A Gentrification Story With A Happy Ending Summary

In the article “A Gentrification Story With A Happy Ending,” author Jon Michaud describes the undergoing rapid change of Washington Heights, a neighborhood in New York City. More specifically, Michaud discusses the process of gentrification occurring in a bar in New York called Coogan’s, as they try to remain in the area and overcome the changes that gentrification has caused. The author described the old neighborhood around Coogan’s as “a neighborhood that was once so hostile that the hospital considered relocating.” Michaud also claims how Coogan’s signature bar events, including the 5k race, was once believed to act as a means of “taking back neighborhood streets from gangs and drug dealers.” During the early 2000’s, the process of gentrification

and innovation took place, as the area is “a place now home to rising rents and intense real-estate development,” according to the article. Much of the Washington Heights area has been renovated and dramatically changed, including the newly-built Vagelos Education Center, which was once described as the rubble of a six-story townhouse. The area has been completely modernized with the stretch of Broadway, with continuous changes being made in an ongoing transformation of a once run-down area.
This article perfectly describes and applies to the geographical concept of gentrification.
Gentrification can best be defined as the process through which people, often the hipsters and wealthy, move into a rundown urban neighborhood and spark renovations and improvement,
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causing entertainment and social standards to boom, also encouraging wealthy people to move in.

Often, old and abandoned neighborhoods are revamped with new housing and places of entertainment, which increase costs in the area that the wealthy can afford. This is shown in the article, as the old, dilapidated streets of Washington Heights were converted to new places of entertainment and real-estate development. Rent prices in the area increased, and the overall standard of living was greatly uplifted. The process of changing old abandoned townhomes, described as rugged and full of drug dealers into places of new construction such as a hospital and apartment buildings in the area is a perfect example of the effect of gentrification in an area. As the definition reads, gentrification creates improvement, shown numerously throughout the article. The gentrification process that took place created a postmodern structure, increased rent prices, and renovated a vast area. The overall process and idea of renovating Washington Heights, and turning an old, abandoned neighborhoods into place of renovations and entertainment exemplifies gentrification perfectly and serves as a prime example of the process of gentrification occurring in our world

today.