FUN-EMPLOYED!
Northern Brooklyn nabes draw most creatives in the city: report
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Northern Brooklyn’s hipster
enclaves are jam-packed
with residents working in socalled
“creative industries,”
according to the city’s chief
bean counter.
A recent study mapping
the abodes of “creative industry”
workers from 2008 to 2017
shows a steady trend towards
zip codes in Bushwick and
Bedford-Stuyvesant — more
than any other neighborhoods
in the city, according to
Comptroller Scott Stringer.
The “creative” sector collectively
employs over 293,000
people citywide across a variety
of disciplines — including
fi lm and television, advertising,
publishing, artists, museums,
architecture, and fashion
— and composes about
one eighth of the Big Apple’s
economy, according to the
city’s top number cruncher.
“New York City is the creative
capital of the world, and
this report shows how the
sector at the heart and soul of
our city is also a pillar of our
economy,” Stringer said in a
prepared statement. “We need
to invest in strengthening the
creative economy to support
and recognize it as the engine
of opportunity that it is.”
The sector, according to
Stringer, rakes in around
$30.4 billion in collective
wages — contributing some
$110 billion in total economic
activity.
Because many creatives
have been priced out of numerous
neighborhoods on the
distant isle of Manhattan, the
industry’s employees have
sought out lower-rent refuge —
particularly in Kings County.
Since 2008, 6,198 creative
industry workers have taken
up residence in Bushwick
— compared with 4,451 in
Bedford-Stuyvesant, 2,831 in
Greenpoint and Williamsburg,
and 2,169 in Brooklyn
Bushwick has seen the largest increase in residents working in the creative industry across the fi ve boroughs
since 2008. Scott Stringer
Heights and Fort Greene, according
to Stringer’s report.
This infl ux of creatives
has coincided with massive
demographic shifts in these
neighborhoods from 2000-
2017, according to a report by
New York University’s Furman
Center.
During this period, these
newly creative-dense neighborhoods
experienced sharp
increases in white residents
and a decrease in people of
color — along with a rise in
median income levels and
skyrocketing property prices,
data shows.
For example, Bedford-
Stuyvesant’s white population
shot up from around 2
percent in 2000 to more than
25 percent in 2017 — while
the number of black residents
dropped from 75 percent to 49
percent.
Bushwick saw similar demographic
trends — with a
sharp increase in white newcomers
and a decrease in hispanic
and black residents.
Likewise, the median incomes
there rose from around
$35,000 to $51,600, and median
sales prices per housing unit
in a two-to-four unit building
went up from $129,000 to
$469,580.
Along with the release
of the new report, Stringer
made several policy recommendations.
As more than one third
of creative industry professionals
were self-employed in
2017, Stringer — a 2021 mayoral
INSIDE
WWW.BROOKLYNPDAPILEYR.C.COOMM 1 METROTECH CENTER NORTH • 10TH FLOOR • BROOKLYN, NY 11201
Girl problems
All- women cast takes on ‘Measure for Measure’
Center stage: The Public’s all-women production of “Measure for Measure,” shown performing in a gymnasium, will come to the Weeksville Heritage Center on Nov. 16. Joan Marcus
TBy Bill Roundy hey’re taking the Measure
of a man!
An all-female, allblack
cast is taking one of
Shakespeare’s so-called
“problem plays” on a tour of
the five boroughs, visiting
community centers, shelters,
prisons, and other spots that
rarely see live theater. The
all–women of color production
of “Measure for Measure,”
stopping at the Weeksville
Heritage Center on Nov. 16,
offers a uniquely clear-eyed
look at the Bard’s tale of sexual
harassment and abuse of power,
said its director.
“I think by having an allfemale
cast, it gives us the
opportunity to look at it from
the perspective of these women,”
said LA Williams, director the
Public Theater’s Mobile Unit
show. “We’re no strangers to
patriarchy and misogyny, but to
see what that looks like through
their eyes — to see them embody
these characters and show their
experience of it — the male
audience are really having a
chance to see it in a new way.”
The play focuses on a corrupt
judge, Angelo, who threatens to
execute the brother of a young
nun unless she agrees to have sex
with him. Many male actors try
to find Angelo’s softer side, said
Williams, but the women in this
play are ready to show him as a
straight-up villain.
“By having women play these
characters — especially these
bad characters — we tap into
the truth and ugliness of these
characters much quicker,” he
said. “They’re only interested in
the truth, and the craziness and
the violence, rather than trying
to soften it.”
“Measure for Measure” takes
places in a lawless city, and this
production is set in New Orleans
in 1979 — a year when Mardi
Gras was cancelled due to a
police strike, noted Williams.
The setting is conveyed through
second-line music, dancing, and
masquerade outfits, he said ,
giving the show a fun, freewheeling
vibe during its lighter
scenes. The setting also seemed
appropriate for the traveling
show, since the people of New
Orleans threw their own parties
in the absence of an official
parade.
“Although it was cancelled,
they still celebrated,” said
Williams. “They took to the
streets, and the idea of performing
for themselves, and for their
neighbors, seemed right for us.”
The traveling show will
perform at several correctional
facilities during its run. There
were some concerns about how
male prisoners would react to a
cast of women, said Williams,
but their experience has been
entirely positive.
“They completely understood
the commentary that we’re
trying to make on misogyny
and patriarchy and abuse of
power. It’s been really, really,
fascinating to watch the audience
get it,” he said.
After the tour is complete,
the production will settle at the
Public Theater in Manhattan
for a three-week run starting on
Nov. 18.
“Measure for Measure” at
Weeksville Heritage Center 158
Buffalo Ave. at St. Marks Avenue
in Brownsville, (718) 756–5250,
www.weeksvillesociety.org.
Nov. 16 at 2 pm. Free.
Your entertainment
guide Page 47
Police Blotter ..........................8
Healthy Brooklyn ................25
Opinion ...................................42
Letters ....................................43
Standing O ............................44
HOW TO REACH US
COURIER L 2 IFE, NOVEMBER 8-14, 2019
candidate — pushed city
legislators to strengthen labor
rights, extend health insurance
and unemployment
benefi ts, and create new affordable
housing and workspaces
for workers in the creative
sector.
The city should also create
a dedicated offi ce within both
City Hall and the Economic
Development Corporation —
the quasi-governmental business
boosting agency — to address
the industry’s specifi c
needs, according to Stringer.
“From Broadway to local
theater groups, fi lm studios
to artists’ studios, New York
City’s creative sector is as
much a core industry of our
city as banking, real estate, or
law,” he said in a statement.
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