Salsa Dancing in Industry City? Protesters Say It's a Ploy for Community Support

Pictured: A protester outside Industry City on Sunday. Photos by John V. Santore

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — For the second time in two months, a group of protesters in Sunset Park picketed a weekend activity taking place inside Industry City, seeing in something seemingly innocuous a harbinger of community disruption down the road.

In May, it was a food and wine tasting at IC that earned the critical attention of Uprose, a 50-year-old community group that portrayed the event as beyond the financial means of locals and designed for well-off visitors.

On Sunday, IC hosted free salsa dancing and lessons, one of three "Salsa Sunset Sundays" it's putting on this summer.

Inside a courtyard, an instructor moved through the motions slowly and instructed a crowd in Spanish and English. Food was served by several local restaurants, among them Maria's Bistro and The Green Fig Cafe.

people learn Salsa dancing inside IC on Sunday.

But on the sidewalks surrounding the building, about two dozen Uprose protesters held red flags with the word "Displacement" crossed off, handing out fliers to those passing and politely discouraging them from entering IC.

"We do not have an issue with people who want to dance salsa and have a good time on the weekend," read a sheet prepared by Uprose that it handed to its members.

But the event, the document explained, was merely "an attempt by Jamestown Properties," the developer that owns IC, "to win over the Sunset Park Community, and we are not fooled."

Uprose wants the city to create industrial jobs in Sunset Park that will pay union wages.

But Jamestown's development strategy, the group argues, is based on replacing manufacturing with service-sector positions that won't adequately support locals. That, coupled with an influx of new, wealthier residents, will force out Sunset Park's lower-income community members, Uprose says.

Sunset Parker Steven Clara, 19, said his family had to leave its home near 39th and 6th after the property was sold to a new owner who wanted to convert it to a hotel. The family's new house costs $2,000 per month, he said, a significant increase from their previous rent and a stretch for his parents (his father works construction, and his mother works as a healthcare aid and a cleaning woman).

If IC continues to grow in its current form, and if regional rental prices keep going up, local businesses and residents will have an increasingly hard time surviving, Clara said.

"Most of the people in Sunset Park will probably be displaced if this continues," he said.

Another local and protester, Antoinette Martinez, 29, offered a similar assessment. Just one of her parents currently works, she said, and her family is struggling to stay in its home.

"The rents around here are ridiculous," Martinez said. She is a college graduate with a steady job who wants to buy a home in the area, but she said property values have increased dramatically in the last few years, in large part due to developments like IC.

"Ever since [IC] started coming here, that's when things started turning bad," Martinez said. "It's really scary." She said that while locals are starting to understand what's happening, she fears that by the time they grasp the full picture, "it's going to be too late."

IC has consistently pushed back against this narrative. A job training center opened at the site earlier this year, with a parade of officials, including Sunset Park Councilman Carlos Menchaca and Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, praising IC's pledge to hire and train local residents for developing industries.

After Uprose's May protest, IC spokeswoman Lisa Serbaniewicz said that the site currently employs 4,100 people, of which almost half "live in Sunset Park and other nearby neighborhoods."

"Local businesses have seen an uptick in the amount spent in their stores," Serbaniewicz said. "Thousands of community residents have attended events at Industry City or sponsored by Industry City in other parts of the neighborhood. These benefits, and the many others, are worthy of support, not protest.”

Similarly, Cristal Rivera, IC's director of community engagement, said on Sunday that the summer's salsa events show IC's dedication to "directly connect local residents to the cultural, entertainment, educational, employment and entrepreneurship offerings at Industry City."

“Our goal is to ensure that the industrial complex becomes an intricate part of the neighborhood for local residents to work, prosper, and also come together to celebrate culture, community and family," she said, adding that "Salsa Sunset Sundays was created in response to feedback from local residents, who have experienced what Industry City has to offer, and have asked us to enhance community programming."

Jimmy Antiles, a life-long Sunset Park resident, was one of the visitors to the salsa event who spoke to the Uprose protesters before heading inside.

"I don't mind the change, but give back to the community," he said, explaining how he wants IC to operate. Locals have to be employed by the property's developers, he continued, and some profits must be dedicated to community needs.

That said, Antiles described economic change in the area as inevitable.

"It's going to happen no matter what," he said.