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A Tree Grows in Bed-Stuy

Once a poster child for urban blight, Bedford-Stuyvesant today is a burgeoning success story within the redevelopment of Brooklyn

By Paul Bubny | Updated on September 23, 2008

Thirty years ago, Billy Joel wrote a song in which the narrator proclaimed his own recklessness by pointing out that he “walked through Bedford-Stuy alone.” A poster child for dangerous urban blight in those years, the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn is today “one of the most exciting examples” of the borough’s redevelopment, in the words of Michael Amirkhanian, territory manager for Massey Knakal.

Generally speaking, the improvements coming to Bed-Stuy are a result of the proverbial rising tide that lifts all boats. More specifically, there have been a couple of concrete steps taken to steer the Bed-Stuy boat: an upzoning of the neighborhood’s southern portion, south of Quincy and Gate streets; and the February 2007 establishment of the Bed-Stuy Gateway Business Improvement District, which expects to be fully funded by the beginning of 2009. The BID encompasses Fulton from Bedford Avenue to Marcus Garvey Boulevard and Nostrand Avenue from Halsey Street to Atlantic Avenue.

In recent years, Bed-Stuy’s population has begun rebounding and the demographic mix of that population has been diversifying. Those with a historical bent might point out that the demographics are returning to the kind of diversity seen here in former years. Bed-Stuy was the childhood home, after all, of both Norman Mailer and Lena Horne, and it remains home to a sizeable cluster of brownstones.

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