Robert Perlman
I’ve lived in Stuy Town all my life. I’m 48. I remember when the first black person moved into my building. I can’t remember the exact date but it was my first realization “ Oh this is a new thing”. I think it was the early ‘80’s. But I had lived there since 1967 when I was born. And this was my first realization of the fact that it was a segregated community. You know, I’ve lived in New York, gone to a progressive school in the West Village and always hung around a lot of people of color but I really didn’t think about the fact that almost no one in Stuy Town was black. It was all pretty much Jewish and Irish when I was growing up. And then when this African-American gentleman and his white wife moved onto my floor.
Stuy town was a weird place in many ways. It felt like the out boroughs or suburbia plopped down in the middle of Manhattan. It was a very small-minded insular community.
I still live in Stuyvesant on 20th Street. The 14th St. side was rough and very distinct. When kids came from the LES to play ball with us there were often confrontations, sometimes violence. It was common for there to be more turnover on the 14th St side of Stuy Town. People would get an apartment on that side and then immediately put their name on the list for another apartment more inside the complex because it was considered to be more desirable and safe.
I still don’t see this as an integrated community. As it get’s more expensive it becomes more homogeneous in predictable ways. I live in a rent-stabilized apartment. Residents of color are mostly Asian families.
I’ve often read that New York is technically one of the most segregated cities in America. It never feels that way if you’re out and walking. You see all kinds of people when you walk. I see New York as strange that way. In other cities you drive your car and live in a white neighborhood and never see or interact with anyone different. But here you live in a false sense of integration that is not really representative of how people are living.
