Sadly, Gowanus Lounge blogger and journalist Robert Guskind has passed away. Without his tireless reporting, the New York blogosphere is suddenly a much smaller place. [OTBKB] Curbed remembers.
The (de-) gentrification of the LES through comics--did you know the "whole area is known as Delancey"? [GSN] via [Curbed]
The New Yorker mines the East Village twice this week for Talks of the Town at Lakeside Lounge and McSorley's.
Is there a new "middle-class exodus" from NYC? [yahoo]
View the Chinatown Gentrification Map--and say goodbye to the authenticity of old streets like Doyers. [CR]
Professor of Economics Nancy Folbre touches on the issue of Post-Crash Revisionism, why now the culture suddenly decides greed wasn't good: "Greed seems tolerable when we are rich... When times get hard, greed begins to chafe." [NYT]
Reverend Billy for mayor--join his fight to stop Walmart. [Gothamist]
The LES swarmed by "proper heels." [EVG]
Enjoy a tour of some East Village storefronts. [GVDP]
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a.k.a. The Book of Lamentations:
a bitterly nostalgic look at a city in the process of going extinct
- Jeremiah Moss
- THE BOOK:
"We should all buy Jeremiah Moss’s book, Vanishing New York." --Sarah Jessica Parker
“Essential reading for fans of Jane Jacobs, Joseph Mitchell, Patti Smith, Luc Sante, and cheap pierogi.” --Vanity Fair
"a vigorous, righteously indignant book that would do Jane Jacobs proud." --Kirkus Reviews
THE BLOG:
"the go-to hub for those who lament New York's loss of character." --Crain's
"No one takes stock of New York's changes with the same mixture of snark, sorrow, poeticism, and lyric wit as Jeremiah Moss." --Village Voice, Best of NY
“Jeremiah Moss…is the defender of all the undistinguished hunks of masonry that lend the streets their rhythm.” --Justin Davidson, New York Magazine
"One of the most thorough and pugnacious chroniclers of New York’s blandification." --The Atlantic, Citylab
"Hyperbolic and combative, tireless and passionate." --Salon
I'm writing this as a Greenpoint native in response to the news about Chinatown gentrification.
ReplyDeleteFrom late 2002 to mid-2004 I worked for a Chinatown-based company. One day after exiting the L train at Beford Avenue and North Seventh Street, I got into an argument with a hipster. "Petition against rising rents!" she demanded from straphangers on their way home.
"It's people like you who made the rents rise to begin with," I countered. And now we have these unfinished edifices, icons of greed.
The streets of Greenpoint/Williamsburg are still as dirty as they were when I was a kid (less dog shit though, I'll grant you that). And Chinatown will still reek in the summer regardless of what replaces buildings to be demolished.
We already lost Little Italy to Chinatown. Why not lose Chinatown to gentrification, and have high-rise luxury condos stand testament to a New York identity crisis?
Though this response may not be well organized, what I'm ultimately trying to say is I feel it's useless to try to save something because people -- developers -- are going to do what they want anyway. I just hope more of them go bankrupt for even attempting these plans, which got us into this mess in the first place.
yea, let's just give up! Jeremiah, stop all this blogging nonsense. Let's just hide under the mattress like rats. Fait accompli? Hell NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will continue to argue with every lamebrain who thinks "we should tear down these old tenements and put up new condos" as I heard just yesterday. Ignorance is bliss.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad Chinatown and people scattered in all of New York's neighborhoods pushing back. Whenever friends want to lament the lack of restaurants in my neighborhood of Harlem, I will counter to them that it's not necessary. I don't want squeaky clean cafes, cookie cutter condos ( which are sitting half empty up here)...especially if it would mean that a possible neighbor or stranger who lives on a fixed income would have to lose a supermarket or bodega they can afford. The overall horizon may have a dark hue on it, but I am glad that the artifical sheen that Bloomberg and cronies tried to put on this city is waxing off.
ReplyDeleteOh and J, thought of your blog today at the New York Public Library, I was doing research and looking at newspapers from the 1930's and there was an ad for Schrafft's advertising the best rye whiskey in town. :)
whiskey at schrafft's. nice.
ReplyDelete