Breukelen Houses

Breukelen Houses (pronounced brook-line), also known as Breukelen or Brookline Projects, is a large housing complex maintained in Canarsie, Brooklyn, by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).

Its main office is located at 618 East 108th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11236. It is bounded by Flatlands Avenue, East 103rd Street, Williams Avenue and Stanley Avenue. The community sits on convert|64.98|acre|ha and consists of 1,595 apartment units inside 30 structures, all of which are either three or seven stories high. As of March 2008 the population was estimated to be 4,038. [cite web| url=http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/developments/bklynbreukelen.shtml| title=NYCHA Housing Developments| publisher=New York City Housing Authority| accessdate=2008-05-15]

History

Breukelen gets its name from the Dutch in 1683, when present day Brooklyn was known as Breukelen. It later changed to Brockland, Brocklin, Brookline, and finally Brooklyn. [cite book| author=Ellis, Edward Robb| date=1966| title=The Epic of New York City| publisher=Old Town Books| page=p. 53] The housing project borders the community of Flatlands to the southeast, which the Dutch originally called Nieuw Amersfoort. It, along with the towns of New Lots, Flatbush, and Gravesend were annexed by the city of Brooklyn between 1886-1896. [cite web| url=http://www.hopefarm.com/5boros.htm| author=Frisbie, Richard| date=1996| title="Early Five Boroughs History: Coming of the Dutch" | publisher=Hope Farm Press| accessdate=2008-05-15]

Some attribute Breukelen’s decline to increasing crime rates and the influx of mostly black and low income families into the Canarsie area during the 1970s and 1980s. By 1980 many middle-income whites exited the housing project in droves and were replaced almost exclusively by poverty-ridden, female-headed minority households. One resident was quoted as saying:

"We’re not just talking about a few blacks. At first it would be ten, then it would be twenty, and then who knows what might happen? We’ve run from neighborhoods that changed overnight. How do we know Canarsie will be viable five years from now? We’re scared to death.cite book| author=Rieder, Jonathon| date=1987| title=Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism| publisher=Harvard University Press (New York, New York)]

Before they lived in Canarsie, many whites lived in the East New York and Brownsville sections. Soon after, their worse fear was that Canarsie would become East New York and Brownsville.

"They look all around them and see formerly intact white ethnic neighborhoods like Brownsville and East New York, and they shrink from what they see as enclaves of drug addiction, violence, broken families, even when they know that this hardly characterizes all or most black life or even the life of the black poor. They're afraid that that squalor (that cycle of tipping and turning neighborhoods) will come to their safe sanctuary".

This attitude was shared by many but not all. Mark Sherman’s 1984 "New York Times" article [cite web| url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E6DB123BF931A25751C0A962948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2| author=Sherman, Mark| date=1984 |title="If You Are Thinking of Living in: Canarsie"| publisher=New York Times Real Estate Section| accessdate=2008-03-13] quotes a Canarsie native as saying:

"Now white Canarsie residents see that integration is not something horrible... The black middle-income families who have been moving into the area are a welcome addition.

In 2001 the New York City Housing Authority, in an effort to “brighten things up”, authorized $4.5 million dollars in upgrades to Breukelen Houses. [cite web| url=http://www.canarsiecourier.com/News/2001/0315/TopStories/04.html| title="Bruekelen Houses to get $4.5M in improvements"| publisher="Canarsie Courier "| date=2001| accessdate=2008-03-13] Residents enjoyed new fencing, walkways, shrubbery, playgrounds, and updated lighting. In spite of its soaring crime rate and bad reputation, the residents of Breukelen Houses remain kind and caring individuals. This was recently evidenced in February of 2007 when the Breukelen Community Center opened its doors to the homeless as one of nine winter emergency “warming spots” in the city. [New York City. Homepage (2007). News From the Blue Room. Accessed March 13th 2008 from http://www.nyc.gov]

Area

One of Breukelen’s most prized attractions is the Breukelen Park located on Louisiana and Flatlands Avenue. It boasts wheelchair access facilities, playgrounds, sprinklers, and at least 3 baseball fields.

NYCHA's funding problems

Officials of the NYCHA claim their woes are due to “chronic federal under-funding”.cite web| url=http://nyc.gov/html/nycha/downloads/pdf/j08mare.pdf| author=Elliot, Eileen| date=2008| title="NYCHA Adopts Preliminary Budget For 2008"| publisher=New York City Housing Authority Journal| accessdate=2008-05-15] As a result, in recent years many residents within the Breukelen community have expressed fears of mass privatization and pending rent hikes. As of June 2007 the NYCHA held a deficit of over $200 million dollars with little to no fiscal help from Albany (state capital) or Washington in sight. Additionally, the NYCHA has lost $999 million dollars between 2001 and 2008. In spite of it financial insufficiency, the NYCHA is not going to privatize housing. Instead they're selling surplus NYCHA land to the city's housing agency to develop affordable housing.cite web| url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/06072007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/turning_a_profit_for_the_projects_opedcolumnists_julia_vitullo_martin.htm| author=Vitullo-Martin, Julia| date=2007| title="Turning a Profit for the Projects"| publisher="New York Post"|accessdate=2008-05-15] They’ve also made staff and expense cuts and have more impending employee cutbacks in the works.

Nevertheless, Julia Vitullo-Martin purports that a potential buyer offered up $1.3 billion dollars for an area of public housing in East New York that might encompass some or all of Breukelen Houses. Furthermore, Mayor Bloomberg stated on a radio show in 2007 that public housing has to pay for itself. With the NYCHA’s perpetual debt and with pressures from private, city, state, and federal departments, privatization may in fact be in Breukelen’s future.

References