(DNAINFO) Leslie Albrecht and Nigel Chiwaya | September 1, 2016 — In 2000, Latinos were the majority in parts of Gowns. Their numbers have fallen sharply since then.

When Nancy Luzunari moved to a four-story walk-up on Union Street and Third Avenue in 1990, it was a family affair, with Luzunari and her four sisters all renting separate apartments in the building.

The neighborhood back then was full of families like hers who traced their roots to Puerto Rico. But now her sisters have moved away, and her building is down to just two Latino tenants, she said. She can count the rest of the block’s Latino residents on one hand.

“We miss our crowd,” Luzunari said. “[The new people] are friendly, but not that friendly. They don’t socialize with the Puerto Ricans.”

Her block’s dramatic change mirrors a trend across Gowanus.

From 2000 to 2014, the neighborhood’s Latino population has dropped an estimated 10.8 percent, while the white population has soared by approximately 53 percent, according to a DNAinfo analysis of the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data available.

The changes have been most acute in the part of the neighborhood where Luzunari lives, on the east side of the Gowanus Canal down the hill from Park Slope.

Just 16 years ago, Latinos were in the majority there, making up 54 percent of the population, according to U.S. Census estimates. Today they make up just 31 percent of the population there. The white population in that area has jumped by 232 percent.

Source: MAP: See Gowanus’s Disappearing Latino Population – Gowanus – DNAinfo New York