Bodegas Matter
The Personal As the daughter of a Bodeguero, bodegas have always played a big part of my life growing up. My parents are immigrants from the Dominican Republic who came to NYC in the late 80s (along with 300,000+ Dominican immigrants who came to the US) and settled in North Jersey.
Like many other immigrant families, bodegas offered my family not only a pathway into the “American Dream” (middle-class-ness), but also a connection to our island and our community.
For me, Dominicans and Bodegas have always gone hand-in-hand, and as gentrification continues to displace and disrupt communities of color in NYC, I want to use the Bodega in Washington Heights as a site for deeper investigation into gentrification and community resistance.
What matters? Bodegas are a space for connection and support, and offer a cultural landing pad and pathway towards social mobility for many immigrant groups. While some might argue that bodegas promote unhealthy and cheap foods in communities of color, the fact is that bodegas have stood strong on corners in underserved and forgotten neighborhoods creating a small life-line to vulnerable communities and create access to culturally specific products and foods. Bodegas are also about more than just food, they are a place where you can find a job, a loan, a plumber, and a honey bun all in one.
The Question
How are bodegas in Washington Heights holding up in the face of gentrification? What can the products being sold tell us how bodegas are adapting and/or resisting gentrification?
The Data There are varying estimates around the number of bodegas in NYC ranging from 10,000 to 12,000. That’s a lot!
I found a cool project where an artist in 2013 mapped out nearly 2000 bodegas throughout NYC by using data from NYS Liquor Authority Office and then verifying through actual humans if the site was in fact a bodega (check out the project here). I am using this user-generated dataset as a starting point to compare and contrast to what’s happening today.
My Idea is to use a combination of google street maps (info + images) and in-person qualitative research to collect and generate new data, while iterating along the process.
Crowdsourcing Information. As someone who didn’t grow up in to NYC, I know I am not an expert on all things Bodegas or The Heights. While I have love for this community, and close relationships with community and folks in the neighborhood, I know I will need experts on my side to guide me and support in this project as collaborators. I will be enlisting a team or “Bodega Brigade”, including myself and some friends from Uptown, to visit a sample size of bodegas to conduct short interviews and collect observational data based on a survey and products being sold.
I’ve developed a community survey to document if the bodega site is still open, if it’s been replaced, who the owners are, how long they’ve been in business, what are their feelings around gentrification and rising rents.
So far…With Wenfei’s help, we were able to convert the online data I found from “bodega list” from XML into a shapefile for QGIS. I was able to map out where all the data points exist and isolate Washington Heights.
QGIS Maps:
As I dig into the data, there are already some interesting things I’m seeing. Storefronts closing, name changes, new modern signage, health food stores opening, and some bodegas standing strong. I’m excited to catalog and record both visual and spatial changes, along with stories and information from the community.
