New York City: Disney world on the Hudson

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The context of an earnest conversation about what New York City is turning into. The author of the Op-Ed is Jeremiah Moss, who maintains a fascinating photographic blog called " Jeremiah's Vanishing New York. " This follows-up on a recent article about even walk-ups ("walk-ups" are older buildings, that have no elevator but are up to five or six stories tall, and are typically more affordable because they don't have elevators or door men) are being purchased by real estate developers, and jacking up the rent by nearly 2/3. The average rent in NYC is over 3000 a month. But I think this conversation about what is happening to New York City is paralleling our national conversation about economic fairness and wealth too.



For background: the High line is an elevated rail spur that facilitated the moving of goods in midtown Manhattan, down to the meatpacking district. Rather than tear it down, it was suggested that it be instead turned into a park by the city.



I'm an old fart. My father was born and raised in Canada, served in the RCAF, and moved to the United States (Virginia, mostly to get away from the snow and frigid temperatures). So I have a lot of memories of family vacations going to Montreal, including stop-overs in New York City. The city then was in extremely bad shape during the mid 1970s. A series of fiscal disasters had it teetering near financial ruin (in part due to the lowered tax base facilitated by "white flight" to the suburbs. Infrastructure was falling apart-- bridges and the subway system were in serious disrepair. The Manhattan Bridge was crumbling into dust. Times Square which had been the crown jewel of Broadway was a shadow of its former glory. High crime rates, adult theaters, peep-show arcades, prostitutes, and pick-pockets made it a risky area for many tourists to wander around. Any available surface was covered in graffiti. I remember my father being a bit down about what the city had turned into. Things got so bad, New York had to ask the United States for money, to which the President Ford said "No."


New York Daily News infamous front page (President Ford changed his mind later).

When I arrived in 2000, the city seem very different to me. The first thing I noticed was how much cleaner everything was. Times Square was a vibrant place that was pretty safe, all kinds of new Broadway musicals and plays were filling theaters. Restaurants were bustling with patrons. But even the attitude was different. The city had recaptured its pride. Bridges were being repaired, the subway system was modernized, and no graffiti. In the 1970s if you said you lived in New York a typical reply would be "God, how do you survive there?" In 2000, when I told friends about my move, "Hey, when can I come up for a visit!?"

But over the time I've been here, a lot of the uniqueness has vanished. Neighborhoods are much safer true, but housing is pretty much unaffordable in those areas. The unique shops, bookstores, clothiers, have been muscled out by expensive chain stores, or stores that cater to very high end customers (pet clothing stores, designer clothes for toddlers, health spas, etc). The music scene has died in a significant way because there aren't venues for bands to learn their craft, those bars and lounges have been priced out by high rents and are now luxury condos. It's so bad, when Patti Smith was asked if it was possible for musicians to come to NYC to start a life in music she said no, saying "New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city." There are very few new Broadway musicals or plays anymore, new productions are revampings or remakes of either movies, or plays or revivals or painful vehicles excuses for performing Top 40 hits. Broadway orchestras have been reduced in size, while ticket prices are insanely expensive (I checked on two tickets to see the Spider-man production. Nearly 425.00) Bakery shops, bodegas (little grocery stores where you can buy a single cigarette for a dollar even ;), they're all vanishing as you will discover when you look through Mr. Moss' blog.

What the subway USED to look like:

I've noticed an increasing resentment about NYC's gentrification and "hipster-fication" that seems to have gained momentum, in large part to Mayor Bloomberg's indifference to financing building projects that favor middle class families, especially when he recently made a proposal for 300 sq. foot apartments that would rent for 3000.00 a month:


This micro apartment will rent for 3000.00 a month

The West Village along Christopher Street which has had a large gay population since the 1950s is even feeling the growing pains of gentrification. As rising rents make it impossible for working class gay men to live there, and as straight-hetero families move into the neighborhood, the inevitable complaints about gay bars being too loud due to their late hours and all the yelling and dancing and singing and smoking under their windows.

Personally, while I am very happy the city is a lot safer, cleaner, and has made some infrastructure improvements, I worry about at what cost and many of the unique things that New York offers are vanishing, as I have seen this firsthand. And this is not unique to New York for anyone that lives in a large urban center in the US. Some of the comments in Mr. Moss's echo my own sentiments, and the debate gets very lively. I agree, I don't see the loss of "Gasoline Alley" as a huge loss for Manhattan. But then, I don't drive a car here either. Mostly because of the expense.

Vintage video of what Times' Square used to look like:

Comments

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Matt Gallaway has written a well thought reply to all this. And his points are most excellent.

There’s an opinion piece in today’s NYT that blames the “overgentrification” of West Chelsea — specifically the influx of high-end retail, exorbitant residential towers, and vapid tourists — on the High Line Park, which if you haven’t heard of it is the elevated railway that’s being transformed into a park extending from roughly 10th Street/MePa into the low 30s on the far west side. This kind of writing drives me crazy because while it presents itself as being liberal and progressive — “save the local gas stations and help the working class” — at heart it’s very conservative, because in its nostalgic desire to keep one neighborhood (usually already gentrified) static, it ignores the plight of other neighborhoods (usually impoverished) whose populations have no desire to remain static. It’s like all those people who are like “let’s go back to the 70s” — which I can appreciate, because yeah, I want to live in a giant Soho loft for $300/month — but I also think of people who were living in Harlem and the Bronx when everything was burning, and I bet that they aren’t exactly excited to return to that period (and more to the point, areas that suffered forty years ago are in many cases still suffering). There’s a hypocrisy at play among those who like to complain about gentrification but who live in gentrified neighborhoods, and who moreover have never lived in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, and so have no inkling of what it means to crave those things complainers take for granted or even treat with disdain (a coffee shop being the usual signifier, or in this piece, tourists and their money). The piece in the Times reminds me of one written a few years ago by a blogger who lives in Cobble Hill who took a stroll along 125th Street and bemoaned the gentrification of Harlem, because the lines of vacant storefronts and pawn shops were now home to a bakery (as in one), a non-Starbucks, and maybe a new restaurant or two. I’m not saying that people uptown want to be infested with a strip of J.Crews and Banana Repubs, but there’s a middle ground, and it’s not wrong to want a coffee shop and a bakery, nor should wanting new businesses (or not really caring about the loss of gas stations) be equated with the desire to drive out every working-class person in the nabe. Believe it or not, people without millions of dollars also like to drink coffee and have fresh bread (and other kinds of fresh food) within walking distance of their/our apartments.

the rest is at this link. (http://matthewgallaway.tumblr.com/post/29968362938/a-few-notes-on-overgentrification)