As more Black people moved to Bed-Stuy, the city withheld sufficient policing and other services. The neighborhood’s fate was sealed in 1935, when the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation began color-coding American cities, using race as a criterion to identify risky investment areas on the map. African American hubs like Bed-Stuy were marked in red for “hazardous.” If you lived in a redlined zone, it was almost impossible to get a mortgage.
