Tucked underneath the noisy train tracks at the Roosevelt stop is a boisterous street lined with South Asian jewelry stores, Dominican retail stores and Honduran and Mexican restaurants. Across from a Tapas restaurant is Tacos El Gallo Giro, a truck decorated with the colors of the Mexican flag and features a menu of variations of Central Mexican food: tacos, tortas, huaraches, quesadillas, burritos, tostadas and gorditas.
The truck, although freshly painted with a Facebook logo, has been there for eight years. One worker, Alvaro, prepares a taco. He tells me that some of the customers have been coming for years, “The majority of people who come by to eat here are people who work around here, but they’ve been coming for years. A lot of people come from really different countries too.”
The truck itself is located right across from a Tapas restaurant and just 20 feet away from another newer truck that sells similar food. Alvaro tells me there’s enough room for both. “People go to both. It depends which one is busier.”
The influx of people that allows so many local businesses to stay open simultaneously is not specific to the Roosevelt stop — in the past five years, Queens residents have witnessed a change in the demographics. As gentrification expands from Williamsburg to other parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Harlem, ethnic demographics have shifted.
In New York city, the percent of gentrified county tracts has more than tripled to 30% in 2000–2010 compared to the decade before, with only 9% gentrified tracts. This trend projects an even greater percentage of gentrified area in this decade, meaning most lower-income neighborhoods are witnessing a change of demographics that affects locals in different ways.
While most gentrification has lead to the pattern of shutting down of local businesses to make room for commercial chains, boutiques and bars catering to a whiter younger crowed, Alvaro expresses the positive aspect of increased activity for Tacos El Gallo Giro. The truck has stayed on the same block since it has opened, and now gets more business than ever now that there are people constantly buzzing around under the 7 train. And as he says, “everyone loves tacos.”
Although Jackson Heights has not experienced a huge growth in overall population from 2000–2010, other boroughs in Queens and Brooklyn have had a greater impact mainly from new white neighbors. From 2000–2010, Ridgewood and Williamsburg had a -.2 a 7% growth respectively, but of these new arrivers, in Ridgewood, 38% were white and in Williamsburg, 43% were white.
These trends signal an alarming shift in sociopolitical relations that often lead to shutting down of local businesses, disruption of communities and displacement of individuals.
Regardless, it seems as though a food-truck business model is sustainable. Similarly to Tacos El Gallo Giro, El Palacio de las Empanadas is located on an equally busy intersection that gets loads of foot traffic at all times of day. At the Myrtle-Wyckoff train stop, people shuffle in and out of the station as now commercial businesses like Starbucks and McDonalds provide refuge from the noise. Because of the new changes, El Palacio de las Empanadas is just one of the few local businesses left at this intersection, with people lined up to get Ecuadorian style empanadas and juices.
When I ask how long the truck has been in this spot right across from a CVS, a woman witting in the back of the truck says, “ten years.” She exclaims that El Palacio has seen a growth of people, serving more people every day. “The thing that disturbs us is not the new people, but the weather.” On this particularly sunny day, Spanish and English speakers of all different ages line up outside the window while a family eats salchipapa and waits for horchatas.
