Park Slope Case Study

Park Slope is neighborhood in Brooklyn that has become know as “highly desirable.” Park Slope is known for its historic buildings, shops that line Fifth and Seventh Avenues, bars and its proximity to Prospect Park. Around the 60’s and 70’s many of Park Slopes historic brownstones were cleaned up along with the rest of the neighborhood but before this Park Slope was a rough working-class neighborhood. Many neighborhoods, including Park Slope, are going through the process of gentrification. While gentrification can have negative and positive affects on a neighborhood, it’s important to ask who are the new residents moving into these neighborhoods, but more importantly how the people who remain in the neighborhood are affect by the change brought …show more content…
The Barbershop is one of a few businesses that have not felt the need to improve the look or feel of the business to “fit-in” with the “new” Park Slope, this interested me. I wanted to interview Nestor to understand his reasoning on why he has kept the look (and pricing) the same while many of his neighboring businessmen have felt the need to adapt to the gentrification going on around them. From the outside it did not look like the other businesses on the block, or even the other barbershops in the neighborhood. Trophies line the windows, while graffiti and other street art line the walls. The master barbers, Chris, Nestor, Christafari, and Jc are people of color that have been working there for years. I did not think that the barbershop would be busy at three in the afternoon on a Wednesday, but there seemed to always be a good amount of customers waiting on the benches. I saw a few older African American’s walk in, in what seemed like work clothes. I also saw some older boys, which I believed were from the high school on 7th ave, go inside in small …show more content…
This process impacts not only the “look” of the neighborhood but also the residents of the neighborhood. Many problems and questions arise during this process, such as what happens to the old residents that have been displaced, or how the new residents impact the neighborhood. While researching and observing Park Slope a theme that arose was old versus new residents. The way that the old residents interacted with the neighborhood seems to be different from how the new residents interact with the neighborhood. Furthermore there is a difference in how the residents interact. The older residents had a sense of community, and had personal relationship with each other; however the new residents do not seem to have this sense of community or relationship. It has become the stereotype that in New York City people do not even know what the person live next to them looks