You Can Kick This Woman Out of Williamsburg, But She'll Come Back

04/05/16 • -1 min

Meet Tranquilina Alvillar, who has been living in the same Bedford Avenue apartment for 25 years.

In 2011, developers bought her building to convert it into modern luxury rental units. The only problem was, they couldn't get her to leave—not with a cash buyout, or by changing the lock, or by demolishing the building all around her.

"I always pay my rent," said Alvillar. "Why do I have to leave?"

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Meet Tranquilina Alvillar, who has been living in the same Bedford Avenue apartment for 25 years.

"I always pay my rent," said Alvillar. "Why do I have to leave?"

Subscribe to There Goes The Neighborhood on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Previous Episode

Here’s the Plan

Mayor de Blasio's plan to rezone East New York and 14 other neighborhoods is his administration's way of controlling the fierce gentrification machine that is steamrolling across the city. So what does the zoning plan for East New York actually look like?

This week we talk with WNYC's Jessica Gould and City Limits editor Jarrett Murphy to understand the nuts and bolts of the plan.

And we go deep into the gentrification machine to see how it works. We meet Elizabeth Grefrath, a young gentrefier in Crown Heights who tells us what it was like to move to the neighborhood just a few years ago. We sit down with big time developers like Boaz Gilad of Brookland Capital and Kunal Chothani of Akelius -- a new player from Sweden -- to understand how they operate in the borough's various markets.

And we walk the streets of Flatbush with real estate agent Namane Mohlabane who shows just how complicated -- and personal -- the machine can be.

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Next Episode

Williamsburg, What's Good?

While politicians and developers strategize how to control the changes in New York, we want find out what gentrification feels like on the ground. How does a tidal wave of money and fast-shifting demographics affect the people who share a neighborhood? What role does race play when it comes to deciding who is included in a community — and who is excluded?

We start on the west coast in San Francisco, where Alex Nieto was shot 14 times by police after new white residents reported him as a foreigner in his own neighborhood of Bernal Heights. Jamilah King of Mic.com talks about the gentrification dynamics that were central in Nieto's death.

Then we swing back to the epicenter of Brooklyn gentrification: Williamsburg. Writer and humorist Henry Alford talks about the inherently white aesthetic of the Brooklyn hipster, and YouTube personality Akilah Hughes tells her story about a racialized assault that spirals out of control at a well-known bar one Halloween night.

And we meet Tranquilina Alvillar from Puebla, Mexico, who's been living in her Williamsburg apartment for 25 years. Her landlord tried everything to get her out — paying her to leave, changing the lock, demolition — but she's still there.

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