Framing Bensonhurst

The neighborhood is changing, they say, the smell of rotting fruit and the weight of different languages cracking the old stoops.

First, the men in white undershirts, chewing on cigars and the thick vowels of Calabria, owned the concrete like it was an extension of their living rooms, watching the parade pass from their windows.

Then the Russians arrived, bringing the scent of hard winters and thick socks,
their voices low and heavy like the coats they wore even when the Brooklyn sun turned the asphalt soft, trading stories of a “back in the USSR” that no longer existed.

Now, the neighborhood has a new pulse—Central Asian. Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Tadjiks hold the keys to shops and eateries under the shadow of the 86th Street El, the sidewalk a river of movement, a kingdom of crates, red netting, and live tanks. The old dance clubs have surrendered to pharmacies and bakeries, where the air smells of custard and steam.

They own the speed of the day now, the efficiency of the transaction, turning the quiet grit of the old blocks into a neon-lit engine of a new century market. Bensonhurst doesn’t sleep in the afternoon anymore. It negotiates, it builds, it thrives. A new flag planted in the cracks of the old cement.

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’Til next time.
ak