The Four Horsemen of Gentrification

Came across this great parody on McSweeneys and it seemed like it was an appropriate read for all of us who moved here from Brooklyn and Queens.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-four-horsemen-of-gentrification

A Whole Foods ("A-hole Foods?") will be going in on the first floor of an apartment building being built as we speak in my neighborhood, which is called "The Central West End." Or, on a tremendously pretentious bumper-sticker I have seen, "The Chic and Fashionable Central West End," which would make it the "CAFCWE" as opposed to just the commonly used "CWE." Then again, a friend of mine refers to it as "The Central Rear End."

Sometimes naming or renaming a neighborhood is more than just a matter of pretension. I have read that before WW II, nobody referred to the "CENTRAL" West End. There was just the "West End." The northern part of the neighborhood was always more working-class and modest than the rest, but became solidly populated by African-American families after the war. In order to differentiate the areas in people's minds, it was the real estate profession and then the city itself that began to use the term "Central West End."

A street I used to live on seems to always have been the hinge between the more modest and the more upscale parts of the neighborhood, which includes 20-room mansions on private, gated streets. Most of the private streets (developed around 1890 or 1900) were originally restricted to white Christians, but that, of course, changed. In decades when almost nobody wanted those houses, they sold for $100,000 or less as recently as the 1970's or later. Now people are asking for, and getting, millions. And now some of those mansions are homes of black families. One private street was originally developed by Jews who were shut out of other streets and areas, but it was not occupied solely by Jews, with one house being the home where the mother of George H.W. Bush grew up, if my memory is correct. I was in that house on a house tour once.

Wanted to hate that, failed. Thanks for sharing.