My grandmother Brett Harvey has lived in the same apartment on 8th avenue in Park Slope since 1963. Her apartment is rent controlled, allowing her to stay in a neighborhood with housing prices that skyrocketed long ago, and continue to rise. Sometimes I myself feel as though the neighborhood and New York City in general have changed, even since I was a kid growing up here, but I’m often shocked and humbled by the amount of change that she’s seen living in the city for all these years. Two years ago, I moved in with my grandmother, and it’s been an amazing experience getting closer to her, hearing her stories, and learning more about her all the time. Her apartment was always this kind of mystical, special place for me as a child, and now that I’ve come to live in it, I feel an even stronger connection, and I’m thankful to have gotten so much time with my grandmother, who turned 80 this month. It’s hard to say how long the apartment will stay in my family, but I’ve always found it interesting how intertwined it is with my grandmother’s identity, at least in my own image of her.
Brett has lived in her apartment since 1963: “I remember that we moved in the year JFK was assassinated.”
“We looked in Manhattan and we knew we couldn’t afford it, and he said ‘I’m looking in Brooklyn,” and my heart sank, because I thought “Okay, well, that’s it. I’m going to disappear.”
“At that point for the seven room apartment, the rent was 140 dollars a month. We thought ‘that’s a good rate, we can probably pay that, that’s good.'”
Brett says when she first lived there, for years the building was “pretty much a wreck,” with robberies, broken doors, and a lobby that flooded occasionally.
“The rent never went up from 140 for years and years and years, because the building was so bad
Brett dressed and ready to go to her volunteering job at the nearby Methodist Hospital.
At one point, the owners of the building wanted to sell the apartment to Brett, “So they offered me some really good deal for it, and I couldn’t afford it. It was definitely very affordable, but I couldn’t afford it.”
Brett looking out of her window while drinking her morning cup of coffee.
She has spent a few years researching her family and ancestors, learning who they were across the country and where they were from.
Brett’s rent has risen this month, from 400 to 500 dollars a month, and although it is still nowhere near market price, she worries about her ability to pay it.
Brett walking up the four flights after grocery shopping.
Brett says she doesn’t plan on leaving her apartment anytime soon, and the rent control helps her stay. “I’m happy, I’m going to go out of this apartment feet first.”
2 comments
The empty rooms are evocative but we need captions and text to orient us.
These are lovely and evocative photos bringing us a sense of this woman’s life. But still awaiting the introductory text. Also as revealing as the still life shots are, they can’t carry the whole story. We need to see more photos of Brett Harvey. Unlike some of the other photo essays, you’ve captured the emotional intensity; now we need to spend some time moving through her day.
The empty rooms are evocative but we need captions and text to orient us.
These are lovely and evocative photos bringing us a sense of this woman’s life. But still awaiting the introductory text. Also as revealing as the still life shots are, they can’t carry the whole story. We need to see more photos of Brett Harvey. Unlike some of the other photo essays, you’ve captured the emotional intensity; now we need to spend some time moving through her day.