South Bronx Residents Fear Displacement as Real Estate Booms
Gothamist
By Jordan G. Teicher
The calls, Monxo Lopez says, come almost every week.
The phone number is usually one he doesn't recognize, and as soon as the voice on the other end asks whether he's the owner of 271 Alexander Avenue, he knows what they want.
"No, I'm not interested in selling," he says. Would he be willing to talk for a few minutes? "No," he says. Does he have a price in mind? "No." The conversations last less than a minute, he says, and they end when he tells the callers not to try him again.
Lopez, an assistant adjunct professor at Hunter College, bought his home in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the Bronx 12 years ago, in part to escape the same economic forces now creeping up on him. After "eating a lot of ramen noodles and spaghetti" for two years, he and his wife saved enough money to buy an apartment in Fort Greene in 2000. But as rents skyrocketed and demographics shifted, the bars and restaurants they liked closed, and their friends in the neighborhood started getting priced out. In 2004, they decided to leave, too.
