http://nymag.com/daily/food/
Why must the upscale uproot community and poison authentic New York? Because they can? Why can't they just leave us alone?
Answer: community provides their escapades the quaint backdrop of authenticity lacking in their glass venues, at least for the brief moment before they destroy every unpretentious, human corner of community in sight and seek out another last refuge of New Yorkers to erase forever.
Hip nightlife thrives on a diet of living communities. Guess what the dim communivore leaves behind. A vast desert of the pale fruit of its bowels. Dressed to kill.
End of bitter rant.
"Why must the upscale uproot community and poison authentic New York? Because they can? Why can't they just leave us alone? "
ReplyDeleteI ask the same question....
wow... I just stumbled across your blog~ Is there anything we can do to stop this-because I mean, I live in the LES on Pitt Street in the Projects of Gompers. I heard their planning on tearing it down or something like selling it. UGghhh, now we have Donald Trump breathing down the neck of our inhabitants.
ReplyDeleteI second Ma Shumin; who seconded your question:
" Why must the upscale uproot community and poison authentic New York? Because they can? Why can't they just leave us alone?"
It's all been going downhill for Chinatown since Chuck Connors started leading tours of uptown tourists a hundred years ago.
ReplyDeleteApotheke has not got its license yet from the State Liquor Authority. I'm not sure when the SLA will be hearing their application, but I think all of Chinatown ought to go up there and let the SLA know.
ReplyDeleteThe SLA commissioners are not from Manhattan. Only one is from New York City. They just don't know what to do unless the community goes up there.
This bar will not be alone. It will bring crowds in limos attracting other upscale bars which will raise commercial rents way beyond anything current store owners can pay. The process is quick. A neighborhood can be transformed in as little as a year or two. And it will spread in all directions. Look at Orchard, Ludlow and Stanton. First bars, then huge hotels.
About Gompers -- I haven't heard any buzz about selling or demolishing. And so far as I know they are NYCHA not Mitchell-Lama, so they can't just opt into privatization. But there are plenty of pressures on public housing and as the neighborhoods gentrify those pressures will only increase.
ReplyDeleterob, i linked to you here. are you sure apotheke doesn't have its license yet? they are serving private parties now and plan to open 9/5.
ReplyDeletehttp://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2008/08/doyers-street.html
It seems the SLA website is out of date. It shows their license as "pending."
ReplyDelete