New York ( CNN ) -- Whatever one thinks of Spike Lee 's expletive-laced rant about moneyed newcomers inhabiting once-blighted corners of America 's most populous city , the millionaire filmmaker could be considered a dubious messenger for such sentiments . `` You personally turned Brooklyn into the hottest spot creatively and politically and you move out , '' Errol Louis , a Brooklyn resident and political anchor at CNN affiliate NY1 News , said Thursday . `` What did you think was going to happen ? You got rich selling this place . This is your brand and people who have a little money want to sort of take you up on it , and somehow that 's a problem . '' The famed director 's lengthy tirade on the Dickensian ills of gentrification during an African-American History Month lecture Tuesday has drawn mixed reactions from various sectors of a rapidly changing city . `` You ca n't just come in the neighborhood like you 're Columbus and kill off the Native Americans , '' Lee told his audience after a Brooklyn resident raised the subject of the `` other side '' of gentrification . Louis , in an opinion piece in the New York Daily News on Wednesday , called out Lee . `` It 's the sacred right of every New Yorker to bewail , blame and bemoan the arrival of the folks who arrive in the neighborhood five minutes after we do , but somebody has to call bull on Lee 's complaints about gentrification , '' he wrote . `` This is a man who has made epic contributions to the phenomenon he finds so troubling . '' Case in point : Hatch House , Lee 's 9,000-square-foot mansion on Manhattan 's ritzy Upper East Side , Louis writes . The filmmaker bought the palace from artist Jasper Johns for $ 16 million in 2006 and recently put it on the market for $ 32 million . Lee bought a five-story townhouse in Fort Greene -- where the director grew up -- for $ 650,000 in 1990 , according to published reports . Lee sold the place in 1999 to a banker married to an attorney for about $ 1 million and moved to his Upper East Side mansion . Lee also put his 40 Acres headquarters , a converted former firehouse in Brooklyn , up for sale at $ 6 million in 2008 , published reports said . `` He 's like a one-man marketing organization and he 's brilliant at it , '' Louis , who has lived in Brooklyn for three decades , told CNN . On Wednesday , Lee told `` Anderson Cooper 360 '' that he 's not against new people moving into areas that were once predominantly poor and predominantly African-American . `` My problem is that when you move into a neighborhood , have some respect for the history , for the culture , '' Lee said . Mitchell Moss , a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University 's Wagner School of Public Service , said some of New York 's most dilapidated neighborhoods have benefited from the city 's enormous recovery since 2001 . For example , many renovated sections of now trendy Williamsburg , Brooklyn , were vacant industrial spaces . Abandoned buildings in Harlem have been turned into attractive apartment houses . `` In many cases , '' Moss said , `` we have populations that are growing where there were no people before . '' D.K . Smith , the Brooklyn homeowner and tech start-up director who asked the question that triggered Lee 's tirade , on Thursday said that he looks forward to possibly partnering with the filmmaker to keep the gentrification debate going . `` People are concerned about the issue of affordable housing , '' he said . `` Where are people going to go ? Spike made the point , ' I do n't want to live in a city where every house is a $ 1 million or $ 3 million . ' First of all , it 's not going to be much of a city . We 're going to lose the part of the city that makes it vibrant . '' He added : `` I imagine there are many elitists who would love to be in a city where the cheapest house is $ 1 million , but what kind of city would that be ? It certainly would n't be Brooklyn , and it certainly would n't be the New York we have now . '' Spike Lee slams the Jason Collins hate machine .
Filmmaker Spike Lee riled about New York gentrification and hipsters . His rant elicits mixed reactions in rapidly changing city . Score: 7 he finds so troubling ''