In part two of “What’s it Like in Crown Heights?,” Katie Benner talks about life on its southwestern edge.

When did you move to Crown Heights?
In 2005 I moved to Eastern Parkway between Classon and Franklin, from Prospect Heights. And it was beautiful; it is beautiful to live on Eastern Parkway.

I think in ‘05 it was still considered Crown Heights, but now, just three years later, I think that people would consider it Prospect Heights. Because the neighborhood has changed.

How much was your apartment and how big?
It was a very, very large sunny two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor of a great building with good security, and it was $1400 a month, rent stabilized. Then a one bedroom opened up that was nearly as large, so in ‘06 I moved in. It was only $1100 a month.

What do you like about Crown Heights?
There’s a lot to like. It is very inexpensive. There’s not a lot of commerce — there are fruit and vegetable stands, dry cleaners, the things you need, but there are no big retail outlets. New York’s a very materialistic place, so it’s nice to have a reprieve from that, [to] go home and not be given the option to shop — unless you want to buy food or a Jamaican beef patty, which I buy a lot of.

Where do you food shop?
I’m a [Park Slope] Food Coop member, and the farmer’s market is really close by at Grand Army Plaza. I also shop around the corner, there’s a vegetable stand, and then there’s our grocery store, the Pioneer…

Things are improving, and there are more restaurants nearby. Like a bar just opened up with a beer garden — Franklin Park. It’s a neighborhood bar for people who…just moved in [laughs]. But at the same time, it’s also much like any neighborhood in Brooklyn that is not like Brooklyn Heights or Park Slope; the food quality you get is the same — a bodega, a Key Foods, and maybe a place to get fresh fruit.

Any gripes?
You get the sense that the people who are moving in have so little to do with the people who are already here, and that the people who have lived here for a long time — West Indians and Hasidim — they also have nothing to do with one another.

I think that when you move into a situation like that, it’s a good idea to be mindful of it. You’re coming into a neighborhood where there are different ethnic minorities that already don’t talk to one another, so it’s very easy to be a minority that continues not to talk to anyone else.

I think for some it sounds weird to hear ethnic minority in reference to somebody who is white and middle class, but you are moving to a neighborhood where there are not a lot of white, middle class people…

So that’s a little odd. It’s not like other neighborhoods in Brooklyn where people do feel they spend more time with people who aren’t like them, maybe in Fort Greene or something. In Crown Heights, things are a bit more partitioned.

How can you be more mindful and not be the typical gentrifier?
If you’re 24 and you’re moving from a situation where you got to be as loud as you wanted because you were in a building filled with people who are exactly your age, with exactly your interests and exactly your schedule, sure you can come in late at night and be really loud and throw huge parties. But when you’re moving into a building filled with families, you actually shouldn’t do that [laughs].

Certain neighborhoods seem to be dominated by a certain age group or lifestyle. In Crown Heights, really and truly, no matter what race or religion, there are people of all ages, and you have to have respect for that.

Is that one of the concrete ways that Crown Heights has changed — more twentysomethings have moved in?
Certainly, and for all the same reasons I wanted to move here: lots and lots of space, big closets, beautiful apartments, really convenient trains. It doesn’t take me long to get to work. In the summer I bike to Midtown — it takes me an hour. In the winter or when it’s rainy, the train [2/3 or 4/5] takes 40 minutes. I work with a friend who lives in Tribeca and it takes her 30.

So those are great reasons to move here, but at the same time, the fact that you’re getting a great deal doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have to change your lifestyle.

I don’t want to make it sound like I’m the perfect neighbor.

A while ago the woman below me came up to complain that she could hear my footsteps because I was walking around with my shoes on. And my first response was, “Are you joking? I’m walking with my shoes on in my apartment at 6 pm!”

But she was just very straightforward and upfront. It was very neighborly — she’d always been very nice to me and we’d always gotten along, so when she comes up and yells at me…there was an assumption that because we knew each other, we had to respect one another and hash it out, and I think that’s something that would take people aback who’ve lived in New York a while, and not in a building where people know each other.

How safe do you feel?
When I first moved in it was still possible to buy crack on my corner, and you couldn’t do that now, there are so many undercover officers all around this part of Franklin Avenue. Things have just changed, and I do feel safer. I don’t know if that’s because the neighborhood did gentrify so the police feel compelled to come by, but for whatever reason I just think that things have gotten safer.

[But] now, because so many people have moved in, and the wealth gap is very visible, I think that presents a different kind of crime, crimes of opportunity. If you’re walking down the street and talking into your iPhone — where people have so much less — that presents a different kind of danger. I’m not saying I’m surrounded by potential criminals, but it is weird to see that intense wealth gap.

And even though I don’t think that makes the neighborhood less safe, I think that people could be more resentful.

Do you feel that resentment, between the haves and have nots, building in Crown Heights?
When I first moved here there was maybe a bit more resentment. There was a person who’d lived in my building the longest, and when she moved out, there was a lot of debate as to whether or not it was because she couldn’t afford it or because she generally wanted to move, and some people really wanted to believe she’d been pushed out, so that people with more money (slash) white people could move in…

Her replacements were three white people in their 20s — she was living in a three bedroom apartment — and god only knows how much more they’re paying. People were pissed about it, and I haven’t heard that kind of anger since.

Now, so many people have moved in, nobody even notices me anymore. A lot of the tension I sensed when I first moved in, I think a lot of it’s gone because [the older residents] are just resigned to it. They’re like, “The young wealthy people are here! Whether they’re White or Asian or Black or whatever — they’re not like us, they have a totally different schedule, and they’ve moved in. Great.”

Photos by Melissa Sands.