In the Fall of 2016, The ‘Walking in My Shoes’ Project, with the support of the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, conducted walking interviews with 5 residents of East New York and Cypress Hills. These interviews were a part of a larger effort to understand the relationship between residents and their neighborhood. This study was prompted by the recent approval of a rezoning for the neighborhood, which was expected to bring new new (and taller) buildings, businesses, landlords, developers and residents to the neighborhood. The ambition of our walking interviews was to understand how current and long-standing residents’ lives may be affected by this impending change, and to garner an understanding of how they think the neighborhood should change, if at all.

Below we highlight not only the resident’s stories, but also attempt to contextualize them in the history and current state of the neighborhood. Moreover, we try to elucidate the competing perspectives between the city and neighborhood residents. We hope that this project will provide insight into the complexities of these perspectives.

We will continue to investigate how the rezoning is playing out in East New York and Cypress Hills over time and will update periodically as we see fit.

Last Updated: March 26, 2017.

For more context on East New York and Cypress Hills and/or the impetus for this project, see this reflection and/or this project description.