Poking her head through the steel window frames of her ground-floor apartment in Sunset Park, she said that “because it doesn’t rust and it’s more comfortable to live in,” Chinese people love steel. “It makes the house newer and more polished,” she said, adding that “most newly renovated homes across the street have these types of stainless steel products.” The steel fencing and guards made her feel safer. (Pandemic-fuelled hate crimes against Asian Americans have soared in New York since 2020, and many Asian-American residents are wary of attacks.)
Banerjee, 77, who immigrated from Kolkata, India in the 1970s, said he always aspired for more. “My parents never drove a good car, but I have a Mercedes,” he said recently one spring afternoon, standing at the top of his sidewalk adorned with stainless steel railings.
One of his first jobs was working in a jute factory in India. When he first came to New York, he crashed into the apartments of several friends. He started applying for jobs he saw in the newspaper and was eventually hired as an engineer at a company.
After settling in in 1998, Mr. Banerjee owns the house he now lives in, and over the years he painstakingly renovated every part of it to fit the vision he had: the carpets, the windows, the garage, and of course, the fence had all been swapped out. “The fence protects everything. It’s getting more and more valuable,” he said proudly.
Hui Zhen Lin, 64, who has lived in her home in Sunset Park for 10 years, said her home’s steel gates and railings were there before she moved in, but they were certainly part of the property’s appeal. “These stainless steel products are great because they are clean,” she said. They don’t need to be repainted like iron, and they look naturally polished.
Xiu Zou, 48, who moved into an apartment in Sunset Park just two months ago, said she felt more comfortable in a home with a stainless steel door. “They’re good,” she said. “They are better than wooden doors because they are safer.”