BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — A longtime Bed-Stuy barbershop and community hub will shut its doors at the end of September, according to its owner.
House of Ashanti, which also doubled as a party supply store and headquarters for the community group Brooklyn Hall of Game, will give its last hair cuts on Sept. 26.
Barber John Rasberry, who operated the business since 1993, lamented that it was time to move on from 901 Myrtle Ave., citing gentrification in a rapidly changing neighborhood and new ownership of the building.
“We’re closing the business doors, but never the doors to the community,” Rasberry said.
“The movement is real of teaching others to treat each other with respect, and that’s forever. It’s bigger than a barbershop or anything else.”
House of Ashanti opened more than 20 years ago on Tompkins Avenue, according to Rasberry.
After five years of fades and shape-ups between Willoughby Avenue and Hart Street, the barbershop relocated two blocks down to Myrtle Avenue.
“The genius of cutting hair for me has always been getting to know a person, and getting to know what’s going on in the community — where people are hurting, where they’re feeling good, and that’s all I really wanted to do, and I was able to,” he said.
The two-chair establishment had strict rules respected by regulars: no cursing was allowed once you stepped over the threshold.
During times of violence, the barbershop situated between the neighborhood’s Marcy and Tompkins houses served as a safe haven for youth and adults alike, customers said.
“Through all the losses and all the people that we lost in this development, he [John] was always there,” said Rasmalachi Varner, 31, adding that he has frequented House of Ashanti since he was a young teen.
“A lot of people that sat in that chair you may not see anymore, whether they’re dead or in prison, whatever the case may be. But it was always peace and tranquility whenever they were here.”
Rasberry founded the Brooklyn Hall of Game in 2010 as a way to reach out to Bed-Stuy's youth, using the Myrtle Avenue storefront as its base.
The group hosts basketball tournaments and chess clubs for kids and teens, as well as providing mentoring and tutoring.
“Removing this shop is going to affect the neighborhood because whatever you did outside, when you come in this door, it all ceased. It was a certain level of respect,” said Daquan Jenkins, 30.
Jenkins first stepped foot into House of Ashanti when he was 12, he said, and never got his haircut anywhere else.
Rasberry’s role as father figure and mentor to his customers kept him coming back, he added.
“Without this, there’s no outlets anymore. This is one of the only places that we had, the only place we feel comfortable with,” Jenkins said as several locals waved to the barber from the street and popped in to give their greetings.
While Brooklyn Hall of Game has plans to continue operating out of nearby churches, regulars said the loss of House of Ashanti marks another casualty in the area.
Varner recalled the closure of a Chinese restaurant around the corner, a gas station at the end of a nearby block replaced by a new building, a shuttered Key Food, and the demolition of the old Cascade laundry factory.
“You would have thought or hoped that this place was untouchable for the simple reason of what it provides,” he said.
“This was a place that showed a barbershop can actually keep a community together.”
