Wednesday, September 24, 2008

*Everyday Chatter

New East Villager Rachel Weisz doesn't see what all the complaining is about: "Everyone talks about how New York used to be. The East Village is how I imagine New York used to be. What's happening behind that door? There are just very authentic little pockets of life going on." Very little is left, indeed. [Vogue]

Some folks are getting cautiously giddy about a return to 1970s NYC. [Voice] via [EVG]

First we got cloned newsstands, then matching robot bus stops--now it's happening to subway entrances. That condo-Cemusa look is everywhere in our Stepford city. This one seems to be courtesy of the very-glassy Bank of America building:


Witness the death of a newsstand. [Curbed]

Read an interview with Paul Auster: "I have this secret desire that one day New York City would secede from the United States and become an independent republic." [Gothamist]

When the kids run up a huge credit card bill, spending on parties, clothes, etc., with no thought of the consequences, should Mom and Dad bail them out and pay off their debt? Or should they let that be a lesson? Seems the government is a typical parent of the 2000s, ready to let Junior get away with murder. Tell Congress to STOP THE BAILOUT. Should we pay for Wall Street's greed, the same greed that has been destroying our city?

Tom Wolfe: "The new Wall Street is Greenwich, Conn. You don’t need these big glass silos full of people." [NYO]

Speaking of which, it's about time for a new Bonfire: "This is a city now built on excitement," Wolfe said to the Times last year, "a Disneyland...with no industry other than the excitement of just being here."

"Fuk Wall St." says Gowanus building. [Curbed]

“Today we face what economists call the gravest economic danger since the Great Depression," Mr. Reid said on the Senate floor. “We’ve come to this point after eight years of President Bush waging a war on fiscal responsibility. His Republican philosophy of removing all accountability from big business — and expecting no responsibility from them in return — has created this crisis that now threatens to devastate America’s working families.” [Times]

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

And if you live to be 100, you'll be out there demanding that the current newsstands be preserved.

Zzzzz.

Don't you ever get tired of all the hypocrisy?

I'm just sayin'

Anonymous said...

And do you have any idea what the ramifications would be if the government doesn't bail out Wall Street? I don't like it either, but the alternative of doing nothing will have far greater implications on our economy.

Do you research any of this? Or do you just grab a torch and jump on the first bandwagon that rolls by? Boggles the mind.

Anonymous said...

This nostalgia is bullshit, coming mostly from folks who moved here from Ohio 6 months before the person they are complaining to, and folks who visited twice from New Jersey when they were 6.

New York has ALWAYS been about change. We knocked down penn station. We knocked down half the Lower East Side. Hell, we knocked down the old Grand Central to get the new "historic" one we love so much.

New York is not New York without change. A constantly morphing creature.

Don't like gentrification in Harlem, and want it back the way it used to be? Ok, then its back to rich white folks before the black cultural revolution took over.

Want edgy Williamsburg back? Well, then you get the original Williamsburg, filled with rich people until they built the bridge.

Oh yeah, and Times Square of old is NOT something to reminisce about unless you were never actually there.

Anonymous said...

If you do not like the way NYC is changing then feel free to leave.

Anonymous said...

"And do you have any idea what the ramifications would be if the government doesn't bail out Wall Street? I don't like it either, but the alternative of doing nothing will have far greater implications on our economy.

Do you research any of this? Or do you just grab a torch and jump on the first bandwagon that rolls by? Boggles the mind."

YOU TURD WHAT DID YOU JUST CUT AND PASTE THIS ON EVERY NYSHITTY BLOG?

Anonymous said...

Someone has to educate the masses.

Now you learned something. Twice.

:)

Anonymous said...

The Financial Institutions are trying to fuck up people again--Banks are Banks--they think they can revert to ole times once they are bailed out--the fuckers!!DON'T bail them out on our backs!

Anonymous said...

its not about not bailing out the banks douche, its about the american taxpayer getting something back for their money - like some measures that will prevent this kinda shit from happening again. as it is right now its a blank check.

but im sure you support the free-market right? meritocracy, creative destruction, and all that shit that only applies when its the little guys going under?

Anonymous said...

Jeremiah I think you have a secret admirer who is dying to come out of the closet but his right wing republican whacko friends might kill him for it, so he covers his feelings with misplaced rage.

Anonymous said...

An earmark of any desperate poster on any blog is several stream-of-consciousness posts in rapid succession; someone so enraged and so insecure that they fire out fragments of thoughts and post them so quickly they then need to continue what should be a single post in a new one. This isn't YouTube, moron - there's no character limit. Try fleshing out a complete, coherent post if you have so much to say.

The yunnies have for so long had an air of superiority about them when they would occassionally troll this and other anti-gentrification blogs. In light of recent events, however, they've seemed to adopt a sense of urgency and frustration, like they know their days of being footloose and fancy-free in the playground once known as Manhattan are soon coming to an end and that the very prospect of New York returning to even a watered-down version of it's 1970s self would be far too genuine, far too gritty, far too intensely real for them to bear. And so they lash out, clinging to the rapidly-evaporating hope that all change is THEIR kind of change and that it will exist perpetually. Pray tell, when New York begins to change again in a manner that isn't palatable to the invaders will those of us who welcome it still be the reactionary and obsolete ones? We've had the gumption and fortitude to bear the burden of living in THEIR New York for more than two decades now. Time to turn the tables and see if they can survive in OURS. My money's on the whole lot of them getting on the first flight back to Ohio the minute things get a little too real.

Anonymous said...

some of the NYU kids honestly say--these buildings are so opulent we do not need all this--no dorms are so equipped with these luxuries!!!

Jeremiah Moss said...

yes! i saw that article in the times. i'm going to link to it tomorrow. good stuff.