Is Crown Heights expanding, or is Bedford-Stuy shrinking? Since when is Kingston Ave. and Bergen St. "Crown Heights"?
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Here we go. Another micro-aggression, an unfortunate but local dispute blown nonsensically into a city-wide trend piece for lame clickbait. Crown Heights is a true leader and exemplar for today’s fraught national conversation on race relations, and the owner of Meat and Basil embodied it.
Long standing orthodox Jewish, Caribbean and African American residents live here and diner there in gorgeous harmony — joined by new modern orthodox young families, gays and creatives. Affordable housing alongside new condos, yes joined by different retail serving different audiences but where all are welcome.
Welcome to Brooklyn, make Crown Heights a stop and witness an authentic neighborhood, that addresses its differences through civic engagement and understanding.
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Let me understand this?I own a building and I have no right to say what goes on my walls.I pay property tax and Mr Cohen who never asked permission can put up a mural of a man who glorifies gun violence and just some casual racism.This logic is terribly tragic!
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If you paint anything on the side of a building that I own without my authorization it's coming off or getting whitewashed. Don't like it? Buy your own building and deface it to your heart's content.
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"His lyrics memorialize drugs, gun violence and casual racism."
Casual racism??? That deserves an explanation! I guess it could be in there somewhere, but that's not what comes to my mind when I think of Sean P. The first two, yeah. I thought he was one of the best.
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I’ve met people here who see any kind of change as a bad thing. Even beautification efforts are regarded as a threat to the status quo. That’s not what it is.
While the real reasons for rising rents are the 1031 like-kind exchange tax loophole, low interest rates, empty apartments and vacant lots traded for speculation only, and last but not least: the DOF raising real estate taxes through the roof.
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There was another journalist present at the meeting, and they published two days after. That account is drastically different, and takes in different facts of what occurred to necessitate a meeting and what occurred during the meeting.
Subject The Sean Price mural in Crown Heights
https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2019/07/25/sean-price-mural-crown-heights/
FYI
There was a mural that was painted over. It was painted by Paula Overbay and community children. It was in honor of "the International Year of the Child", and it was funded by NYC grant dollars.
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Where’s Yankel Rosenbaum’s mural?
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@Sean NO. How about that kid who got run over.
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@Sean next to Gavin Cato's
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I dunno. Does the local observant Jew population typically create murals on walls for the tragically fallen? Not really, no, it’s more of a tradition of black and brown folks in their communities so stop with the bitter red herring.
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As a resident of Bergen Street, I believe it was a culmination of things that went unaddressed. When construction began on the building that houses Meat, many residents in the area were extremely happy because a building that had been dilapidated for more than a decade was now being renovated and would possibly create jobs, housing and retail space. Additionally, the corner of Kingston and Bergen is notoriously known as a corner of high crime. So, like many I was elated to finally see improvements to that corner. Although, the construction would bring progression it also brought infestation. Bergen/Kingston streets were infested with rats. Yes, as a native NY’er I know construction most times equal vermin and as NY’ers we deal. Meanwhile, the Kingston Lounge remains dilapidated and it brought it’s own problems squatters, illegal dumping and flooding issues which were hardly ever addressed by the owners. These unaddressed issues yield frustration amongst the residents that live in the area. One homeowner had to deal with a flood in her basement because of the dereliction of Kingston Lounge. Many times I have walked on the side of the Kingston lounge and I had to walk through garbage left on the sidewalk or I smelled an odor of rancor coming from behind the scaffolding. Then, the whitewashing of the mural of S. Price. And finally, the owners of Meat not being forthcoming with information. The residents were downright frustrated, sick and tired of not being respected and heard.
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"Preservation of a neighborhood's cultural heritage."
For a moment, let's remember that those lovely old townhouses were not built for the hoi polloi.
My 100-year-old friend grew up in Crown Heights. Her father was a milkman who delivered milk via a horse and buggy. Her family was poor, but the streets were clean and quiet. They were different from the gentry who lived there in the 1880s.
And the neighborhood during those years of her growing up and her schooldays was very different from what the neighborhood had become by the 1960s.
It is always a shame when a neighborhood succumbs to litter and crime. It is never wrong when places get tidied up.
And graffiti is vandalism.
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@B. Thank goodness thats a mural then
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@B. An honorary mural to a slain community member is vandalism to you? “Graffiti is vandalism” reeks of thinly veiled racism.
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@B. It is always a shame when a neighborhood succumbs to litter and crime. It is never wrong when places get tidied up.
What the journalist Anna Dreyfus neglects to say is that the block association (Bergen-Kingston Block Assn.) has been individually and collectively fighting the litter that was placed on the property of D. Branover at 120 Kingston Ave./1304 Bergen Street, a building formerly known as "The Kingston Lounge", located diagonally across the street from Meat. Meat took to placing their food and construction waste on the sidewalk of the KL (Kingston Lounge). That in itself is illegal dumping. This exacerbated an already existing vermin problem, which had been catalyzed by Mr. Branover's group not being responsible for the illegal dumping by unknown parties over months and months. When they assume ownership, they removed all cameras and lighting that the previous owner had installed, and stopped the daily private cleanup by a 3rd party.
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'Apolinar Severino, the owner of the building housing the mural, had told Mr. Caldwell that he claimed full responsibility for attempting to paint over the image of Mr. Price.'
As is his total legal right as the property owner.
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@NYC Taxpayer
Yes, it is his right, just as it is the right of all of his neighbors to think less of him for it, and tell him so.
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@NYC Taxpayer And it would be well within the right of Jonathan Cohen to sue for damages for defacing public art a la what happened at 5Pointz.
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@NYC Taxpayer: And maybe he was just taking the fall for Mr. Branover, with a little kickback included.
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It is disturbing that Mr. Branover had to attend a public hearing to clear up the facts about his involvement - none - in the painting over of the mural. It is also disturbing that some people think his restaurants are only for white people, or Jews, or whatever. When Basil opened, Mr. Branover made it clear that his restaurant was open to all.
I have been to the Basil Italian restaurant several times. The food is first-rate (and priced accordingly), and the customers in the few times I was there were a mixture of Orthodox Jews and African-Americans. One group I did not see in the restaurant w the mixed Crown Heights neighborhood. Maybe they should be the ones complaining Mr. Branover, notwithstanding that he is one of them.
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I keep kosher and have eaten at Basil. I found the food mediocre and the prices high. But the clientele was diverse tho sparse (rainy midweek night). The wait staff was also diverse.
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@Andy.
Permit me to correct and restate the last two sentences: One group I did not see in the restaurant was the Chabadniks, the black-hatted, black-suited Chasidic Jews who are the heavy majority of whites in the mixed Crown Heights neighborhood. Maybe the Chabadniks should be the ones complaining about Mr. Branover, who himself is a Chabadnik.
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Neighborhoods change! In a few years probably none of West Indian community will be left they will be displaced for the "NEW" New Yorkers from Iowa! I feel it is important to keep memorial wall as they properly know as.
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SEAN P. FOREVER!
But NYC RIP. Hip hop is one of the many things that made New York the special place that it is (was?). There’s nothing special about a bank on every corner, five dollar coffee or “artisanal” anything.
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I hardly think that hip hop made New York City "special."
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@B. hip-hop did make nyc special, as did graffiti. these are forms of music and art that were birthed right here in nyc and should be a source of pride for new yorkers.
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@BAM As the mother of 2 sons who produce independent hip hop, DuckDown records were horrified to learn of Sean's death at such a young age. Being Jewish is so disturbing to me to see this article. Sean lives on in their records and videos. This is racial prejudice at the highest level. I'm embarrassed to read what the ultra Jewish people are saying. Sean lives on in the hip hop world. He was a peaceful man with thousands of followers. Keep the mural for respect for all who knew and loved Sean.
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Civil War memorials can be taken down in the South, murals of George Washington can be painted over in a school but a street art mural can be painted over by the property owner? I'm confused what the legal standard is.
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Public vs. private property is the distinction.
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Well Sean price did not own slaves for one...
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Do you think the rules for public spaces vs private ones are the same?
Do you think slavery-loving traitors to their nation deserve monuments at all? And don’t give me that mess about heritage. Most of them went up right after the Civil Rights Act, so anyone with a lick of sense knows what they were about.
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