Sunset Park and Industry City

      Sunset Park is predominantly home to people who identify as Hispanic/Latinx and Asian. Recently a third demographic has been making the area their home, upper class people. Sunset Park is an example of gentrification, with the redevelopment of its water front in 2013, the area became a more appealing place to live. The changes that initially began in the waterfront, have slowly begun to encroach their way beyond that. I believe the linguistic landscape of the area is a prime example of this change. Having grown up in Sunset Park, I witnessed this change occur slowly, until part of the area that raised me, became unrecognizable. Below I have 3 different posters featured. The first warns local residents to not open their doors to anyone who claims to be NYPD or an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer. The second, once again in Spanish is an attempt to raise awareness of white men who pretend to be ICE agents to terrorize local residents. The third shows 3 different posters. The first focuses on reminding residents to wear masks before entering the establishment and is written in English, Spanish and an Asian dialect. The 2 yellow posters next to it, are advertisements for a local advocacy groups rezoning plan that focuses on environmental sustainability, these are both in English and Spanish. The area that is Industry City is physically separated from the rest of the neighborhood by a bridge. Once you enter the area, everything is much more artificial, the sense of a protective community that is given by the posters below is gone. The drastic change in atmosphere is expressed through the differences in posters and the subject matter dealt with, within these posters.