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MarketingFrom The Peopling of New York City Several years after the first Jackson Heights co-ops became available, real estate advertisements began to reflect marketers’ attempts to attract a white, middle class clientèle to this relatively unknown neighborhood. Real estate in Jackson Heights was often advertised as being in the “Jackson Heights-Elmhurst vicinity,” combining Jackson Heights with its neighbor in order to promote the older, established reputation of Elmhurst. Advertisements in The New York Times for Jackson Heights property were clearly meant to target a specific class of buyers, namely the affluent. Ads stated that readers could “become their own landlords” in “restricted sections” of the neighborhood. While some advertisements stated that prospective buyers needed “social and business references,” others noted that buyers must earn a specified minimum income. These examples are few of many that could be found in The New York Times for decades, in an attempt to bring in the white middle-class into the neighborhood. However, the 1976 New York City fiscal crisis provided real estate agencies with an incentive to cast off Jackson Heights' hyphenated association with Elmhurst and drop certain elite requirements in their advertisements. In order to establish a unique edge over its neighbor, property ads in Jackson Heights promoted its reputation for diversity, which was established as a result of the fiscal crisis. New York Times advertisements stopped targeting the middle-class, and instead offered the opportunity for “daily, weekly or monthly rentals” and promoted “second mortgage[s]" to entice potential buyers. Ads such as these appealed to the lower class, who could not afford the luxuries that were first targeted to the middle class. However, approximately twenty years after the fiscal crisis and a few years prior to the official establishment of the Historic District, apartments in Jackson Heights were once more advertised to a more exclusive clientèle. This signaled the advent of an advertising campaign to re-represent Jackson Heights as an area primed for middle-class redevelopment. "Offering by prospectus only" was a phrase that accompanied many advertisements for co-ops, apartments, and houses in the area, eerily familiar to the requirement for social and business references in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. The change in the target audience of Jackson Heights' advertisements can also be seen in the emphasis on the European names given to co-ops in the Historic District, the preservation of old Tudor buildings, and the placing of a Greco-Roman statue in the internal garden of co-ops. The advertisement for the Birchwood Residences on the right showcases prominently its location in Jackson Heights and appeals to young professionals -- not families -- by offering studios, and one and two bedroom apartments. Apartments are often considered “luxury” or mentioned as “newly and beautifully renovated.” More likely than not, if you look at ads for apartments in Jackson Heights, they will be described as “located in the beautiful Historic District.” These descriptions of life in a luxurious apartment in the Historic District target the affluent middle class, who are indeed buying property in the neighborhood. Interestingly, more affluent buyers are purchasing property because along with the promise of new renovations and luxurious life comes the appeal of living in a famously diverse neighborhood. Although real estate ads target the white middle-class, one can find an article in the same newspaper entitled “One Borough, Many Flags,” accompanied by multicultural photographs of the neighborhood. Real estate marketers pair the luxury of Historic District life with the cultural diversity that has been the marketing representation of Jackson Heights in recent decades. To their target audience, Jackson Heights is the best of both worlds. However, with this redevelopment strategy comes an increase in not only housing prices, but in the overall cost of living. 
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