NYT: “Staying in Crown Heights, Even as It Gentrifies”

One of the NYT’s recent jihads is against gentrification (code word: whitening) of the outer boroughs of NYC. The latest is “Staying in Crown Heights, Even as It Gentrifies”.

The piece profiles Lisa Mathis, a 57 year old black woman, who has lives in three-bedroom, one-bath, rent-controlled apartment at 80 New York Avenue for the past 12 years. (The new P.C. term for “rent controlled apartment” is now, apparently, “rent stabilized apartment”.)

The article starts with the usual “Her wonderful, fulfilling life was going well… until” angle:

The only thing she lacked was a lease, but over the next decade the rent never went up. Then, in late 2014, the building sold to new owners, Mendel and Chananya Gold, who offered tenants buyouts to get them to leave. Those who stayed endured months of construction as the other apartments were renovated.

Reached on the phone, Chananya Gold said, “No comment. No comment at all.”

We know who the villain in this piece is. But it must have been a struggle for the NYT writer, given the villain’s ethnicity. And is Jewish gentrification the same thing as ‘white’ gentrification? Such are today’s conundrums.

We learn her rent has been only $1,200… and has not gone up at all over the past 12 years! Nonetheless, the villainous Golds put pressure on a victimized Ms. Mathis to move:

Ms. Mathis didn’t want to move. Her son, Derek, a graphic designer who is now 26, was living with her, and she suspected that her daughter, a college student, might need to move back in when she graduated. She also knew that her aunt, who intended to stay in the building, had a rent-stabilized unit, so she went to see a lawyer.

We learn that the building’s non-rent-stabilized apartment “have been carved into four- and five-bedrooms that rent, per room, for nearly as much as Ms. Mathis pays for her entire apartment.” That gives you context of what the true market rate for Mathis’ apartment would be.

While not an angle of this story, of course, it again shows how the only people who can afford to live in a place like NYC are very wealthy ^[1](whites) and non-whites in rent-controlled apartments.

All the rest of the working class gentiles are forced further outward.