Quote:

Quote:

Brighton Beach aint what it used to be.


How so?



Ok go back 10-15 years. There were busy businesses. The constant stream of middle aged to elderly Russians/Ukranians were coming over here with $$, a lot of them had to pay their way out (i.e. paying for a work visa) and spending it in these stores and restaurants and night clubs. The Patriot Act's restriction on immigration and deeper checks have dried that up. Add to that the fact that the children of those immigrants didn't stay in the neighborhood. They went to college, married an American and moved to Staten Island or Jersey. They became "Americanized" very quickly.

While this depletion of customer base was going on, we had the real estate bubble. You had stores rents go from $15,000 a month to $25K when the lease was up for renewal. This caused a few businesses on the main drag to close up. Oh, and the end of food stamp scams helped a couple places to shut the doors.

This isn't even comparing today's Brighton Beach to the one of 40-50 years ago, when the Jews ruled the roost. Up until the late eighties, I knew Jews that would travel 1.5 hours from Jersey once a week to buy all there Kosher meat and food. Kosher butchers, poultry markets, fish markets. Now Russian video stores and T-Mobil.

Brighton isn't even Moscow on the Hudson anymore, much less Brighton Beach Memoirs. I've heard the Turkish places are doing well, and there are a lot of Pakis living on the side streets.

Although, on the positive side, there aren't as many junkies and bums living under the board walk.
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"Guage once told me that there is nothing worse than eaten ass of a black dude thats been huffen drain cleaner the night befor." - delanoojos