I would like to acknowledge that this essay is being written on the traditional lands of the Brooklyn Italian Americans, and pay my respects to elders both past and present. Some live with respiratory issues from their service during the September 11 attacks.
A genre of writing, in reaction to “gentrification” discourse, has now cast white ethnics of the outer boroughs in the role of the indigene. Certain ethnic groups are said to have “defined the city,” and others are spoken about as forces for changing it.
Every story of demographic change contains a hidden answer to the question: change from what? Why should being in New York in September 2001 define an especially authentic cohort of New Yorkers in a way that, say, arriving in 1988 or 2024 does not?
Cities change as people arrive, leave, give birth and die. A historically dominant group can become smaller, disperse and lose cultural influence as its members prosper and move on. Sometimes a neighborhood changes without anyone having been wronged.
In the homeowner belts of southern Brooklyn and eastern Queens, it is common to hear wistful talk of escaping the city for spacious Long Island or New Jersey. One demographer’s death knell is another family’s realization of the American dream.
Other families stay, ten toes down. A pizzeria down the street from me serves outstanding food and doubles as a chatty gathering spot for its favorite customers. I always ask for a slice “for here.” They always nudge back: would you like it to go?
There are few high-rises here, but plenty of Ring cameras. The streetscape is full of curb cuts, the sound of “Hi, you are being recorded,” and men polishing their cars. More of these men wear doppa, and the women hijab, but the transition feels subtle.
The roles that sort people into political coalitions—homeowner, cop, shopkeeper—are less quickly scannable than ethnicity. Memory, especially from afar, is sensitive to its visible markers. But the city changes costumes faster than it changes constituencies.