BY: AMIRA TURNER
For some New York City residents, new murals popping up are simply fresh new pieces of art to brighten a neighborhood, but to others, they represent a deeper, troubling trend, gentrification. High-income neighborhoods like Cobble Hill, Dumbo, and Williamsburg all have rent prices higher than median rent prices in Brooklyn, and New York City as a whole, according to 2023 data from the Furman Center. And The New York City Parks Department Public Art Map shows that these neighborhoods have higher concentrations of public art, including murals, statues, temporary and permanent installations, than their more affordable counterparts, like East Brooklyn and Canarsie.
Meres Ones, a graffiti artist born in the South Bronx and raised in Queens is no stranger to how the street art and graffiti scenes in New York have evolved. “ I started in ‘87 as a graffiti artist, which is pretty much all the lettering,” Meres shared. “There really wasn’t a street art movement back then.”
Meres went on to found and curate 5 Pointz, a collection of graffiti projects created by different artists along the exterior walls of an abandoned factory on Jackson Avenue in Long Island City, Queens. Despite 5 Pointz’s notoriety in the art world, it was demolished In 2013 amidst the rapid gentrification and industrialization of Long Island City. Now, a high-rise luxury apartment building sits in its place.
“There have been cases where real estate people, or people that have buildings, didn’t necessarily care and would give legal permission to have artists do lettering. It was easy to get walls at the time.” Meres continued, “In real estate now they’re realizing that you can hire artists to paint, and then those walls that were available to us are now taken away for ads.”
But graffiti artists aren’t the only ones to notice the link between a rise in corporate street art and changing neighborhoods. In recent years, Bushwick has become prime real estate for artists, but their presence has had negative impacts on longtime residents. According to rental market trends, rent prices in Bushwick have increased by 5% in the last month.
Among those noticing this trend is Wendy Martinez, a lifelong Bushwick resident, who can still recall a Bushwick before the murals, galleries, and cafes. “The walls that were once covered in graffiti, or were blank, are now covered by “acceptable” graffiti and artwork.” She noted how Black and Latinx community members were persecuted for graffiti. “I remember police chases happening at night when I was younger because of teens and adults tagging on walls in the neighborhood or spray painting artwork on vacant walls.”
Now, Martinez says the art that surrounds her neighborhood reflects, and draws, a different crowd, “it was mostly young, white, affluent people that were moving in.” According to Martinez, landlords in the area have taken advantage of these shifting demographics. Her own rent has increased by 58% in the last three years.
“To see my own community being forced out of their homes while local organizations fight to keep generational families from leaving is really disheartening,” Martinez said.
For Meres, preventing street art from becoming a force of gentrification is all about creating a balanced relationship between artists and the real estate industry. “You know you want to paint the murals, you want to try to get paid and balance it. But you also don’t want to overly gentrify a neighborhood where coffees are like 12 bucks.”