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East New York, long plagued by urban ills, is getting new housing and job opportunities
By
Arun Venugopal
Published Dec 28, 2025
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By
Arun Venugopal
Published Dec 28, 2025
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Residents of East New York, which has long been buffeted by white flight, high poverty and high crime rates, say things could be looking up with the recent approval of land-use changes slated to help bring 1,000 affordable housing units and other amenities near the Broadway Junction transit hub.
More than half the units, eyed for the Herkimer-Williams housing complex, will be reserved for area residents making 50% of the area median income or less, according to the office of City Councilmember Sandy Nurse. That's equivalent to about $73,000 for a family of three.
The developers also agreed to a series of commitments aimed at minimizing displacement and boosting opportunity for area residents.
The project includes commercial and retail space for local businesses as well as for light manufacturing. It will also house a new Green Economy Institute, designed to facilitate career pathways for residents into the city’s green industrial economy.
The development “represents a new vision for East New York, one that builds for our community rather than to replace it,” Nurse said in a statement.
The City Council, in a Dec. 19 meeting, OK’d a neighborhood rezoning tied to the changes, in a community where more than one in five residents live in poverty, according to city data. East New York has also had to contend with “white flight” and violent crime significantly higher than the city’s overall numbers, according to government figures.
The developers have committed to a minimum 50% local hiring goal from the greater community and ensuring that 30% or more of contracts are with minority- and women-owned businesses, of which half will be local businesses.
The emphasis on local hiring means that investments in the area will go further, said Bill Wilkins, the executive director of the Local Development Corporation of East New York, who championed the project.
“ That $1 [spent] has exchanged hands three times,” Wilkins said. “ And that's how you eliminate poverty.”
Nurse said her office had helped broker a $1 million commitment by the developer to support anti-displacement efforts by connecting tenants and homeowners to legal and other anti-displacement organizations.
In order to ensure that families can grow and remain in the neighborhood, backers said they had allotted 65% of the units to consist of two or more bedrooms.
“We truly feel this is a generational opportunity,” Vivian Liao, a principal at developer Totem, said during a public hearing, “one that has the potential to turn dirt storage and parking lots into affordable housing, open space, a potential branch of CUNY, space for new jobs and employers, preserving industrial jobs, providing growth opportunities for new businesses, you name it.”
The project also drew praise from outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, who said in a statement to Gothamist that Herkimer-Williams would provide a more affordable future for working-class New Yorkers.
He said too often, the city’s leadership had forgotten “the diverse, working-class neighborhoods that are the heart and soul of this city.”
“As a son of Brownsville and Jamaica, I wasn’t going to let that happen on our administration’s watch,” Adams said. “That’s why I have made a point of showing up for neighborhoods like East New York with major investments in new housing, jobs, and public space.”
The changes come to a neighborhood that has long grappled with poverty and high crime.
In his 2003 book, “How East New York Became a Ghetto,” Walter Thabit wrote that “community destruction” began in the 1960s with “the ruthless exploitation of helpless Black and other minority families, not only by private parties but by government officials and agencies” who encouraged white flight from the area.
The legacy of that period hasn’t disappeared.
The median household income in East New York was $51,220 in 2023, according to NYU’s Furman Center, a figure that is 36% less than the citywide median household income.
The center said the poverty rate in East New York/Starrett City was 22%, compared to 18.2% citywide, while experiencing 17 serious crimes per 1,000 residents in 2024, compared to 13.6 per 1,000 residents citywide.
The Herkimer-Williams project has encountered criticism from some residents, including members of Brooklyn Community Board 5, which voted unanimously against it in September.
Some argued that the project would foster displacement – a concern echoed in other New York City communities, perhaps most notably in Queens, now targeted for new housing under zoning changes advanced by Adams and approved by the City Council.
“The community remains vulnerable to shifting promises,” Wilfredo Florentino, CB5’s compliance officer, said before the City Council’s affirmative vote. “We cannot be swayed by the bells and whistles of this proposal.”
But Wilkins, of the Local Development Corporation of East New York, said the project could prove to be a “game changer” for the neighborhood.
“ We've experienced the bad times,” he said. “Now, how can we both coexist and live and experience the good times?”
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Arun Venugopal
Arun Venugopal is a senior reporter for the WNYC and Gothamist Race & Justice Unit who focuses on issues of race and bias in our region. His reporting also tackles the topics of immigration, faith, and inequality. Arun serves as the regular fill-in host of the station's "U.S. of Anxiety" program. Arun was the creator and host of Micropolis, a series about race and identity. He is a contributor to NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He has appeared on PBS Newshour, On the Media and Studio 360, and has been published in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and Salon. He also frequently serves as an emcee and moderator of panel discussions on race, religion, and identity issues and has been a guest host of NPR's "Fresh Air." He lives with his family in Queens.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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