# The death of the Lower East Side, NYC



## editor (Jul 11, 2008)

Just got this from my old mate in NYC who's lived on the LES for twenty-odd years. Makes a lot of our gentrification look tame.


> Sadly there is not very much to do around this neighborhood anymore.
> Avenue A is mostly empty. There has been a huge amount of real estate  bought up by some entity.
> 
> Tenants are being removed and luxury living for more Europeans is coming in.
> ...


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## D (Jul 11, 2008)

*a mural outside Mars Bar w/commentary*


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## twistedAM (Jul 11, 2008)

I meet a lot of musicians from Williamsburg and they reckon the area is going the same way as it's just over the bridge. Venues, hangouts closing all the time.


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## isitme (Jul 11, 2008)

this happens everywhere

I always get hope from the time that I spent in Milan and Berlin. the traditional artist quarters in both of those cities are just big tourist traps, but they both have fucking massive social centres and are still exciting places to be full of artists. it's just that the 'artistic' bits are a 20 minute busride from the centre instead of in the centre

I bet there is still a lot of stuff going on in New York, just not in the tourist bits


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## D (Jul 12, 2008)

Of course there's a lot of stuff going on...there's no shortage of 'stuff'.  BUT Manhattan and, increasingly, Brooklyn have become unaffordable to most artists.  And the real estate is so valuable that many venues cannot afford to stay open.

It's not a question of 'stuff' going on - it's about the history, architecture, integrity, and 'flavor' of individual neighborhoods virtually disappearing.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jul 12, 2008)

So where is everybody going?


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## D (Jul 12, 2008)

Bushwick
Crown Heights
Astoria
Jackson Heights
further out in Queens
Upper Manhattan
the Bronx
Jersey City


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## isitme (Jul 12, 2008)

D said:


> Of course there's a lot of stuff going on...there's no shortage of 'stuff'.  BUT Manhattan and, increasingly, Brooklyn have become unaffordable to most artists.  And the real estate is so valuable that many venues cannot afford to stay open.
> 
> It's not a question of 'stuff' going on - it's about the history, architecture, integrity, and 'flavor' of individual neighborhoods virtually disappearing.



artists didn't move there for that. Places like Greenwich Village and Brooklyn became famous because they were the cheapest places to live at the time, and if you are an artist you generally don't have any money

it certainly wasn't to do with architecture and integrity. 

then of course because it becomes an interesting place lots of people move there and push up the price, it's unavoidable, history is expensive....

and re: Brooklyn I think that is a different case altogether, there are about 2 million people live in Brooklyn and there have always been rich and poor people, it's a city within a city


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## D (Jul 12, 2008)

isitme said:


> artists didn't move there for that. Places like Greenwich Village and Brooklyn became famous because they were the cheapest places to live at the time, and if you are an artist you generally don't have any money
> 
> it certainly wasn't to do with architecture and integrity.
> 
> then of course because it becomes an interesting place lots of people move there and push up the price, it's unavoidable, history is expensive....



Umm - those people are what create the history and integrity of a neighborhood - the people who live in it.  As does the architecture.  And you're kidding yourself if you think people don't have preferences with respect to living in pre-war buildings as opposed to prefab, overpriced 'luxury' apartment buildings that all look the same.

Re Brooklyn - it's not a different situation altogether.  A different borough, yes, but gentrification is happening full-steam in that borough.  Manhattan has also historically had a mixture of rich and poor.  Formerly brownstone-only areas of Brooklyn are seeing massive real estate developments crop up right and left, mimicking the "manhattan luxury building" but on the (relatively) cheap - that is to say, still beyond the means of many of the people who might otherwise live in those neighborhoods.


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## D (Jul 12, 2008)

perhaps I'm missing your point(s), isitme?


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## D (Jul 12, 2008)

*and...*

it's not JUST in the 'character-filled'/artsy/ethnic/poor neighborhoods...

the area where I grew up - a mostly middle/upper middle class neighborhood - now VERY expensive - used to have a mix within that.  There used to be rent-stabilized housing on my block, there used to be a homeless shelter down the street.  Those things are long gone as are several brownstones/old store fronts.  Now this neighborhood has hideously ugly high rises too.


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## D (Jul 12, 2008)

*and, and!*

Many, many units in these heinous highrise buildings go unoccupied for ages, which makes the whole thing even more ridiculous.


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## isitme (Jul 12, 2008)

I have total faith in people, look at Paris, the best French music from this decade came out of the estates that they created because rich people wanted to live in the artist quarters 

In 10 years time I bet they are gentrifying Favelas in Brazil, who gives a fuck, times change, nostalgia is a luxury


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Jul 12, 2008)

D said:


> Many, many units in these heinous highrise buildings go unoccupied for ages, which makes the whole thing even more ridiculous.



But is it really any different from what has always been going on? Neighborhoods change, their desirablility changes, and demographics change. What was 'cool', stops being that, and some new area emerges.


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## D (Jul 12, 2008)

Well, nostalgia is one thing.  The absolutely appalling process of attempting to find a place to live in NYC - in the throes of which I shall possibly soon find myself - is quite another.


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Jul 12, 2008)

D said:


> Well, nostalgia is one thing.  The absolutely appalling process of attempting to find a place to live in NYC - in the throes of which I shall possibly soon find myself - is quite another.



The reality of urban life. The neighborhood I live in began its existence as the home to lower to middle class jewish immigrants who built modest but comfortable homes. I rent there. If I wanted to buy, I'd have to move twenty miles away.


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## isitme (Jul 12, 2008)

D said:


> it's not JUST in the 'character-filled'/artsy/ethnic/poor neighborhoods...
> 
> the area where I grew up - a mostly middle/upper middle class neighborhood - now VERY expensive - used to have a mix within that.  There used to be rent-stabilized housing on my block, there used to be a homeless shelter down the street.  Those things are long gone as are several brownstones/old store fronts.  Now this neighborhood has hideously ugly high rises too.



I can't really have an argument about New york with a New Yorker, I'm just a big fan of the place 

I do think that it's all fucked up. 

Where i grew up became cool as well, now noone can afford to live there because rich people like it now. I preffered it when it was a shithole in a way, but it hasn't ruined anything for me, or any of the people I know who grew up there, and we love all there money


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## D (Jul 12, 2008)

Johnny Canuck2 said:


> The reality of urban life. The neighborhood I live in began its existence as the home to lower to middle class jewish immigrants who built modest but comfortable homes. I rent there. If I wanted to buy, I'd have to move twenty miles away.



Try renting an apartment - hell, even a ROOM in NYC.

And with that, I am off to the opera.


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## paolo (Jul 12, 2008)

I remember - maybe not that long ago, perhaps 15 years or so - when the Lower East Side seemed a bit scary. Well, at least for a wet-behind the ears visitor like I was. Some guide books just said "don't go to Alphabet City", and even the edgier ones were saying "don't go beyond Avenue B after dark".

I ventured in as far as Avenue B in the day, then bailed.

Some years later, I had the chance to return. That end of town was certainly looking a bit 'nice' in places, but it still had a few vacant lots and wasn't totally swish.

I guess this does indeed happen anywhere where's the potential. Sad though. Was one of my favourite place in NYC.


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