers, the majority of whom were white; many of them Jewish. Charges of racism were a common part of social tensions at the time.
In 1964, race riots broke out in the Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem after a white Irish NYPD lieutenant, Thomas Gilligan, shot and killed a black teenager, James Powell, 15. The riot spread to Bedford-Stuyvesant and resulted in the destruction and looting of many neighborhood businesses, many of which were Jewish-owned. Race relations between the NYPD and the city's black community were strained as crime was high in black neighborhoods and few black policemen were present on the force. In black New York neighborhoods, crimes related to drugs and homicides were higher than anywhere else in the city contributing to the problems between the white dominated police force and black community. Coincidentally enough, the 1964 riot took place across the NYPD's 28th and 32nd precinct located in Harlem, and the 79th precinct located in Bedford-Stuyvesant which at one time were the only three police precincts in the NYPD that black police officers were allowed to patrol in. Race riots followed in 1967 and 1968, as part of the political and racial tensions in the United States of the era, aggravated by continued high unemployment among blacks, continued de facto segregation in housing, the failure to enforce civil rights laws, and the murder of black people.
In 1977, a power outage occurred throughout all of New York City due to a power failure at the Con Edison Plant. As a result, looting was widespread throughout the city, especially in poor Black and Puerto Rican areas of Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn. Bedford-Stuyvesant and neighboring Bushwick were two of the worst hit areas. Thirty-five blocks of Broadway, the street dividing the two communities, were affected, with 134 stores looted, 45 of which were set ablaze.
Current gentrification
Beginning in the 2000s, the neighborhood began to experience gentrification that continues to the present day.
The two significant reasons for this are the affordable housing stock consisting of handsome brownstone rowhouses located on quiet tree-lined streets and the marked decrease of crime in the neighborhood. The latter is at least partly attributable to the decline of the national crack epidemic which occurred in the late 1980s and through the 1990s, and also to improved policing methods which New York has used in the last decade.
In July 2005, the New York City Police Department designated the Fulton Street-Nostrand Avenue business district in Bedford-Stuyvesant as an "Impact Zone". The Police Department has also ranked Bed-Stuy as one of the neighborhoods that has experienced a steady decline in crime and has had improved safety The designation directed significantly increased levels of police protection and resources to the area centered on the intersection of Fulton Street and Nostrand Avenue for a period of six months. It was renewed for another six-month period in December 2005. Since the designation of the Impact Zone in Bedford-Stuyvesant, crime within the district decreased 15% from the previous year.
Despite the improvements and increasing stability of the community, Bedford-Stuyvesant has continued to be stigmatized in some circles by a lingering public perception left from the rough times of the late 20th Century. In March 2005 a campaign was launched to supplant the "Bed-Stuy, Do-or-Die" image in the public consciousness with the more positive "Bed-Stuy, and Proud of It".
Through a series of "wallscapes" (large outdoor murals), the campaign hopes to honor famous community members, including community activist and poet June Jordan, activist Hattie Carthan, rapper and actor Mos Def, and actor and comedian Chris Rock. Additionally various artistic and cultural neighborhood events and celebrations such as the neighborhood's annual Universal Hip Hop Parade seek to show off the area's positive accomplishments to the rest of New York City as well as visitors.
This ongoing revitalization and renewal of Bedford-Stuyvesant has prompted a number of people to seek affordable housing among the many blocks of handsome brownstone rowhouses. The appeal of affordable homes and apartments that are still numerous in Bedford-Stuyvesant along with convenient access via mass transit to Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan is fast making the area a favorite for students, artists and young families.
As a result, Bedford-Stuyvesant is becoming increasingly racially, economically and ethnically diverse, with an increase of white and foreign-born African populations. As is expected with gentrification, the influx of new residents has sometimes contributed to the displacement of poorer residents. In many other cases, newcomers have simply rehabilitated and occupied formerly vacant and abandoned properties.
Some long-time residents and business owners have expressed the concern that they will be priced out by newcomers whom they disparagingly characterize as "yuppies and buppies" (black urban professionals). They fear that the neighborhood's ethnic character will be lost. Others point out that a 70% African American population remains. Furthermore Bedford-Stuyvesant's population has experienced much less displacement of the African-American population, including those who are economically disadvantaged, than other areas of Brooklyn, such as Cobble Hill. Many of the new residents are upwardly mobile middle income African American families, as well as immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean.
Some people believe positive neighborhood changes will benefit all residents of the area, bringing with it improved neighborhood safety and creating a demand for improved retail services along the major commercial strips, such as Fulton Street (recently renamed Harriet Tubman Avenue), Nostrand Avenue, Tompkins Avenue, Greene Avenue, Lewis Avenue, Flushing Avenue, Park Avenue, Myrtle Avenue, Dekalb Avenue, Putnam Avenue, Bedford Avenue, Marcy Avenue, Malcolm X Boulevard, Gates Avenue, Madison Street and Jefferson Avenue.
Such changes can bring an increase in local jobs and other economic activity. To that effect, both the Fulton Street and Nostrand Avenue commercial corridors have become part of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Business Improvment District, bringing along with it a beautification project that will provide various pedestrian and landscape improvements.
Transportation
Bedford-Stuyvesant is served by several New York City Transit bus routes. It was served by the IND Fulton Street Line, starting in 1936, which totally replaced the BMT Fulton Street Line on May 31, 1940. Bedford-Stuyvesant is also served by the Nostrand Avenue station of the Long Island Railroad.
Bedford-Stuyvesant in the popular media
Bedford-Stuyvesant is featured in the 1971 film The French Connection where NYPD narcotics detective Popeye Doyle is assigned to a Brooklyn police station that appears to be located in Bedford-Stuyvesant as mentioned by his supervisor Walt Simonson. On a 1997 episode of NYPD Blue "Taillight's last Gleaming", NYPD Lieutenant Arthur Fancy requests that an officer who pulled over him and his wife in a racially motivated manner be transferred to a Bedford-Stuyvesant precinct as punishment to learn how to better interact with various African American citizens. In the show "The West Wing", Toby Ziegler, the fictional director of communications is from Bed-Stuy, and in the final episode of NBC's "Third Watch", Officer Boscorelli is assigned to Bed-Sty after the 55th Prescient is destroyed in an explosion and subsequent fire.
Bedford-Stuyvesant's neighborhood identity is due in part to the neighborhood's portrayal in a variety of popular media. Director Spike Lee has prominently featured the streets and brownstone blocks of Bedford-Stuyvesant in his films, including Do the Right Thing (1989), Crooklyn (1994), Clockers (1995), and Summer of Sam (1999). Chris Rock's UPN (later CW) television sitcom, Everybody Hates Chris, portrays Rock's life growing up as a teenager in Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1982.
Billy Joel's 1980s hit single, "You May Be Right" mentions the neighborhood with the lyrics "I was stranded in the combat zone / I walked through Bedford-Stuy alone / even rode my motorcycle in the rain" when discussing crazy things the singer had done in his life.
The neighborhood was also the setting for some of Dave Chappelle's 2004 documentary Block Party. Chappelle and many prominent Rap and Soul artists performed an impromptu concert at the Broken Angel house in Clinton Hill, which is a neighborhood that borders Bed-Stuy.
A large number of well-known hip-hop artists have come out of Bedford-Stuyvesant, including such notables as Aaliyah, The Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Lil Kim, Big Daddy Kane, Mos Def, Fabolous, and GZA.
In "Scan," an episode of the television show Prison Break, fugitive Fernando Sucre flees to Bedford-Stuyvesant to meet his friend, only to find out that his sweetheart will be getting married in Las Vegas.
The Notorious B.I.G. song "Unbelievable" starts with the line referring to himself as "Live from Bedford-Stuyvesant, the livest one." Also the song "Machine Gun Funk" contains the lyric: "Bed-Stuy, the place where my head rest" referring to Biggie's roots in the neighborhood.
Mos Def raps "Blacker than the nighttime sky of Bed-Stuy in July" in the Blackstar song "Astronomy (8th Light)" from the self-titled album, "Blackstar".
The Smif-N-Wessun song Bucktown, refers to Bedford-Stuyvesant as Bucktown.
The neighborhood (and instructions for its pronunciation) are featured in The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe.
Notable natives
Landmarks
External links
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