A thirtysomething couple, complete with infant strapped in a Baby Bjorn to his father’s chest, is posing for a family portrait, looking smug and just preppy enough to have stepped out of an Eddie Bauer catalogue. The dad is slightly balding, wearing thick-rimmed black frames and a patterned button-down shirt tucked into his denim. His wife is in all neutral tones, her nondescript features rendering her the classic American woman. Above them is the title, American Gentrifier.

This December 2004 back cover of Brooklyn-based periodical Stay Free!, which aims to examine “American culture, politics, and life in South Central Brooklyn,” seems more of a warning to the hipster crowds that comprise its readership. With fake headlines like “Bed Stuy: Still Too Black?” or “10 Violent Crimes You Can Live With,” this magazine is not just tossing around ideas about who these American gentrifiers are. Stay Free! is putting a face to the name.

Absent from this collage are the faces like that of Nicole duFresne, the 28-year-old playwright/actress who was murdered on the Lower East Side on Jan. 27, 2005. Her headshot has been peppered throughout the media since then. Though many reports have called her an “aspiring actress,” duFresne was playing a familiar role when she moved to Greenpoint, an upstart neighborhood in Brooklyn. She became a textbook example of a gentrifier, as she both lived and worked in neighborhoods in the throes of gentrification.

The act of transforming a dilapidated neighborhood into an upscale one through investment and the remodeling of buildings is hardly a new phenomenon in New York City. According to Citihabitats New York, a major real estate broker, a number of areas like TriBeCa and the Lower East Side in Manhattan and, recently, Williamsburg and Dumbo in Brooklyn have seen up to a 33 percent increase in rent as trendy new restaurants, nightclubs and boutiques spring up in the neighborhoods.

“Sometimes artists are thought to be the victims [of gentrification] because they are eventually priced out of the area, but they actually play a vital role in the rebuilding process.”

But the pioneers of gentrification, those who reinvigorate these spots that are perceived to be dangerous, are not exactly the poster couple from American Gentrifier. “Gentrifiers tend to be young singles or couples without much money who move into inner city areas for cultural purposes – they are artists, musicians, people who create,” says Lena Magnusson, an expert on housing and urban research from Uppsala University.

These artists and young community builders are oftentimes the ones at the forefront of a neighborhood’s revitalization. They move into housing that has been abandoned, taking advantage of lower prices during the transition phase as the neighborhood begins attracting new businesses and tenants, says Magnusson. “Sometimes artists are thought to be the victims [of gentrification] because they are eventually priced out of the area, but they actually play a vital role in the rebuilding process,” she says.

DuFresne’s path to Williamsburg began in Wayzata, Minnesota, just 11 miles west of Minneapolis, situated along US Highway 12. Her hometown, with a population of 4,113, is described by its webpage as “the jewel of Lake Minnetonka,” where small homes, hotels, resorts, and restaurants line the waterfront. Mayor Andrew Humphrey writes: “With one look, it is easy to understand why so many want to work and live here.” Despite the comforts of Wayzata, duFresne needed a bigger place to house her ambition.

After finishing high school, duFresne went to Emerson College in Boston, where she graduated magna cum laude, earning a BFA in acting with minors in playwrighting and modern dance. The move from small town Minnesota to an East Coast metropolis was marked by trauma. During her junior year, she was raped in a campus parking lot. In an interview on Larry King Live on Apr. 7, duFresne’s mother, Linda, said Nicole refused to leave Boston where she was working on a play with the director of the drama department. She entered counseling immediately after the incident and continued to pursue her dreams.

She moved to Seattle, where she premiered her award-winning play Burning Cage, which she dedicated to the psychiatrist who helped her following the rape. The play depicts two women who are tossed into a mental institution for specious reasons, including postpartum depression and lesbianism.

While in Seattle, she met and began dating Jeffrey Sparks, with whom she moved to New York in 2002. Upon her arrival she became a founding member of the Present Tense Theater Project and artistic director of Woman Alone Theatre Company, lending her talents as a writer, director, and actress.

On the night of her murder, duFresne had just finished her first shift as a bartender at Rockwood Music Hall on the Lower East Side. To celebrate, she and Sparks, along with two friends, Mary Jane Gibson and Scott Nath, went to Max Fish, another popular downtown bar. They left around 3:00 a.m., and as they were walking, encountered a group of teenagers on the corner of Clinton and Rivington Streets.

Reports have said that one of the teens, 19-year-old Rudy Fleming, pistol-whipped Sparks in an attempt to rob him, and duFresne walked toward the pointed gun, shouting, “What are you going to do, shoot me?”Seconds later, a bullet landed in her chest, and duFresne died in her fiancé’s arms.

During an Apr. 7 interview on Larry King Live, Sparks said that though he will wait to give his full story to the jury, people should not believe too much of the media’s account of the event. “I don’t find a lot of [the coverage] to be congruent to my perception of the situation,” he said.

Still, the story that is becoming urban legend has evoked strong sentiment from people who knew duFresne. Most of them recall her bravery. Raul Delhume, who taught Nicole at Emerson, says, “She was as brave on stage as she was that night on the street. She believed fundamentally in the goodness of this world,” he said. “I hope the gunman is brought to a clear understanding of exactly what kind of light he extinguished from the world.”

Some disagree, however, that her alleged remarks on the street before she was shot were brave. On the National Crime Prevention Council’s website, the president Alfonso Lenhardt said: “When a gun is in the hands of a desperate person with low self esteem, they’re going to act that way.”

The NCPC has released a tip sheet, entitled “Your Money or Your Life?” which offers advice on surviving a mugging. Among the pointers are to comply with the robber’s requests, be observant so the suspect can be identified easily, and to walk on well-lighted, well-traveled streets.

Still, duFresne’s mother remembers her daughter’s tenacity. “[Nicole] was a fierce life force. New York was intimidating to her at first, but she got accustomed to it,” she said. Her daughter was living out a dream, writing and performing in the cultural capital of the United States. “I hope people won’t get the impression of New York that, through this story, it is an extra dangerous place,” Sparks said.

Back to top

Go to WSR Frontpage