Well, let's just say it's two steps forward and one step back. Bella woke us up last night, at 2 am, and Yasmin was unable to go back to sleep. (I was having a dream about performing with Ornette Coleman, strangely more concerned about the seats in the auditorium than the music. Interpretations?) I delivered Bella to camp this morning and she was a little clingy; she didn't cry, but was feeling out of sorts. Luckily, Zeb, the teenager that works there as a counselor, picked her up and held her as I was leaving. I love that kid.

So, speaking of change we can believe in, here's some change that we can debate about. I mentioned earlier that the area around Maple Street is gentrifying. Over the past five years, many young professionals have moved into the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens neighborhood, and bought and renovated houses. (Not us, we're down the road a spell.) Lincoln Road, with a new cafe, Mexican Restaurant, and Maple Street School is in some sense a meeting ground for the newcomers and longtime residents of the area; the dynamics of that convergence are being played out on that one-block strip. Article idea. Bgoing!!

Anyway, big-time development is following. Next to Maple Street is a vacant lot on which is being developed a 23-story condo building. As I understand it, this is not a done deal, and several neighborhood groups are fighting it, including Community Board 9. What effect this will have on the functioning of the school (noise, dust) is unclear. I found this video-debate by two Brooklyn bloggers below. Check it out:



I want to keep things real as much as the next white liberal. But one thing that bugs me is that in these debates over gentrification, journalists too often fail to ask the older residents of the community what they think (or even to consider that many of them might stand to benefit from development). It's always a preservationist, or a professional neighborhood rabble-rouser versus a capitalist. There are (many) other sides, too. What about the working-class property owners in the area, of which there are MANY. This is a Caribbean neighborhood, after all, in which the goal is to "Buy house!" What do some of them think?