Making Rent In Bed-Stuy: A Memoir of Trying to Make It in New York City

Making Rent in Bed-Stuy explores the history and socio-cultural importance of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn’s largest historically black community, through the lens of a coming-of-age young American negro artist, living at the dawn of an era in which urban class warfare is politely referred to as gentrification. Bookended by accounts of two different breakups, a roommate and a lover, both who come from the White American elite, the book oscillates between chapters of urban bildungsroman and historical examination of some of Bed-Stuy’s most salient aesthetic and political legacies. Filled with personal stories and a vibrant cast of iconoclastic characters—friends and acquaintances such as Spike Lee, Lena Dunham, and Paul McCloud, who makes a living charging $5 for a tour of his extensive Elvis collection—Making Rent in Bed-Stuy poignantly captures what happens when youthful idealism clashes head on with adult reality. Melding in-depth reportage and personal narrative that investigates the disappointments and ironies of the Obama era, the book describes Harris's radicalization and the things he lost, and gained, along the way.