Dr Glenvile Ash­by

To­day, all over Brook­lyn we hear talk about gen­tri­fi­ca­tion. It is an ug­ly word de­pend­ing on who you ask. For Re­nee Col­ly­more, a sec­ond gen­er­a­tion West In­di­an-Amer­i­can, the word con­jures im­ages of strug­gle and sac­ri­fice of one per­son, her fa­ther.The 1970s and 80s in Put­nam Av­enue and Fort Green were as rough as they come. It was era of the crack epi­dem­ic, pros­ti­tu­tion, a cor­rupt po­lice de­part­ment, and the bang­ing cack­les of gun shots pierc­ing the wake of the night."My dad played big part in re­vi­tal­is­ing these com­mu­ni­ties when no one was will­ing to take a chance be­cause of prob­lems you ex­pe­ri­ence in the in­ner cities," Col­ly­more told me.

She went on to chron­i­cle her fa­ther's path, from hum­ble be­gin­nings in St An­drews, Bar­ba­dos, to life in Mt Lam­bert, Trinidad at the ear­ly age of 12 years.Ce­cil Ruben Col­ly­more, her fa­ther, lat­er mi­grat­ed to Eng­land, then to the Unit­ed States. No­madic, one can say. Nev­er­the­less it of­fered the rudi­ments of dis­cern­ment, the abil­i­ty to grasp the mo­ment."My fa­ther was a tech­ni­cian but al­so did low pay­ing jobs to earn ad­di­tion­al mon­ey."Col­ly­more spoke fond­ly about her dad and her close­ness to him. But it is his busi­ness acu­men that still be­wil­ders her."With the help of my moth­er Beat­rice, who did odd jobs, he saved enough to buy an emp­ty lot on Green Av­enue, and a com­mer­cial store front on Put­nam for $10,000."

This was on­ly the be­gin­ning. A few years lat­er the Col­ly­mores owned a laun­dro­mat, a sa­lon, an am­bulette ser­vice, a cof­fee shop, and rental prop­er­ties."Half of Put­nam Av­enue and parts of Fort Green," is how Col­ly­more put it.By the turn of the mil­len­ni­um (2003 to be ex­act) both ar­eas were des­ig­nat­ed "prime re­al es­tate." In hind­sight, her fa­ther was the con­sum­mate trail­blaz­er who "took a chance when no es­tab­lished busi­ness would."Ce­cil Col­ly­more was al­so con­trib­u­to­ry in "sav­ing Ju­lia Rich­man High School from be­ing shot down be­cause it failed to meet cer­tain stan­dards."Ac­cord­ing to Col­ly­more her fa­ther fought and tri­umphed over the De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion, ar­gu­ing that it had served the com­mu­ni­ty and pro­duced many suc­cess­ful per­son­al­i­ties, in­clud­ing rap­per Dougie Fresh and the late ac­tor of Fame, Gene An­tho­ny Ray. She al­so men­tioned her fa­ther as "in­stru­men­tal in the build­ing of church that stands to­day on Grand Av­enue."

Her fa­ther, she said, epit­o­mised fa­ther­hood and the en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it, at­trib­ut­es that should be recog­nised and pre­served by the City of New York."It is a must that we as sec­ond gen­er­a­tion im­mi­grants bring at­ten­tion to our in­volve­ment in New York's de­vel­op­ment.Hers is a strug­gle for the ac­com­plish­ments of im­mi­grants to be pre­served by street nam­ing, and the ded­i­ca­tion of school li­braries, play­grounds, pedes­tri­an plazas.It is an up­hill task that brought Col­ly­more be­fore the Pub­lic Safe­ty and Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tee to have a street named in her fa­ther's ho­n­our, a street in one of the ar­eas he helped re­vi­talised. The re­quire­ments were dizzy­ing. She met the cri­te­ri­on, "sur­passed it."

Hun­dreds of sig­na­tures, ref­er­ences from busi­ness own­ers, politi­cians, cler­gy, ed­u­ca­tion ad­min­is­tra­tors, and news clips-she pro­duced them all-on­ly to be re­ject­ed.The board she said dis­missed her ap­pli­ca­tion on the spu­ri­ous claim that "its mem­bers did not know my fa­ther."It is a ra­tio­nale she said that is base­less and with­out mer­it.How could the board mem­bers know my fa­ther when they weren't even around?" she asked rhetor­i­cal­ly.Col­ly­more, now locked in a bruis­ing po­lit­i­cal bat­tle for a State Com­mit­tee Seat, will re­sub­mit her re­quest, vow­ing to con­tin­ue the fight for her fa­ther's recog­ni­tion."The con­tri­bu­tion of our fore­par­ents must tran­scend cul­tur­al shows and pa­rades," she end­ed.

• Dr Glenville Ash­by

New York cor­re­spon­dent

The Guardian Me­dia Group

glenvil­leash­by@gmail.com