Spike Lee lives in $32 million Manhattan townhouse, complains about white people gentrifying Brooklyn

[rangerrebew]

Spike Lee Lives in $32 Mil Manhattan Townhouse, Complains about White People Gentrifying Brooklyn

Posted By Daniel Greenfield On February 26, 2014 @ 12:10 pm In The Point | No Comments




This is Spike Lee’s $32 million Manhattan townhouse bought with resentment money. Known as Hatch House, it was owned by William Vanderbilt, Gypsy Lee Rose and a host of other famous names.

Lee, who turns resentment into money faster than even Jesse Jackson and Don Rickles, returned from obscurity to complain about white people taking over Fort Greene and gentrifying it and whatnot. Spike Lee doesn’t appear to realize that white people lived in Brooklyn before black people did, but why bother with the facts.


Movie director Spike Lee had a lot to say about the gentrification of his home borough of Brooklyn and he’s blaming ‘hipsters’ for changing the neighborhoods.

Lee, who was addressing an audience at Pratt Institute during a Black History Month event on Tuesday night, became irate when an audience member said there were benefits to gentrification.

“They just move in the neighborhood… You’ve got to have some respect you just can’t come in to where people have a culture… and you come in and knock {expletive} down and change because you’re here? Get out of here. You can’t do that.”

I’m sure the former residents of Fort Greene and other Brooklyn neighborhoods that went Ghetto felt the same way. New York City changes. Nobody gets to lock down a neighborhood, though housing projects tend to do that. Just because you moved in somewhere 50 or 75 years ago, doesn’t make it your permanent property.

Gentrification is the process of neighborhoods changing and adapting in the natural human tide of the city.


Nah. You can’t do that. You can’t just come in the neighborhood and start bogarting and say, like you’re motherfuckin’ Columbus and kill off the Native Americans. Or what they do in Brazil, what they did to the indigenous people. You have to come with respect. There’s a code. There’s people.

And there were people living there before Spike Lee’s father too. How much respect did they have for them? Now Lee wants to bogart the neighborhood for all time.


I’m for democracy and letting everybody live but you gotta have some respect. You can’t just come in when people have a culture that’s been laid down for generations and you come in and now shit gotta change because you’re here? Get the bleep outta here. Can’t do that!

It had to change when black people moved in. Now it has to change again. Welcome to hope and change.


You can’t just — here’s another thing: When Michael Jackson died they wanted to have a party for him in motherfuckin’ Fort Greene Park and all of a sudden the white people in Fort Greene said, “Wait a minute! We can’t have black people having a party for Michael Jackson to celebrate his life. Who’s coming to the neighborhood? They’re gonna leave lots of garbage.”

Shouldn’t black people have a party for a black musician instead?

 

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[LambChop]

Only thing I can say to that is.... Keep the property values up so they don't look so attractive.

A friend bought their first home for a steal, in a neighborhood everyone thought they had lost their blinking mind.  Was a beautiful brownstone with all original woodwork and tin work.  They paid next to nothing for it, because the area values were in the toilet and the home needed extensive repairs.  When they were done it was incredible.  Was also something they would never be able to afford in our old neighborhood. 

My first home purchase *as a new divorcee* was also in a neighborhood that made my parents lose sleep over.  My kids were grown, didn't care the schools were horrible.  It was very conveniently located, paid next to nothing for a mortgage and taxes and was more home than I could afford anywhere else.  Put some work into it, made it my palace.

In both instances it didn't take long for others like us to move in, make it our own.  10 years down the road, they were both upper middle class neighborhoods that are well out of reach cost wise for myself or my friend.  Great investments for us both though.

If the property wasn't soooooo cheap, it wouldn't happen.

[mountaineer]

Spike Lee Lives in $32 Mil Manhattan Townhouse, Complains about White People Gentrifying Brooklyn

Of course he does. What kind of racist would he be if he didn't?