Making Rent in Bed-Stuy
A Memoir of Trying to Make It in New York City
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Making Rent in Bed-Stuy
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Narrated by:
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Brandon Massey
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By:
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Brandon Harris
About this listen
A young African American millennial filmmaker's funny, sometimes painful, true-life coming-of-age story of trying to make it in New York City - a chronicle of poverty and wealth, creativity and commerce, struggle and insecurity, and the economic and cultural forces intertwined with "the serious, life-threatening process" of gentrification.
Making Rent in Bed-Stuy explores the history and sociocultural 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, from a roommate and a lover, both of who come from the White American elite, the book oscillates between chapters of urban bildungsroman and a 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 MacCleod, who made 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 Brandon Harris' radicalization and the things he lost and gained along the way.
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- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 245
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 208
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 206
National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping-off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Delusion shattering
- By Matthew A. Burnett on 06-12-20
By: Jesmyn Ward
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My Song
- A Memoir
- By: Harry Belafonte, Michael Shnayerson
- Narrated by: Harry Belafonte, Mirron Willis
- Length: 19 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 161
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 145
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 144
Harry Belafonte is not just one of the greatest entertainers of our time; he has led one of the great American lives of the last century. Now, this extraordinary icon tells us the story of that life, giving us its full breadth, letting us share in the struggles, the tragedies, and, most of all, the inspiring triumphs.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing
- By Khafre on 12-30-11
By: Harry Belafonte, and others
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Levittown
- Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in America's Legendary Suburb
- By: David Kushner
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
In the decade after World War II , one entrepreneurial family helped thousands of people buy into the American dream of owning a home. The Levitts, William, Alfred, and their father, Abe, pooled their talents to create storybook towns with affordable little houses. They laid out the welcome mat - but not to everyone. Levittown had a Whites-only policy.
By: David Kushner
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Street Poison
- The Biography of Iceberg Slim
- By: Justin Gifford
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
From a career as a, yes, ruthless pimp in the '40s and '50s, Iceberg Slim refashioned himself as the first and still the greatest of the "street lit" masters, whose vivid books have made him an icon to such rappers as Ice-T, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg and a presiding spirit of "blaxploitation" culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A must read for all Robert Beck fans.
- By JMKIII58 on 09-15-16
By: Justin Gifford
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The Song and the Silence
- A Story About Family, Race, and What Was Revealed in a Small Town in the Mississippi Delta While Searching for Booker Wright
- By: Yvette Johnson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 209
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 189
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 188
"Have to keep that smile", said Booker Wright in the 1966 NBC documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait. At the time Wright was a waiter in a Whites-only restaurant and a local business owner who would become an unwitting icon of the civil rights movement. For he did the unthinkable: Before a national audience, he described what life was truly like for the Black people of Greenwood, Mississippi.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Exceeded every expectation
- By ZeeJ84 on 05-23-21
By: Yvette Johnson
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Nevertheless
- A Memoir
- By: Alec Baldwin
- Narrated by: Alec Baldwin
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,315
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,124
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,117
One of the most accomplished and outspoken actors today chronicles the highs and lows of his life in this beautifully written, candid memoir.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Embarrassingly petty
- By Stacey Robinson on 09-20-18
By: Alec Baldwin
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The Last Love Song
- A Biography of Joan Didion
- By: Tracy Daugherty
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 26 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, whom she met while the two were working in New York City, when Didion was at Vogue and Dunne was writing for Time. They became wildly successful writing partners when they moved to Los Angeles and cowrote screenplays and adaptations together. Didion is well known for her literary journalistic style in both fiction and nonfiction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
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Season of the Witch
- Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love
- By: David Talbot
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 16 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,137
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 984
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 982
Season of the Witch is the first book to fully capture the dark magic of San Francisco in this breathtaking period, when the city radically changed itself - and then revolutionized the world. The cool gray city of love was the epicenter of the 1960s cultural revolution. But by the early 1970s, San Francisco’s ecstatic experiment came crashing down from its starry heights. The city was rocked by savage murder sprees, mysterious terror campaigns, political assassinations, street riots, and finally a terrifying sexual epidemic.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Gripping, important history - well told
- By The Companion on 05-21-12
By: David Talbot
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Sign My Name to Freedom
- A Memoir of a Pioneering Life
- By: Betty Reid-Soskin
- Narrated by: Betty Reid-Soskin
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
In Betty Reid Soskin’s 96 years of living, she has been a witness to a grand sweep of American history. When she was born in 1921, the lynching of African-Americans was a national epidemic, blackface minstrel shows were the most popular American form of entertainment, white women had only just won the right to vote, and most African-Americans in the Deep South could not vote at all. From her great-grandmother, who had been enslaved until her mid-20s, Betty heard stories of slavery and the times of terror and struggle for Black folk that followed.
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3 out of 5 stars
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How she stressed Creole, but I guess it was a badge if honor not being regular black.
- By Satisfied customer on 05-21-24
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Everybody Thought We Were Crazy
- Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles
- By: Mark Rozzo
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
Los Angeles in the 1960s: riots in Watts and on the Sunset Strip, wild weekends in Malibu, late nights at The Daisy discotheque, openings at the Ferus Gallery, and the convergence of pop art, rock and roll, and the New Hollywood. At the center of it all, one inspired, improbable, and highly combustible couple—Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward—lived out the emblematic love story of ’60s L.A.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful!
- By Rob on 06-07-22
By: Mark Rozzo
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Just Like Us
- The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America
- By: Helen Thorpe
- Narrated by: Paula Christensen
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4 out of 5 stars 61
Just Like Us tells the story of four high school students whose parents entered this country illegally from Mexico. All four of the girls have grown up in the United States, and all four want to live the American dream, but only two have documents. As the girls attempt to make it into college, they discover that only the legal pair see a clear path forward. A coming-of-age story about girlhood and friendship, as well as the resilience required to transcend poverty, Just Like Us is also a book about identity.
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1 out of 5 stars
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I wanted to listen but...
- By PurpleSage on 03-22-14
By: Helen Thorpe
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A Mighty Long Way
- My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School
- By: Carlotta Walls LaNier, Lisa Frazier Page, Bill Clinton - foreword
- Narrated by: Carlotta Walls LaNier
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
When 14-year-old Carlotta Walls walked up the stairs of Little Rock Central High School on September 25, 1957, she and eight other Black students only wanted to make it to class. But the journey of the “Little Rock Nine”, as they came to be known, would lead the nation on an even longer and much more turbulent path, one that would challenge prevailing attitudes, break down barriers, and forever change the landscape of America.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By SWF in Minneapolis on 04-27-24
By: Carlotta Walls LaNier, and others
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Vanishing New York
- How a Great City Lost Its Soul
- By: Jeremiah Moss
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
New York City has long been a destination for rebels and rule breakers, artists, writers, and other hopefuls longing to be part of its rich cultural exchange and unique social fabric. But today, modern gentrification is transforming the city from an exceptional, iconoclastic metropolis into a suburbanized luxury zone. Blogger and cultural commentator Jeremiah Moss leads us on a colorful guided tour of the most changed parts of town lovingly eulogizing iconic institutions as they're replaced with soulless upscale boutiques, luxury condo towers, and suburban chains.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A compelling story, but the narration???
- By S. McGee on 11-30-17
By: Jeremiah Moss
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The Mayor of Castro Street
- The Life and Times of Harvey Milk
- By: Randy Shilts
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 206
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 176
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 176
Known as The Mayor of Castro Street even before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk's personal life, public career, and final assassination reflect the dramatic emergence of the gay community as a political power in America. It is a story full of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassinations at City Hall, massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice, and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent historical perspective of an activist.
- By Chris on 04-14-15
By: Randy Shilts
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Age of Ambition
- Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos, George Backman
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,483
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,277
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,272
As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Come back when you have a warrant!
- By Neuron on 11-06-15
By: Evan Osnos
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Downtown
- My Manhattan
- By: Pete Hamill
- Narrated by: Pete Hamill
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
In Downtown, Hamill leads us on an unforgettable journey through the city he loves, from the island's southern tip to 42nd Street, combining a moving memoir of his days and nights in New York with a passionate history of its most enduring places and people.
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1 out of 5 stars
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A frustrating read
- By David Ross on 09-09-05
By: Pete Hamill
What listeners say about Making Rent in Bed-Stuy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Schaeffer Nelson
- 02-20-18
Slam dunk memoir
Moving, funny, cutting, and highly perceptive. A slam dunk hybrid of journalism and memoir. A deeply useful portrait of the fundamentally racist and predatory DNA of gentrification, of America altogether.
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