Hillary Clinton tried her best to fake her way into the Presidency. Too bad she wasn't running for president of a Business Improvement District. Her inauthenticness would have been a plus because BIDs are in the business of faking it all, from improving businesses to impersonating neighborhoods.
Fulton Street used to be straightforward. There was the Met Supermarket for groceries. To eat out you had Country House Diner. Otherwise it was bodegas, jeans and sneakers sellers, a couple of dry cleaners, a couple of laundromats, a bootleg liquor store, check cashing place, a gas station/car repair -- all minority owners, majority immigrants.
In 2008 the City Council decided to run a BID along Fulton between Fort Greene and Clinton Hill to improve what was there. Some 70 small stores -- minority almost all -- have gone out of business since. About ten a year. This year is keeping pace.
Find out what's happening in Fort Greene-Clinton Hillfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Rising rents forced a lot of stores out and FAB isn't entirely to blame but it's a factor because the Mom n Pops are forced to pay FAB more to stay in line with the tax FAB now levies on the luxury apartment buildings that have sprung up on Fulton -- thanks to timely upzoning a few years ago by the oncoming FAB.
Country House Diner is still here. The owner sits on FAB's board. Gone is The Best Little Hairhouse in Brooklyn, The Balloon Corner, Lucky Chinese take out, Kulcha Lion island music, the Empress Club, Peoples Clothes, The Bon, Bargain R Us 99 cent store.
Find out what's happening in Fort Greene-Clinton Hillfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Where Bargain R Us was is a luxury apartment building. FAB collects the new tax from it. A boutique hotel is on the way where the gas station was. The guests will be paying FAB.
FAB used to hold the occasional conference with consultants hired to tell the merchants how to run their businesses better. It doesn't bother anymore. There's no need. It's dropped the business pretense altogether. FAB is into its real mission: Creating fake community.
The Met/Key Food supermarket is still here. The Widdi family has owned the property since 1967. It wasn't worth a lot then. Now it's worth many millions. FAB charges the Widdis $25,000 a year.
For what? FAB has pulled in over $3,000,000 from Fulton stores, living and dead: For streetlight banners no one sees ($50,000); Christmas lights ($30,000 a season); garbage baggers from Africa ($8 an hour); pedestrian plazas ($5,000,000 and $10,000,000); a black film festival; concerts for toddlers; hula hoop contests, yoga and Eastern meditation on the plazas, health fairs. The stores get nothing from the crowds but litter. Free things attract freeloaders. They didn't come to spend money and don't.
FAB could care less. The merchants are 1% greedy bottom liners. FAB has made the transition to Occupy Fulton Street, representing the 99%:
The two neighborhoods it found in 2008 had no banners, no Christmas lights, no fake shade devices, no imported entertainments and only actual streets, no fake plazas. FAB saw two neighborhoods without community. FAB says it's brought everyone together, it's made community. I'm not kidding you.
FAB is, right here on the Patch with its posting to take the Municipal Art Society's Jane Jacobs walking tour of New York this weekend.
Jane Jacobs would hate FAB if she were still around. She hated everything fake. Especially FAKE COMMUNITY.
I left a comment on the FAB notice. Someone removed it. So I'm writing it in my blog.