Bedford-Stuyvesant- Historic Brooklyn Neighborhood with New York City’s Largest African American Community

I generally followed the Google Maps borders except the eastern edge where the newer subdistrict of Ocean Hill lies. This is a pretty well recognized neighborhood on the ground for New Yorkers. I only carved out from Bed-Stuy the smaller section east of Ralph Ave and south of Fulton St. I also deviate slightly from Google by using Franklin as the western border.

Bed-Stuy was largely rural until the mid 1880s as real estate development began slowly at first and then accelerated in the late 19th century. Bedford–Stuyvesant has the largest collection of intact Victorian architecture in the United States, with roughly 8,800 buildings built before 1900. Its building stock was developed for the expanding upper-middle class in the turn of the 20th century. Since the late 1930s, the neighborhood has been a major cultural center for Brooklyn’s African American population especially after the construction of the Fulton Street subway line (A and ​C trains) in 1936. The combined migration of Blacks from the overcrowded Harlem and immigrants from the American South and the Caribbean brought the neighborhood’s black population to around 30,000, making it the second largest Black community in the city at the time After WW-II African Americans began moved into the surrounding areas of Brooklyn, such as East New York, Crown Heights, Brownsville, and Fort Greene.  making this section of Brooklyn the largest concentration of African Americans in the United States with nearly 1 M people. Since the early 2000s, Bedford-Stuyvesant has undergone significant gentrification, resulting in a more diverse and larger White Population.  However, Bedford–Stuyvesant’s population has experienced much less displacement  than other areas of Brooklyn, such as Williamsburg and Cobble Hill. This is thanks to a large number of affordable and stabilized rental units and an influx of more upwardly mobile middle class African American families, as well as immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. Bed-Stuy still has a majority minority number of Black residents, followed by a large number of White and even Hispanic families. The northern edge abutting Williamsburg is very much a largely Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.

While Bed-Stuy does not have the same level of high end retail amenities as inner Brooklyn neighborhoods it is still a highly walkable community with most retail amenities and excellent cultural amenities including plenty of restaurants, bars, cafes, and lots of jazz clubs and art galleries. The neighborhood also has excellent transit connections with convenient access to Dwtn Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, and Midtown, excellent bike infrastructure, a good array of walkable schools and becomes more and more safe every year. While for sale prices are generally very high there is a good amount of studios, 1-beds and event 2-bed condos selling between 250K-600K. As the neighborhood gentrifies Bed-Stuy’s historic grid will continue to become less and less moving west to east. I just hope the neighborhood can retain its great racial and economic diversity as this process occurs. While there are some areas of autocentric and underutilized uses along Broadway and Flushing, Atlantic Avenue needs the most redevelopment and quality in-fill as it contains a significant amount autocentric uses and ugly industrial grit.

Click here to view my Bedford-Stuyvesant Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Excellent density at around 60K residents per square miles.
* Good ADA and sidewalk infrastructure but  the sidewalks are warn and dirty and about 40% of all curb cuts are outdated.
* Solid access to 3 major NYC CBDs. By subway 30 mins to Dwtn Brooklyn and 40 mins to Lower Manhattan and Midtown.
* Excellent public transit access along with plenty of dedicated bike lanes and bike share stations. Completed with the many business district and mixed-use streets Bed-Stuy is a solid walkable neighborhood.
* Currently great economic and racial diversity as the neighborhood is in transition to gentrifying. Hopefully Bed-Stuy can retain this diversity moving forward.
* Solid urban architecture but not as good as more gentrified neighborhoods to the west. A good number of browntowns ad rowhouses but generally not a ornate or well maintained as Inner Brooklyn neighborhoods. Significant amount of unattractive autocentric uses below the elevated lines running along Broadway and Atlantic. As the neighborhood gentrified from the west, quality urban in-fill is being built. Mid-bag for the 1950s-1970s in-fill located on many neighborhood blocks.
* Decent tree canopy depending on the block.
* Lots of walkable schools well distributed throughout the neighborhood. Ratings are generally at least average but a handful of poorly rated schools. There many not be the number of prestigious private schools in more inner-Brooklyn neighborhoods but lots of good options here.
* Solid park amenities: While there aren’t any major parks here lots of small and medium sized parks well dispersed throughout the neighborhood with good amenities.
* Good urban form and streetscaping and good occupancy along the more western and gentrified business districts on Bedford, Nostrand, and Tompkins. More grid, tired street scaping, some autocentric uses, but still decent form along the eastern non gentrified business districts along  Marcus Garvey Blvd, Lewis, Malcom X,  Ralph, Flushing and the eastern half of Fulton. Broadway, which has a raised train line is gritty but still have good urban form. Not so with Atlantic. It is gritty, has the raised train and has lots of industrial and autocentric uses. Its quite ugly.
* Good cultural amenities including plenty of restaurants, bars & cafes, several art galleries, several jazz clubs and night clubs, a couple theaters, and a couple local museums.
* Solid retail amenities including plenty of some and medium sized groceries stores, several drug stores and hardware stores, a decent # of boutiques/clothing/gift stores, several bookstores, several antiques and furniture stores, a Home Depot, plenty of gyms and dessert joints, a couple local public libraries and post offices, tons of churches, a major hospital in the Northeast corner of the neighborhood and plenty of doctor offices.
* Great range of rentals although pretty expensive. Studios lease btwn 2K-3K, 1-beds btwn 2K-4.5K, 2-beds btwn 2.5K-6K, and plenty of 3-beds leasing btwn 3.5K-7K. Significantly amount of the rental supply is dedicated affordable rentals or rent stabilized as 2/3s of rental product least under 2K.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

• For sale housing is expensive but relatively reason compared to Inner Brooklyn neighborhoods. Studios and 1-bed condos sell btwn 250K-3M, 2-beds range btwn 250K-3M with most units selling btwn 750K-2, 3 & 4-beds are quick reasonable comparatively selling anywhere btwn 500K-3M with a handful selling btwn 3-4M.
• Some safety concerns remain but overall Bed-Stuy is not currently an unsafe area and continues to get better and better. Still a good amount of grit as certainly not all the neighborhood has been revitalized.