Irregular catching up in New York – NBC New York (47)

NEW YORK – Even before Super Storm Sandy’s flood hit New York City’s Rockaway Peninsula 10 years ago, there was an air of decay in Edgemere, a distant waterfront neighborhood littered with boarded-up homes and lots abandoned at the height of the waist.

As the water receded, even more of Edgemere’s houses were left in ruins. But there was also hope that in the reconstruction effort, the predominantly African-American neighborhood would finally get the boost it needed to recover from decades of neglect. In the decade since Sandy flooded the coast, those hopes have been dashed.

There are few signs of promised development along block after block of ruined houses, some not long occupied. Meanwhile, mostly white communities further west of the peninsula have flourished, with recovery funds bringing in new homes, businesses and hangouts.

“They tell me that we are a peninsula, no, we are not. It’s the story of two peninsulas, ”said Edgemere resident Sonia Moise, whose house filled with seawater during Sandy and her car was blown away.

“Go west, what have they got? They have a park skate. They have a dog park. They have food stalls, “Moise said.” What do we have? We have homeless shelters. We have hotels that host homeless people. “

When Sandy hit the northeastern coast of the United States on October 29, 2012, the storm did not discriminate, causing approximately $ 65 billion in damage, much of it in New York and New Jersey. Luxurious vacation homes on the New Jersey coast have been vandalized; the small houses in the working-class sections of Staten Island were submerged by the gutters.

But the reconstruction effort was far from the same. Edgemere’s problems are a case study of the disparities that emerge in the United States after natural disasters: the billions of dollars in recovery money pouring into communities of color and having their weakest impact on them. In New Orleans, the remarkable post-Katrina recovery has made the city whiter and more expensive, where African American slums continue to struggle. In Florida, there are already complaints along rows of collapsed mobile homes that have helped beach resort communities more quickly in the wake of Hurricane Ian.

Post-disaster public spending has led to greater inequality, said Junia Howell, a sociologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who is involved in race, housing and disaster research.

“The whiter and wealthier communities are actually not only recovering from the disaster, but in many cases they are doing better,” Howell said. “What you are doing is giving resources to those who already have more resources and leaving everyone else behind.”

The contrast is perhaps most stark west of Edgemere, in Arverne by the Sea. Like most of the Rockaway Peninsula, an 11-mile-long strip of barrier beaches that is home to some 124,000 people, both communities have been largely abandoned. Sandy shot. But Edgemere residents say they have seen Arverne and predominantly white communities get more help and sooner.

Ricardo Villarini with the last.

Arverne already has a new grocery store and a Dunkin ‘Donuts in a new strip. And next door, on Rockaway Beach, is a new skatepark, rebuilt after Sandy destroyed the old one. Construction of a community amphitheater is underway.

Neighbors admit it’s not a perfect comparison. Some of Arverne’s investments were underway before Sandy. Six years earlier, a $ 1 billion development brought more white families to the neighborhood, which is still largely African American, though the number is declining and some of these 2,300 homes are selling for up to $ 1.7 million. . The development was largely unscathed by winds and floods, prompting Edgemere residents to complain that their homes weren’t built to last.

What’s clear, community board leader Moise and others say, is that Edgemere never received his fair share.

“We have struggled for years to achieve the same result as the rest of the surrounding neighborhoods. They ignored us, “Moise said.

Unlike Arverne, Edgemere has no cafes or food stalls. Along Beach Channel Drive, the main thoroughfare, is a winery and a Chinese takeaway restaurant. Next door, a cigar shop is on the move. Down the street is a huge social housing project.

There are few signs here of the Rockaways’ history as a beach resort community. The great hotels of the peninsula did not survive the age of the automobile. The 1950s bring urban renewal with them; Officials demolished thousands of bungalows housing African American and Puerto Rican families, replacing some of that lost housing stock with high-rise housing projects, leaving other blocks razed to nature.

Edgemere and other communities at the eastern end of the Rockaways became landfills for the city’s poorest residents, pushed across a wide bay to the edge of the earth, a 70-minute subway ride from Manhattan.

But just before Sandy, there was hope that things were improving, even as neighboring communities saw faster progress. Edgemere was growing up. People were moving. City officials have promised to build around 800 new homes to fill the empty lots.

Sandy stopped those little signs of hope.

The city says it is working to bring change to Edgemere. A development plan called “Resilient Edgemere” was finalized earlier this year. All members of the city council urged the city council and the mayor to reject it. But the community did not have the political power to stop it.

The plan includes ratings for affordable housing near the beach and high-rise apartments with 1,200 residential units above the commercial space. $ 14 million was allocated to reinforce the coast with a raised dock to protect Edgemere from a sea level rise of 30 inches (76 centimeters) and $ 2.3 million to upgrade the sewers and drainage lines. .

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But residents fear that low-income units will increase the neighborhood’s long-standing burden of housing the poor. More than a quarter of Edgemere’s residents live in poverty, the highest among Rockaways communities, according to a recent state report that highlighted longstanding inequalities in the area.

Those who have money spend it elsewhere because the community has few services.

And while the plan’s coast job may be good news, many say it’s another case of being last in the line. Elsewhere along the peninsula, the sand dunes were quickly reinforced to keep the tides from getting in the way they did during Sandy. The restoration of Edgemere Beach only started a few weeks ago.

Instead of the city plan, city council members want more duplexes and townhouses to fit into existing housing. They want a new school and indoor grassy parks that can help absorb the next flood. They want conveniences like the well-stocked grocery stores found in wealthier neighboring communities.

City officials insist they have made progress, citing the restoration of wetlands and the construction of more than 100 flood homes. Sections of the wooden walkway have been replaced by a concrete walkway along the beach. A nature reserve headquarters is under construction, but the construction has limited community access to the boardwalk and beach.

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Dexter Davis, a former NYPD officer whose Edgemere home was flooded by more than one meter (meter) of water during Sandy, says his community needs more than described so far.

“The things they inject into other communities around us are more positive. They give them more leisure stuff, better quality, “Davis said.” They do things here, but they’re not on the same level. “

Experts like New York University sociologist Jacob Faber say it’s not just a natural disaster that has hit Edgemere and other poorer communities, but the lingering impact of years of neglect.

“There are these geographically, socially and economically isolated communities that are capable of being affected over and over again,” Farber said.

The Big Apple has been devastated by powerful hurricanes, demonstrating the need to modernize its infrastructure as soon as possible.