Staging Safety in Brooklyn’s Real Estate

During the winter of 2005, the popular leftist Brooklyn magazine Stay Free! ran a satirical flip cover for American Gentrifier (Hearst 2005; see Figure 6.1). The spread features a staged portrait of a white, heteronormative couple. The man, later described as an “emasculated Park Slope husband,” sports a Baby-Björn carrier with a white infant inside. Hovering over the young family are explicit headlines detailing the “preoccupations” of potential Brooklyn gentrifiers, among them “BED STY: STILL TOO BLACK?” and “10 violent crimes you can live with.” The headlines depict two frequently codified concerns of neighborhoods in the early stages of gentrification: