Meanwhile, the space next door is for rent. The advertising makes it clear: Who is New York for? American and foreign tourists.
Who are the "new village people"? Hipsters and business!
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Shakespeare & Hipsters & Tourists
Shakespeare and Co. is still open at 716 Broadway, unsure of when the closure will come. Visit them before they're gone--they've got a packed New York table just waiting for you.
Meanwhile, the space next door is for rent. The advertising makes it clear: Who is New York for? American and foreign tourists.
Who are the "new village people"? Hipsters and business!
Meanwhile, the space next door is for rent. The advertising makes it clear: Who is New York for? American and foreign tourists.
Who are the "new village people"? Hipsters and business!
Could they be any more predictable?
ReplyDeleteThey are trying to rent a space. What are they supposed to say? The people walking around and spending money are tourists and nyu students. They are the customer base. It not transplants scraping by in rent controlled studios who go grocery shopping at the dollar store and then wonder why all the cool stores are closing. They are stores and if business is bad they close.
ReplyDeleteWow, talk about troll advertising!
ReplyDeleteTransplants scraping by in rent stabilized studios shopping at dollar stores ?
ReplyDeleteIf in fact they are rent stabilized and are transplants they have been here at least 20 years and are probably paying a reant upwards of 2k a month, have paid into the taxbase for those 20 plus years with amsalary of at least 50k and im sure much more in most cases, are prabably highly educated, have supported local businesses for 20 plus years, set down roots and are active in their communities and have added color and texture to this city and to be quite honest probably make up the majority of the customers at bookstores.
These are the real new yorkers.
How dare you attempt to belittle the people that have propped up this city the last half century and made it the place you wanted to come to ?!
The reason the "cool" store are closing is because the vapid suburban set, the ignorant lifers and clueless tourists dont patronize them.
Wow. Truly unbelievable that NYC has come to a place where there is advertising/real estate signage esentially specifying who "should" (or should not) be here. The blatant articulation of the demographic "cleansing" goals of the Bloomberg Administration.
ReplyDelete....."and made it the place you wanted to come" I made the point about transplants because I am not one. I guess I'm an ignorant native lifer. As far as propping up this city- it never needed anyone from the flyover zone to prop it up or to move here and tell me how its supposed to be. Do you have any stats to back up your info regarding rents and income? All I know is when they have hearings at cooper union everyone is screaming how the rent is too damn high and how broke they are. Am I wrong? Are all the other assumptions you made about community involvement and education levels - Are they correct? If they moved here from Nebraska/Iowa etc chances are they didn't add any 'color' to the neighborhood. As far as 20+ years goes- why does that matter? Though if they moved here after Guiliani got elected they are certainly horrible gentrifiers right? Its the old argument over who is a 'real' New Yorker or who is the city for. Isn't that the point? Do you own this neighborhood? Only you can decide what is appropriate? By the way this is all a long term response to the city going bankrupt in the 70s. This never gets mentioned but its what has driven a lot of policy going back to the Koch administration. If you transplants don't know what I'm talking about go look it up. Its more important to modern NYC history than sandy or 9/11.
ReplyDeletemost transplants never made NYC a place i want to come too. few of you are important to me. you talk about stuff i dont even know about. im not having a contest but im 4 generations LES. each generation had their "take". i started to dislike it when it was called "east village". my greatgrandparents disliked it when 500,000 people lived an area about one mile square. my grandfather &his brothers shared an apt w/nine roommates. both of these families got out & met in upstate NY. then some of them moved to brooklyn. people come & go. places change & people move, new ones come in. what goes around comes around. unfortunatly corporations are moving everywhere.
ReplyDeleteParagraphs please...
ReplyDeleteRegarding your retort, I said 20 PLUS years which can be up to 100 Years. And as eb white said in here is new york the transplants are the dreamers. They bring passion to NYC and have for generations changed the world and nyc should get down on their knees and thank them for coming here just like you should thank your transplant parents and grandparents who came here. Everyone came here from somwhere else even if they are a generation or two removed.nobody is a native new yorker.
And for the most part "native" new yorkers are layabouts who take the city for granted and are generally insular,unwordly and relatively uneducated.
"Transplants" dreamed of great things, came here as refugees from opprression or homophobia in search of safety and/or community.
In the areas that "transplants" have historically settled, manhattan, brooklyn and queens there is no doubt that their education levels are higher than average as most grew up in relative financial comfort with an emphasis on education post ww2. Many of them children of the white flight set whose parents wanted a better life for their children and that included higher education.
Beyond that these dreamers who came here to change the world needed to be intelligent, creative and saavy people and they were.
To characterize AND demean these great people who came here to fight the civil rights battles, to create great works of art, and to better the world and themselves as "scraping by in their rent stabilized studios shopping at the dollar stores" is such an ignorant statement I cannot even fathom it.
They came when NYC was on her knees and they remained through all the bad times. Bankruptsy, AIDS, crime and blight.
There is nobody I know that is rent stabilized that doesnt make a decent salary, travel, possiblly own or rent a country house, shops at real grocery stores, eat out at nice restaraunts on occassion.
In other words real people living in the greatest city in the world and taking full advantage of it.
Of course there are the outer borough "natives" and many in the immigrant population who are struggling and shopping at dollar stores and I feel for their plight but they arent the "transplants"
ReplyDeleteA comment on the posted comment:
"And for the most part "native" new yorkers are layabouts who take the city for granted and are generally insular,unwordly and relatively uneducated."
Actually it would be untrue, not to mention unfair, to assume and to characterize native New Yorkers as "layabouts" etc. Moreover, there were tons of native New Yorkers, multi-generations, in all five boroughs, who "remained through all the bad times" who were committed and helped keep NYC going.
Wow - insular unworldly and uneducated - and if your friends travel and own country houses and eat at nice restaurants why are they rent stabalized? Seems like they have taken full advantge if that is the case. So we should thank 1% baby Boomer transants for without them we wouldn't live in the uptopia of 2014 NYC. Where would we be without them? Maybe someday I can buy a country house and become a real person.
ReplyDeleteI said for the most part. Unlike the guy up top who stereotyped ALL rent stabilized people as scraping by grocery shopping at dollar stores.
ReplyDeleteAs far as owning a country house and eating at restaraunts there is nothing in the rent stabilization code saying you cannot.
I would not characterize my rent of 2k a month low income housing nor is rent stabilization an invome based program.
It is not public housing. It is a program meant to keep nefarious landlords from price gouging and putting people on the streets and for the stabilxation of communities.
Anon. 8:25- You just buried yourself with that last comment. What a load of elitist nonsense.
ReplyDeleteThere is most certainly such a thing as a native New Yorker and pretending there isn't doesn't mask your obvious jealousy at the fact you're a transplant.
I'm a transplant from upstate New york, but lived in the city since I was 18, more than 25 years. The contempt you reveal for the so called layabouts, the insular and relatively unworldly natives, the folks who did in fact stay through the worst of times and make up the backbone of the city, is what I can't fathom. All the Irish and Italian, Polish and Ukrainian, Jewish and Puerto Rican and Chinese and Black natives who built this city and still call it home, who have been and are being displaced from their traditional neighborhoods and seeing their traditions and cultures wiped out by gentrification deserve an enormous amount of respect.
Coming from a working class ethnic Catholic background, my allegiance is to that New York before anything else. Many transplants have done amazing things in this great city, but even when I got here in the late 80's it was clear that the artist/bohemian class had little if anything to do with ethnic New York, other than sharing the same streets, and helping to lay the groundwork for later waves of gentrification.
You're definitely the insular and unworldly one.
Some person typed-
ReplyDelete"To characterize AND demean these great people who came here to fight the civil rights battles, to create great works of art, "
Please list the civil rights battles mid-western hipster transplants (defined as coming to the city in,say, the past 15 years) have engaged in.
Please list the great works of art created by mid-western hipster transplants. I do not include the creation of new bacon hybrid dishes as art.
Couple things, I gave props to the immigrant population and those who ACTUALLY built this city but did and will continue to believe that second and third generation "native" new yorkers for the most part are living off their forefathers legacy of hard work and for the most part are insular, lower educated and unworldly. There is an arrogance and smugness to them simply for being born here
ReplyDeleteNow their forefathers they were the dreamers. They were the doers. They had the fortitude to leave their homes and families and go somwhere and do something great for themselves and the world.
Are there some spawn of the first generation who have gone out in the wotld and done great things on their own ? absolutely and many of them.
But the average mope that just happened to have been born here and really never went out and explored the world is not some sort of hero or someone to be admired and put on a pedastool
Its those of us who shed our former lives in the pursuit of great things and at great risk that deserve the accolades along with all first generation immigrants and dreamers.
And to anon 3:43 where did I mention midwestern hipsters of the last 15 years.
I said 20 plus years ago. The people who came here during great civil unrest of the 50s and 60s, during the gay liberation movement in the 60s and 70s during the AIDS crisis in the 80s and early 90s, those who chose to live here during fiscal collapse, raging crime and an uncertain future to be a part of something bigger then themselves and to change the world in large and small ways.
Ive made my point and I stick by it.
Im done
And let me also say my grandparents are off the boat irish who helped build boston. They had the foresight to get my father an education and send him out in the world to do great things and he did and never looked back. He moved to nyc and started a career before raising his family just outside the city.
ReplyDeleteWhile many of his second generation contemporaries stayed back in southie moaning about the changingng neighborhood for decades doing nothing with their lives.
I am completeley anti gentrification but laying around, living off your parents and grandparents legacy and your staus as a "native" is not going to change the course of this city.
Rise up and do something like I am.
And btw you know that the artist/bohemian class has been a part of the fabric of new york since the turn of the last century right ? Right along with the waves of immigrants.
ReplyDeleteAnd that those artists, writers, musicians and other bohemians did as much if not more in building this town and opening the door to other socially maligned classes such as blacks and gays to come here and build communities and fight for their rights throughout the 20th century.
You know that right ?
This was as much a beacon and haven for for those refugees as it was for the irish, italians, and puerto ricans to find safe harbor.
The bohemian class built this town into the center of the cultural world.
I feel this bashing of natives to be elitist and racist. So they are unworldly and uneducated. Sorry transplamt but millions of working class outer borough natives are the backbone of this city. Their displacement in Doombergs NY was accelerated by folks like you. Your smug self righteous racist elitist 1% mimdset is appealing
ReplyDeleteCongrats on having a college degree and a passport. Please use it to leave. I always amused because one doesn't.have to leave town to be worldly because the world is here. Maybe you should have stayed and improved your hometown
After all you brought such wonderful changes here. I was at a park cleanup last weekend . It was in the Bronx . It was a great local event. I know you types.don't go there as its too scary right Too bad It was a great community event. Guess it wasn't mentioned at the Yale club eh? Oh well it was full of real people improving their.neighborhood
Go back.to whatever you do .
You started bashing "transplants" in their rent stabilized studios shopping at dollar stores" alluding to the fact that they do nothing to support local businesses and I simply needed to shoot that down.
ReplyDeleteI have been here almost 30 years and many "transplants" have been here 40, 50, 60, 70 years.
Everyone comes from somewhere else invluding your parents and grandparents.
There are no native new yorkers but the american indians.
There is not a hint of racism in any of my writings.
I came here as a refugee from hate and homophobia at the height of the aids crisis while the city was on its knees and have done more to help my community then most people in this town.
I will die here.
This is as much my town as anyone elses and I will not be disparaged and demeaned as some sort of interloper by someone who just happened to have been spit out here.
I see -now youve used the gay card and the American Indian reference. You must be out of responses. My initial point remains the same. Help your community? Good for you. But we both know when you talk about being unworldly and lazy.and uneducated you don't mean your liberal white gay friends. You mean the outer borough nonwhites.. It is racist and patronizing. Its like moving to the whitest part of NYC and telling losers back home about diversity. This blog really tells the story of what people like you did to NYC. We can blame the 20something bros all we want. Someone laid the foundation. Someone in the past moved here and decided it was too.low end too gritty too ethnic too unworldy. They started a fire.and its consuming old school NY. Thanks
ReplyDeleteYou bizarrely described "transplants" as rent stabilized dollar store shoppers who do nothing to support their local stores and communnities.
ReplyDeleteI shot that foolish claim down. Pointing out how those of us who came here from the 1950s throuhgh the early 90s came with purpose. Whether that was for safe harbor from homophobia in their hometowns, to be actors and actresses, musicians, painters, writers, to immerse ourselves in the culture or just seeking out a sense of community.
We came here when people were fleeing, crime was through the roof, fiscal crisis ruled, AIDS ravaged the city.
You cant pin gentrifier on me pal.try as you may..
And again there is not a lick of racism in any of my comments.
Dumb is color blind..
And for the most part midwesterner transplants are white-trash who couldn't even hack in their own insular backward farm town and who take the city for granted and are generally insular,unwordly and relatively uneducated.
ReplyDeleteStereotyping is a lazy pursuit. If there is a kernel of truth to a cliché, it is swiftly magnified by confirmation bias.
Having been evicted a year ago, missing NYC, and observing the battle on the comments here (I'd been treated very well by the Shakes staff in the past....)
ReplyDeleteThere IS such a thing as a native New Yorker. I married one.
He was born and raised in the Bronx, then moved to the East Village in the 60s. He is very proud of his knowledge of many neighborhoods, and bent over head over heels to share it with me, as well as other 'secret' places--to eat, drink, listen to music, watch racehorses... a dozen and other heady things and places and radio stations. Native New Yorkers share things with transplants they like and trust.
Anyway, I am a transplant from DC. The neighborhood in which I lived (drug wars, racism) was undergoing a revitalization, so I moved here. My transplantation lasted from when I arrived, at 21 years old, until I was evicted at 45. I love and miss the NYC I knew, quite a long time. I am also very angry at how I was evicted.
Where did I shop for groceries?
Prana, the 4th St. Co-op, Whole Foods on Prince in SoHo, Gourmet Garage. Back then it was really in a garage!
Dean and Deluca on Broadway had closing deals on produce as well.
Rent-stabilized. We all were then, they were GIVING away places. No fee, three months free rent. I helped a friend with a squat, because I was lithe and able to carry tools and such over a broken staircase.
Anyway... I don't know of any "dollar stores". I did buy soap at National Wholesale Liquidators on Broadway. Is that what you mean?
--Former East Villager