Photo By Todd Maisel
New York City has been a wonderous place explore, with endless options of food vendors, entertainment, architecture, and various job opportunities. But with all its positive traits, there are an equal number of negative aspects to the city. Spending my childhood just across the Hudson in New Jersey, New York was always accessible and from afar I romanticized about living in the city as so many do. It wasn’t until I moved to live within the city that the very serious negative aspects of the city became more obvious. When it came to the disruption of the city’s transit system after Hurricane Sandy, and the ongoing effects of gentrification, I began to see how serious the housing crisis was becoming. Hurricane Sandy had not only devastated many homes, but it stunted the transit system, and people were unable to get to work if the place they worked wasn’t underwater. That in combination with the more recent Covid-19 Pandemic, has amplified issues of gentrification, and the city’s working class has become and more strained every year.
I moved to New York a year before Hurricane Sandy, and immediately emersed myself in the vibrant art communities within it. Many of us needed to take on various jobs to support ourselves while we pursued the arts that we loved. When the hurricane hit, the effects were immediate, with 44 deaths, round 19 billion in damages, thousands of people were displaced and thousands more were unable to work. With so much of the city under water the transit system was almost completely useless, and many of us without cars had to resort to riding bikes if we were lucky enough to have a job that was not disrupted. The New York City Subway systems were flooded in so many places, and the feeling of the city standing still had an apocalyptic air. Many of us had to scramble to figure out how to make rent and sustain ourselves. It was an unforeseen struggle that we had to adapt to and overcome, and I’m happy to say many of us were able to pull through. But for some the strain was too much, and the only option was to relocate. For those of us who stayed it was clear that something had to be done, and we began to involve ourselves in peaceful protests to bring attention to the cities growing housing crisis.
The effects of gentrification have been an ongoing issue for the city. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I watched areas like The Village of lower Manhattan transform from mostly working class, to a trendy high-end place to live that city elite now occupies. The early signs of that transformation began to become more obvious in places like Brooklyn where I lived. With laws changing to favor landlords who were eager to find ways to move out unwanted working-class citizens and move in wealthier tenants that were looking for an edgy, more “artsy” place to live. From there the motivation to fight for laws to be changed and passed to protect tenants had become vital. And over the years, there were many wins and many losses depending on the area you lived in. Regardless of the wins, we have had to push for more housing protections like rent stabilization. This was disrupted when the city again was stunted, this time by the Covid-19 Pandemic.
When the city first went into lockdown because of Covid-19, the all too familiar apocalyptic air of dread came across so many of us. Many people could not work, and many people fell behind in rent, leading to a mass exodus of the working-class artist community I was so familiar with. The housing crisis was again amplified further, and an opportunity arose for landlords to raise rents, and move in more people that were able to afford the new standards they set. Protests broke out consistently over 2020, with a new goal to forgive rent for people that could not catch up. There were many programs that the city, state, and federal governments offered, however many people were not able to qualify, leaving many people to be evicted, and resulting in a growing homeless population. With so many friends I knew having to leave the city, there was a very clear shift in the artist culture I had emersed myself in. Now gentrification has accelerated, and the city as I knew it has shifted its culture. However, the work to protect tenants’ rights is ongoing and will not loose momentum. The city cannot survive without its working class and there must be more solutions for the housing crisis we have.