the montauk club on 8th avenue

"Gentrification?"
As you can tell, there are many things I love about my neighborhood, but I tend to have mixed feelings about gentrification. On one level, it is clear that the neighborhood's hot real estate market is driving out families who will have to find another place to live. But that has already happened in Manhattan; which is why more people are moving into the Slope to begin with. I always feel awkward walking home from work in my business suit past the stoop-sitters who camp out all day on my block. But my family also has history in Park Slope. At the turn of the century, my Russian immigrant great grandfather owned a grocery store on 5th avenue, and he lived with his family on 6th avenue at 11th street until roughly the mid-1920's. So it seems different families have been replacing eachother for generations. Gentrification is often discussed in terms of it being a problem, but it is a complex topic, especially in relentlessly free-market American cities like New York, where everybody wants a piece of the same pie.