The long, difficult history endured by Black homeowners makes what’s happened for the better part of a century in the St. Albans area all the more remarkable BlackHistoryMonth
Olney Marie Ryland enjoyed visiting her aunt’s house in Addisleigh Park, the most exclusive section of St. Albans, Queens. The neighborhood was only a mile from her family’s home, but it exposed her to an entirely new world of high society, culture, and the arts.Ryland’s aunt lived in a wide-line Cape Cod with a before-its-time open-concept design, customized by her architect husband.
, marking them as unacceptable loan risks for government-backed mortgages and effectively starving them of capital needed to buy and improve homes. Black prospective homeowners were denied loans for houses in mostly white areas, charged higher fees for loans, or pushed to buy homes where mostly minorities lived. These practices depressed Black homeownership, making it more expensive or more difficult for African Americans to buy houses.
At the end of 2019, the Black homeownership rate was 42 percent, while 70 percent of white families lived in homes they owned. The 28 percentage point gap between Black and white homeowners was two points larger than the gap in 1960. A typical non-Hispanic white family’s wealth is eight times that of a typical Black family—a legacy of bias in housing.says the U.S. government is determined to enact policies to close the wealth gap. A big part of that, she says, is ensuring that high-quality homeownership opportunities are available to Black families at affordable interest rates.
Billie Holiday and her signature floral hairstyle grace a mural celebrating jazz icons and other famous residents of St. Albans. The mural, on Linden Boulevard as it passes below the Long Island Railroad, was originally painted in the 1980s and restored in 2003.The restrictions eventually gave way, first informally, then legally. Pianist Thomas “Fats” Waller is credited with being among the first African Americans to buy a house in Addisleigh Park, moving there in 1938.
“They would say things, call us names,” recalls Eubanks, 73, a retired city traffic enforcement officer who still lives in St. Albans. “But basically we just ignored them.” In 1965, my parents pursued their version of the American dream when they bought a detached home in Springfield Gardens, not far from St. Albans. They’d owned a small row house in East Elmhurst, on the north side of Queens just across the bridge from our previous apartment in Harlem. We were a working-class family, and buying in southeast Queens was a step up.
Williams, his mother, and his sister lived with his grandmother, Barbara Eubanks, on a leafy block with friendly neighbors . Later he would learn about the grand history of St. Albans, the many celebrities who lived there, and its role as a pillar of New York City’s Black middle class. Williams, 30, was introduced to photography in high school, and he decided to pursue it as a profession when he was a student at LaGuardia Community College in Queens.
Sebastien’s mother would drive her and her sister through the neighborhood, pointing out homes where Black celebrities once lived. Those drives planted a seed in her mind that blossomed once she became an adult and bought a three-bedroom colonial in St. Albans two decades ago. “I just grew up hearing that there is a rich legacy here, that you might not find a cluster of Black homeowners like this anywhere in the country,” says Sebastien, 48, a computer programmer.
At one point, her own mortgage servicer mistakenly began moving her property toward foreclosure. She hired a lawyer who quickly found the problem: a paperwork error made when her mortgage changed hands among several companies after she bought her home. “If you didn’t have my background and the money to hire a lawyer, who knows what would have happened?” she says.
“Early on, I think people are embarrassed,” he says. “Then they don’t reach out until the marshal is at the door.” Homeowners Keith Brown and Geri Taylor-Brown sit for a family portrait after an Easter dinner. Now both retired, Keith spends time as a football coach, and Geri served on the community board until June.Keith Brown and Geri Taylor-Brown
“At the time, I had a real strong belief that when Black neighborhoods went down, it was because we abandoned them rather than staying and making it a better place,” says Keith, 71, a retired bus driver who for more than 50 years has coached and helped manage high school and youth football teams.
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