I bet these are liberals too
Well of course they are. This shyt isn't new. Peep the date of the article below. If you look at it now, all of the gentrifiers from Williamsburg who are being priced out have moved on to which neighborhood? Bay Ridge... In which they are building a special ferry to head right into manhattan. The only reason why Crown Heights and Bed Stuy got gentrified is because of the potential rental incomes of the brownstone homes.
NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: BAY RIDGE/BENSONHURST
NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: BAY RIDGE/BENSONHURST; Lawsuit Charges Landlord Had No Vacancies -- for Blacks
By AMY WALDMAN
Published: March 29, 1998
In spring 1996, the Open Housing Center, a nonprofit fair-housing organization in Manhattan, received an anonymous telephone call about a Bay Ridge realtor.
''I know that they will not rent to blacks,'' the caller said.
That tip triggered a lengthy investigation that culminated on Feb. 27, when the center filed a class action lawsuit against Ted Bouzalas Realty Corporation; its owner, Theodoros Bouzalas, and Eleni Kambeseles, a broker at the agency. The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court, charges the defendants with racial discrimination against black prospective renters.
During 1996 and 1997, the center sent 14 testers -- seven black and seven white -- to the realty company, with similar rental needs. Each time a white person visited, one or more available apartments was mentioned or shown, the lawsuit said. All the properties were in buildings owned, managed or leased by Mr. Bouzalas or Ms. Kambeseles.
Black testers who visited shortly before or after the white testers were told, without exception, that no apartments were available. Some were encouraged to visit other realtors; one was told that Bouzalas Realty merely managed buildings, according to the lawsuit.
Phyllis Spiro, the deputy director of the Open Housing Center, said the center wanted the court to force Bouzalas Realty, in business for 30 years, to set aside a certain number of vacancies for black renters. Neither Mr. Bouzalas nor the defendants' lawyer would comment on the lawsuit, although Ms. Kambeseles said she thought a settlement was being negotiated.
A few months ago, the center settled another long-running case in southern Brooklyn: Diane Provenz, the president of Kings Highway Realty in Midwood, had been accused of repeatedly steering black and white clients to different neighborhoods. Ms. Provenz fought the lawsuit for five years, after settling a previous discrimination suit by the center and a black plaintiff. She finally agreed to pay $62,500 to the center and to leave the rental business.
Over the years, Bay Ridge has attracted an array of immigrants: Dutch, Scandinavians, Irish, Italians, Greeks and, more recently, Arabs and Russians. But it has few blacks, who fair-housing experts say face more discrimination than any other racial group.
Still, Bay Ridge may be integrating. Census figures for 1990 and estimates for 1997 show a dramatic drop in the white population, to 78,235 from 92,948, and an increase in the black population, to 6,772 from 590.
Kostas Stambules, a real estate broker at Bill Hionas Real Estate, also in Bay Ridge, recalled a story he heard many years ago; A woman, unaware that she was speaking to a Greek-American broker, said she had to sell her house right away because ''The Greeks are coming.''
''I'm afraid some Greeks are afraid of other people coming,'' said Mr. Stambules, who, like Mr. Bouzalas, is Greek-American. ''They forgot where they've come from.'' AMY WALDMAN