Welcome toBed-Stuy

My letter to Bed-Stuy

My first introduction to Bed-Stuy was by way of some college friends. They had rented an entire Brownstone for about $1000/month. It was 4 stories and had about 3 kitchens, original mahogany millwork, mother of pearl inlays on the stone mantels, crown moldings and breathtaking proportions. I’d never even been inside a brownstone and that’s where the love affair began. A revolving cast of characters from our studio lived in that house over the years. That’s when I knew Bed-Stuy was a place to be. I wouldn’t move here for another 10 years and when I finally made it the neighborhood had done nothing but get quirkier, for the better. I remember one time I was on a buyer tour with a client, she’d dragged her friend from Jersey along for the ride. And we were discussing the friend’s tennis clothing company when we wandered into a newly opened shop on Tompkins. They sold everything from incense to locally made trinkets, soaps, and ephemera. The owner gravitated towards us—a nubian Madame Bovary meets Professor Trelawny type—and let us know that the space was also meant to serve as sort of a community center as well, to empower women. She encouraged all of us to get involved and offered up an array of spiritual workshops, chakra cleanses, and our favorite, Yoni Steams, something for which all three of us needed an explanation. We had a good laugh afterwards and that’s when my client decided she was definitely moving to Bed-Stuy.