Bed-Stuy – do or die. This Brooklyn neighbourhood has been made famous by the rhymes of local figures such as Biggie and Mos Def, and also immortalised in picture thanks to Spike Lee and his seminal films such as Do The Right Thing and Crooklyn. Dozens of recognisable names have grown up in this area – Chris Rock, Michael Jordan, Aaliyah, Jay-Z and Talib Kweli to name a few – that New York Times states it as the “largest predominantly black neighbourhood in New York City”.

Over the recent years, Bed-Stuy has seen a lot of changes. Gentrification has crept in, with the main attraction for neighbourhood transplants being cheap property/rent and exquisite brownstone buildings. We bumped into Arthur Wood, owner of  the Broken Angel house that featured in the film Dave Chappelle’s Block Party in neighbouring Clinton Hill  (if you’ve  seen the film, it’s the beautifully haphazard homemade castle), and as a long-time resident he said that a lot has changed since he moved here some odd 30 years ago. While Wood didn’t elaborate too much, from his sigh, we kind of gathered it may have had something to do with the sterile “luxury” condo that was being built a few doors down.

While things are shifting about the neighbourhood, Bed-Stuy however hasn’t lost its essence. Take a quick walk around and you’ll get a feel for the sense of community that exists, comprised of the unique characters who have lived in the area for a number of years. As photographer Anna Delany (whose work accompanies these words and can also be seen here) and Bed-Stuy resident has told me, there’s the lady who’s 101 years old with long, braided hair; there’s the captain who you salute as you walk past his bench, and there’s the man with a truckload of watermelons that will yarn to you for hours if you let him. And that’s just the beginning.





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