Reporting Red Hook

On a snowy December day, two men struggle against the bitter wind coming off the bay as they wander the desolate streets of Red Hook scouring for scrap metal. They take turns pushing a shopping cart filled with a random assortment of things—beer cans, car parts, even a kitchen sink.

Kevin and Martin, who didn’t want to give their last names, both live in the Red Hook Houses, the expansive public housing project that is home to almost 8,000 of Red Hook’s 11,000 residents. According to the most recent data, in the census tract that encompasses “the Houses” as people in Red Hook call them, 28 percent of the workforce is unemployed.

Problems in the Houses go beyond unemployment. Just last year, police arrested 153 narcotics dealers who had turned the Houses into what Commissioner Raymond Kelly called “a virtual drug bazaar.” “Drugs were sold at every corner of the development, day and night,” he says. Only 44 percent of Red Hook Houses residents graduate from high school, and 55 percent live below the poverty line.

This notorious neighborhood bulges out from Brooklyn into the New York Bay, offering views of the Statue of Liberty, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and the reflective glass towers of Manhattan’s Financial District. The stunning views have inspired many attempts to redevelop the Red Hook waterfront, which was once a thriving port but in recent decades has been all but abandoned. But with every new proposal, a debate ensues. And at the core of that debate is always the question of jobs.

So when representatives from IKEA came to Red Hook looking for support for their proposal to turn an old shipyard and graving dock into a new big-box store that would require about 600 employees, they found that support in the Red Hook Houses.

“I don’t usually agree so easily, but when they finished the presentation, I said, ‘Bring IKEA to Red Hook,’” says Dorothy Shields, president of the Red Hook Houses East tenants’ association. “They promised me 500 jobs,” Shields says. “Things would be much quieter around here if people had jobs.”

But Shields may have been misled. “Obviously we are trying to hire from the local population, but we never promised a percentage,” says Tyquana Henderson, who handles public relations for IKEA. Yet Shields remains confident that IKEA will provide jobs for people in the Houses. “They promised me 500 positions, and I’m still looking for 500 positions in the spring,” she says.

In fact, all IKEA promised was that residents of the 11231 zip code could submit applications two weeks before the general public. This process began on November 1st, when IKEA started recruiting for management positions through Red Hook Works, a job training organization which they agreed to fund as a way to give back to the community. At Red Hook Works, applicants can earn a certificate in customer service, which recruiter Shauna Wheatt says isn’t required by IKEA but will be looked on favorably. The certification basically means that the applicant has learned “how to deal with irate customers,” Wheatt says.
Red Hook Works also offers classes in computer skills, GED preparation, and resume writing, and helps place people in jobs at IKEA and elsewhere in the community. Wheatt says that one client came to her at the end of October without even a resume, and now has a job with waste management making $17 an hour. IKEA has not yet announced the starting rate for jobs in its new store, but it’s expected to be between $10 and $12 per hour.

Kevin and Martin, the scrap metal collectors, say that they would be interested in working for IKEA—but experience tells them not to get their hopes up.

Before Red Hook’s Fairway Supermarket opened last year, there was the same unwritten promise of jobs for locals. Kevin was hired as a night cleaner, earning minimum wage. He was told that after 90 days, his pay would increase to $9.50 per hour and he’d be invited to join the union. But just before the 90 days were up, Kevin was let go. “They said my performance wasn’t up to par,” he says. “A lot of people from the houses used to work at Fairway and don’t anymore.”

There’s been a lot of hype about IKEA and Fairway, but most gainfully employed Red Hook residents still work in the manufacturing and industrial jobs that are traditional here, and some people would like to keep it that way.

“Manufacturing and industrial jobs pay about $10,000 per year more than retail jobs, and 60 percent of them offer benefits, as opposed to 30 percent of retail jobs,” says Phaedra Thomas of the South Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation.

Some industrial jobs can be menial and repetitive, but “even the ones that are less fulfilling are usually a stepping stone,” she says. Manufacturing and industrial jobs offer workers a path to climb, and at the top are “jobs like welding, plumbing, and contracting—high skill work that will lead to a family-sustaining career,” says Thomas. Former city planner Isabel Hill adds that these jobs have lower barriers to entry for ex-offenders or immigrants who don’t speak English, because employees don’t often work directly with the public.

Despite these benefits, most new waterfront development is either residential or retail.
City planner Dan Casey says that big developers regularly abuse the promise of jobs in order to gain support for their projects. “In America, the entire debate about whether or not to build something boils down to the number of jobs,” he says. “But what kind of jobs? Am I going to be selling pretzels outside of a new stadium?”

One resident of the Houses, who did not want to give his name, says that he made his living selling drugs until about two years ago, when his girlfriend convinced him to get out of the game. “I was a heroin dealer, so I could gross 50 grand a day,” he says. This might be an exaggeration, but after the major drug bust last year, District Attorney Charles Hynes said that the drug sales in the Red Hook Houses averaged $140,000 a day, or $50 million a year.

After bringing in that kind of money, it’s hard to imagine taking a $10-an-hour retail job. “Selling drugs is the worst kind of hustling, but people working that kind of job are hustling too,” says the former dealer. He’s got no interest in working at the IKEA. “I’m getting ready to move to Pennsylvania,” he says. “There’s nothing for me here.”

At the end of the day, Kevin and Martin will push their shopping cart to the scrap yard at the corner of 9th and Hamilton, where they’ll be paid 7 1/2 cents per pound for iron, 60 cents per pound for aluminum, and $1.90 per pound for copper. It may not sound like much, but it can add up—they say the average collector can earn about $150 per day. And the work isn’t bad.

“It’s easy and it’s legal,” says Kevin. “A lot of people in this neighborhood do this kind of work,” Martin adds.