"It's not just NYU. There are days when I feel like I'm stranded in some upscale mall in Pasadena. Don't even get me started on the insidious transformation of Bleecker Street!" --Jessica Hagedorn
"Those little garden plots on the corner of Bleecker and LaGuardia may not be on our way to anywhere. And yet we need them, we seek them out, to smell the wet earth, to remember the feel of soil drying on our hands, the smell of a fresh tomato, the wonder of a dogwood blooming. I'm sure NYU has computed the dimensions of this garden, but they are using the wrong units of measurements." --Peter Carey
"The tall buildings started to pop up all over the place. In the east village that used to groan when the fall came ('NYU' we'd hiss) and it meant that the east village was always our neighborhood but come fall all these kiddies would suddenly be streaming into the streets with their avidity and suburban fashion. But there were more of us than them so the problem was fortunately contained. They were actually still part of what there was. And there were many things here including students. Then by the 21st c. they were living in our buildings. Not like us, but like them. Their parents bought them apartments or else were paying the rent which was five times higher than ours. They were wandering (or running) through the halls of our building at night with their beers or also in their bathrobes between apartments with their cups of tea. They were incredibly loud. The way they were talking. Like no one was living here. Like they were living in a dorm. They were." --Eileen Myles
After NYU's expansion, "There will no NYU, no Village. Just another herd of de-zoned skyscrapers ready for another wrecking ball, another rage of 'development,' another detraction from New York City, that which makes it different from the featureless, dangerous inhuman depopulated streets of Downtowns USA across the country." --Kenneth Lonergan
"In the past, heartland whites with some kind of dream or desire left their towns for cities to become citified. They wanted to get away from religion, from their families, they wanted to come out, make art, have sex, have experiences. But this new crew was something we had never seen before. They were the first generation of suburban Americans. They came, not to be citified, but rather to change cities into places they could recognize and dominate." --Sarah Schulman
17 comments:
Ms. Schulman's comments resonate particularly loudly with me.
I'm giving out "While We Were Sleeping" as holiday gifts this year. The whole book is one big highlight for me...
"They came, not to be citified, but rather to change cities into places they could recognize and dominate."
That sums up the past decade of New York's history.
And Santacon is a direct expression of that sentiment and the people who embody it.
If I had some other place to go, I'd be leaving right about now...with all the good memories intact. Alas...
Not that it was on his list, by I told my son that he may not apply to NYU, strictly on the basis of my sentiments about this monstrous machine disguised as a University.
Sarah Schulman all the way. Bravo, woman!
Yes, Sarah Schulman put it quite well.
shes wrong, has it backwards. the developers do what they do. the students & new comers either like or they dont. college students/young people were not always interesting or hip, hate to rain on your parade. most college student were/are mainstream/boring. they always walked around in bathrobes in dorms, or in the student apts. nothings changed! what HAS changed is that NYU has expanded, so you have thousands more "boring students" who would would have either been in boston (btw, has changed as well), somehere upstate, mid west, LA. shulman says "its nothing like weve seen before..." sorry, i have seen this 45yrs ago. most of my classmates from brookyn left for suburban college towns. they couldnt wait to get their drivers licenses for "college". if they stayed in NY (worked for the family business), they eventually moved to long island (shopping centers anyone)? or they lived in a doorman buildings on 3rd & the 70s/80s. they didnt know what the east village was. they knew midtown restaurants, broadway shows, & back to the family on "the island". now you have so many MORE of these same kind of young people in NYC. (thanks to school expansion). shulman gives these new kids sooooomuch power. how can some 18 yr old "dominate" ? the developers gear the chain stores to the new population, & colleges are corporations. if you saw JFK university in boston, you would think it was a housing project. blame the new world for this. more UNinteresting young people are in NYC, as there are more spaces for them in college. (i refused to attend school "outside" of NYC-1960s-, as i didnt want to be w/the same kind i went to public high school with. i never liked huge modern buildings, i chose a tiny school in NY which was an older building. guess if i was 18 now, i may want to get OUT of the city. i hear my school expanded & is linked w/NYU! what goes around, comes around.
Do you ever notice that when you gripe about NYU and Bloomberg to those enrapt to development and the destruction of NYC, they roll their eyes at you? I come here to affirm that I am not crazy. Thank you
I'm with Ms. Schulman- the expansion of NYU and the expansion of wealth to only the privileged few have exacerbated this problem everywhere.
The new-newcomer comes to the city not to be embraced by the uniqueness of it all, and to join all the misfits who ran away from the suburbs and the conformity- these people despise and are afraid of the uniqueness of the city. They want to bring the suburbs with them to the city and obliterate the things that are strange and unfamiliar.
Bloomberg nurtures these beliefs himself as do all these developers who also seem to hate what NYC is and want to change it with the swipe of a pen. To change the gritty, the foreign, the low rent, the unique to new and clean and wealthy and all-american.
anon 11:34. you have a fantacy that the majority of young people came to NYC were misfits. (& the newer people want to bring the suburbs w/them). you are romantizing the past. as i said in my last post, people have not changed, there are just more of them you dont like! as for developers they dont think about beliefs, they just build. its world wide, international. my feeling is that most students/young people want to live in brooklyn. they may want to live in a more interesting area. if chain stores come, dont blame them. and dont even blame the kids you dont like, it is out if their hands. walmart was built next to the most sacred historical site (national treasure) somewhere in mexico. what makes you think that new york is exempt? its not so much an "expansion of wealth", look the entire picture.
This intra-university feud is nothing short of what happens in other universities, where students, especially undergraduate students, are sometimes seen as some kind of nuisance that must be kept away from "tainting" otherwise nice neighborhoods where an urban campus is placed (for obvious reasons, self-contained campuses don't suffer from this). So there is nothing unique about this controversy in the Village, it goes over and over in any major urban campus.
Also not unique is this plan to freeze some neighborhood in time as if it were ever possible to keep ever-changing social dynamics from changing again.
Sometimes I feel like some people would like to assume the position of control freaks dictating everything about the environment that surrounds them, from the music people are allowed to listen to clothes they are allowed to wear, to seating arrangements and menus of the restaurants they patronize. Most people will idealize and romanticize their "young years" and loath anything that drifts away from fond memories of that time.
You can't expect people to stay the same over time as some type of cyborgs. Even if there were not in- or out-migration from Manhattan at all, the mere intergenerational changes would bring at least a good chunk of the eyebrow-raising many commentators on this site have.
Now I rear some people saying they would deny their kid the possibility to apply to a certain university because they (parents) don't like the way the university "ruined" (allegedly) an atmosphere that faded by the mere passage of time. It sound eerily similar to the pattern of "making my kids living the live I wish I had lived by their age".
@Uncle Waltie I hear ya. A few weeks ago I went upsate to Beacon, NY to visit the DIA. Afterwards, my friend and I went to a local pub for dinner and drinks and I was shocked at what I saw.
4-5 TVs on the wall over the bar showing the various football games, all of them with the volume off. The juke box was playing music but not so loud the people had to yell at the person next to them to be heard. The best part were the people at the bar, my best guess between the ages of 25-55. All of these things existing in perfect harmony. And the food was even good! No beer pong, no Santacon, no dudes, bros, or OMG girls and no wooo. No. Woo. It was utopia!
I was telling my friend who I was with about the new demographic back here in NYC and how it's rapidly changing for the worse. I moved here when I was 22 and I used to think I would die here. But not anymore. Now I see myself living upstate in 5-10 years. I can't get away from these awful people fast enough. I hope they all choke on a McRib.
there should be areas which are residential, & have zoning concerning business, building heights etc. soon there will be no difference between anything. adults & families dont want to live near noise crowds bars etc. its not the fault of the students, but the fault of the corporations. its about "choices", which are now limited. the village is a historic area, we are losing our history. some pockets should be historical as well. change can be good, but not always all the time. life cant always revolved around business, whether its big box stores or big box colleges.
NYC had been nearly devoid of chain stores for decades. Now, they are everywhere. If you think developers don't have ideas about these things you should check out the post about the new IHOP in the village. They clearly have ideas and plans- you don't just plunk down millions of dollars without having a plan for the area and ties to the local politicians. This is a planned luxurification and suburbinization of NYC and the soul of the city is being diluted. This is not by accident, this is part of Bloomberg's plans for the city- he has been dismantling everything that isn't a developer's dream, mall or condo complex. The Hunt's Point Market, the Fish Market, Hospitals, Old Age Homes, Iron Triangle etc.- all are targets so that more malls and condos (and let's not forget Stadiums) can be built.
this is about the corp (big business) vs the little guy. when small businesses fold, indivuality is gone. personal relationships are gone, its all impersonal & transient. also most chains are really ugly. new york did have chains in the old days, not alot but they were there. not as loud or gross as now, everythings in your face now. also chains were usually in commerical areas. i do remember them being more lower end, w/out much advertising blitz, & never a gigantic box store!
I always find it ironic that when I went to catholic high school in Brooklyn in the 60's 70's John Sexton was our SAT coach and head of the Debate Club. Such a nerd! I never thought he'd "rise" to where he is now.
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