One of the great joys about life in the ‘Wick is that, for the fellas, you are never more than a short stroll away from a barber. Mine is on Suydam Street, on my block, in fact. It’s a one chair shop, and the guy running operations, Lalo, has been there for more than 20 years, by his reckoning. The teenagers they go over to the city to get their $70 haircuts, and their moms take them to Lalo to fix up the sloppy work. Lalo charges $10, by the way.
Lalo is a gregarious man, and a thorough barber. When I sat down in his chair last time, I didn’t immediately tell him how I wanted my hair cut. But he just started working the scissors, so I didn’t say anything, figuring he knew what he was doing*.
Like all old school barbers with their straight edges, Lalo shaves the back of my neck. He also clips my ear hair, the stray hairs on my eye brows, even the nose hair, much to the pleasure of my girlfriend. He offers a Coors Lite from the bodega next door. There’s a lot of sitting around discussing the day’s events at Lu’s shop.
Our block used to be dangerous, he tells me. Shootings were a regular occurrence. One shoot-out occurred right in front of his shop. The shooter crouched behind some trash cans in front of the Lu’s, firing down the block. “Why are you shooting?” Lu asked the guy. “Because he is shooting back at me,” the guy said.
Lu asks me what building I live in. I tell him. “Oh that used to be one of the worst houses on the block,” he said. A policeman came to the shop one day with a photograph, asking Lu if he knew the kid in the picture. He did–it was my building the kid lived in. The officer had to go tell the family that their boy was murdered.
For years, some of the tenants there didn’t even pay rent there, Lu tells me. They would just pay the electricity and gas. When the new owners came in to renovate, they had to pay the tenants just to leave.
Hana, the 24 hour organic food market, on Wyckoff
Of course, the place has been renovated and the owners are charging top coin these days. The block is just starting to gentrify, which, of course, I’m part of, as much as I loath to admit. I just dug the vibe and the rent was the right price. Plus, Bushwick reminds me of my hometown, Baltimore, which enjoys cheap empty warehouses and artists smart enough to use them.
But families in Bushwick who struggle to pay little rent are being forced out to make way those willing to pay more, which is just wrong.
My own theory, however self-justifying, is that Bushwick may never become the next Williamsburg, or Park Slope. There is just too much warehouse space here to make it appealing to anyone other than the artists. I’m hoping it’ll continue to feel like a border town between Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Bohemia — someplace you can enjoy a beer while getting your hair cut, all without leaving your block.
*Indeed he did. My girlfriend later approved of the work.
