©Jaimee Todd 2012
Last week I found out that the legendary Lenox Lounge of Harlem will be closing its doors for good at the end of this month. I was shocked; it was just a few months ago that I took this picture and now to hear that it will be shuttered forever makes me so sad. This latest victim of gentrification adds insult to the injury of watching Cake Man Raven close up his legendary store in Brooklyn just a few weeks before. Eerily enough, I shot the facade of that place over a year ago for my first Brooklyn photography commission.
©Jaimee Todd 2012
Even as I was finishing up that project, my favorite West Indian restaurant in Boerum Hill, Stir It Up, had shut down too. I loved going there; besides the fact that the food was beyond delicious, I had a warm rapport with the owner and every time I would come to visit, she would fix me a plate of my usual stew chicken with rice and peas and special ice tea without me even having to ask. I also loved people from the neighborhood stroll in and order their fix for takeout and chatted about the latest neighborhood gossip. While I never got confirmation that the restaurant closed because of rising rents, I can’t help but suspect that it fell prey to the rising cost of operating a business in Brooklyn.
Sigh.
My favorite meal at the long gone Stir It Up.
©Jaimee Todd 2012
It’s scary that these places are evaporating at the rate that they are. Gentrification is spreading through Brooklyn and Harlem like kudzu. While I always welcome diversity, I shudder at how so many historic landmarks and neighborhood strongholds are fading away, taking with them the original flavor and character of these legendary areas. In their place, I see eyesores like chain stores and Applebees restaurants that just make the block feel vapid and awash in sameness. I’m afraid to even imagine what these areas will look like ten years from now. In addition to the change in flavor of the neighborhoods, lifelong residents of Brooklyn and Harlem are displaced and pushed further out to more remote parts of the city and Long Island. When I lived in Harlem several years ago, I remember overhearing a lifelong resident complain about the cost of rent there and lament about how, if he had to do it all over again, he could never afford to live in the “New Harlem.”
It seems like gentrification has become a runaway train but I’m determined to capture the great icons of Harlem and Brooklyn before they are lost to the past. It’s a bittersweet endeavor and I hate to say that I have a head start on a few places already, but it’s crucial to immortalize them. My hope is that by photographing these places and their stories, I can call attention to their significance and generate dialogue and action that will force people to re-examine the costs of gentrification.
I’m keeping my eyes peeled for more stories to say, but if YOU know of places in Harlem and Brooklyn that are losing their battle to gentrification, please let me know by contacting me atjaimee@jaimeetodd.com and I will be sure to photograph that place and get its story.
More to come.
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