The Week

The Fight to save Brooklyn from gentrification

Marcela Mityanes, a resident of the Sunset Park neighborhood in south Brooklyn, can't leave her apartment without seeing signs of rapid change. The deli on the corner is closing; a coffee shop is opening next door. Luxury mega-developments are rising over full blocks. Even the Key Food is selling different products. Passing a building undergoing gut-renovation, Mityanes, a tenant organizer with the local group Neighbors Helping Neighbors, can't help but wonder about who was living there before and where they wentShe's heard increasing complaints of tenant harassment, rent hikes, and evictions throughout the working-class, predominately Latino and Asian neighborhood. "I feel like it's been sporadic and spaced out. But now it just seems like it's happening on every other block," she says.