Some Blacks in Howard Beach See Acceptance, With Limits - New York Times

Some Blacks in Howard Beach See Acceptance, With Limits - New York TimesJuly 3, 2005
Some Blacks in Howard Beach See Acceptance, With Limits
By COREY KILGANNON

Once a staple of Queens, all-white neighborhoods have largely become a thing of the past. But they still exist, and the area known as New Howard Beach - where early Wednesday morning a black man was attacked by a white teenager wielding a baseball bat - is one of them.

The residents of the neighborhood, south of the Belt Parkway and west of Cross Bay Boulevard, are almost exclusively white, and its single-family homes are meticulously landscaped and adorned with ornate brickwork. Census figures from 2000 indicate that there are only eight black residents in that area, but during a search for them last week, dozens of local residents could point to only one home: a small house on 92nd Street where the Allen family has lived for four decades as the only black family, certainly in the surrounding blocks.

The Allen home is around the corner from New Park Pizza, where in 1986 a black man died after being chased by a group of white men onto a parkway. It is also around the corner from the Italian deli where Nicholas Minucci, the man accused in Wednesday's bat attack, told the police that his encounter with three black men began.

Frank Allen, 77, said he bought his house 40 years ago. He never considered race an issue then, and he still does not.

"The only black family? I never even thought about it," he said yesterday, speaking for about 45 minutes through his screen door.

Mr. Allen refused to be photographed, explaining that he did not think the issue was important. "What's the difference if someone is black, white or purple?" he said. "People live inside their houses and hardly see each other. We all salute the same flag."

He added, "When I moved into this house, all my neighbors were white, and 40 years later, they're still all white. So what?"

Raising his two sons in a good neighborhood allowed them to avoid trouble and succeed, he said. One is an optometrist and the other a city schoolteacher.

"My car sits here every day and nobody touches it," he said. "Go ask my neighbors what they think about me. Ask them why they never moved away."

Diana Rahner, who lives next door, called the Allens "great people" and said, "They're the only black family I know of in this neighborhood, but I've never heard anybody say anything bad about them."

But one of Mr. Allen's sons, the city schoolteacher, said that growing up black in Howard Beach had been very complicated for him, The son, who is 36, did not want his first name used because of problems it might cause at his job. He said that while things have gotten better, his parents told of rocks being thrown through their windows when they first moved in.

"We're an anomaly here," he said.

He recalled attending Public School 207 for elementary school and playing exclusively with white children. By the time he was at Junior High School 202, he said, some black students were bused in from Ozone Park. Instead of going to a local high school, he selected another one with more black and Hispanic students.

"Growing up, I never saw any other black kids living in Howard Beach," he said. "After sixth grade, my white friends began telling me their parents didn't want them hanging out with me. Either that, or their attitude toward me just changed. I think there's a lot of pressure on them as they get older. When you're young and playing Wiffle ball, it's one thing. But when you're old enough to start talking to girls here, things change."

His only lasting friendship, he said, had been with another boy from the neighborhood who was half Jamaican and half Puerto Rican. He said it was routine for groups of white men driving by in cars to shout a racial epithet at him. Once, when he was a teenager, he said, a white adult suspected him of stealing a bicycle and came after him with a golf club.

"He only stopped after my friend told him I live here," he said. "It was hard. I mean, there were advantages - I had good schools, no criminal record, no jail, no gangs - but it was hard to make friends."

The Lindenwood section of Howard Beach, where Mr. Minucci lives, lies to the northwest of New Howard Beach and is separated by the Belt Parkway. There are more multifamily homes and apartment buildings. It is also predominantly white and largely Italian, but there are more black and Hispanic residents than in New Howard Beach.

Wreema Hinton, 37, a black woman who lives in Lindenwood, said she lives in a co-op originally bought by her uncle in 1972.

"The sale was O.K.'d in advance, before they saw what color my uncle was," she said. "My neighbors are Jewish and Italian and they're great. As a black woman here, you don't get much friction, but get two black men together and people have problems with it."

She said she moved four years ago from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, with her husband, Leon Williams, 42, a computer analyst. "He was nervous about moving here," she said. "He still won't come out with me to eat on Cross Bay Boulevard because he doesn't feel comfortable."

"If you go into the stores, you still get a funny feeling from people," she said. "Some things change, but they don't change, you know. It's not as bad as it used to be, but it's still here."

A black man, Afeez Alli-Balogun, 23, an operations analyst at a bank, stopped to talk. "If I'm in my suit and tie, I get treated one way," he said, "but if I'm dressed casual, I feel like they'd rather I not be in the store."

Joseph and Jasmine Ortiz, whose parents are from Puerto Rico, moved to Lindenwood from a low-income Brooklyn neighborhood five years ago "to try to get away from ignorance," Mr. Ortiz said.

Ms. Ortiz said: "The first year here was a little tough. I'd get looks like, 'What are you doing here?' But now people are nice."

Mr. Ortiz added, "I think people want to keep it a tight community here, so they want to make sure you're a decent person before letting you in."