Gawker
The Lower East Side is changing! You blink once, and the neighborhood has gone from an immigrant-packed hovel of tenements to a rich jerk-packed hovel. Of condos! The National Trust for Historic Preservation has just named the entire freaking neighborhood one the nation's 11 most endangered places:
"Slapdash and haphazard renovations have led to the destruction of architectural detail, while modern additions to historic buildings sharply contrast with the neighborhood's scale and character. In 2007, permits were approved for the full demolition of 11 buildings on the Lower East Side, compared with just one in 2006. These developments, among others, signify the quickening erasure of the neighborhood's architectural and socio-cultural fabric...A melting pot of cultures and nationalities, the Lower East Side remains central to the social history of the United States. Its preservation of 19th and early 20th century properties convey the story of immigrant home, health, entrepreneurship, labor, education and recreational life in New York City."
Well, at least the character of the neighborhood will be forever preserved on Grand Theft Auto IV. And on the plus side, the Bowery Boys have really calmed down lately.
[via Curbed]
Comments
Well, at least the availability of STDs hasn't disappeared over the years. The LES has recently been flagged for excessive syphilis cases. Something for me and my father to discuss as we have a nosh at Russ & Daughters. Or not.
At least we'll always have All of a Kind Family.
"Architectural" fabric? I used to take a bath, smoke, watch television and drink wine because my dirt hole that was one tenant past being a shooting gallery with its tub as living room furniture was that big.
I recently moved "downtown" and so I ditched my old friends from "uptown".
To preserve this neighborhood from those rich jerks, you know.
Are we sure the authors doesn't mean 1907 and 1908?
@ambitious: "author" singular. Although "authors" does make it sound like old timey LES 'mgrant talk.
LES? Toast. Remember, kids, it's Jackson Heights that we need to save now.
I grew up in the LES.
Once THOR started being built, and being called the "giant glass penis" above the 5 floor walk-up tenements, we knew it was all over.
I was about to make a derogatory remark about the smell of the LES in the summer, but then I remembered the corner of Lex and 86th.
@depardoo: Isn't that where Petco is/was?
My great-grandparents grew up in the LES tenements - They were a slum and a hellhole (the tenements, not my grandparents). There is nothing worthy of preservation.
This is just a matter of 'OK, my neighborhood is gentrified just enough to my liking, now everyone else stay out.' See also: Historic Preservation of Domino Sugar Factory.
@dogisdead: Who's to say what constitutes an "excessive" number of syphilis cases?
i bought a great photo book recently called "Life on the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950" (that title just rolls off the tongue, doesnt it?) one of the photos is a street scene, nobody around and everything blanketed in snow and my first thought was "this is amazing, it could just as easily be today." im sorry to be sincere, but it is sad to lose living history.
@FitnessMadeSimple:
Exactly, with a nice dash of juicebar trash.
What will become of Ultragrrrl?! Who will guide us through the confusing world of karaoke? She's a national treasure.
@Hiphopopotamus: Y'see, the thing is that Historic Preservation isn't merely an issue of aesthetics but also (often) one of history, and history doesn't always happen in pretty places.
Plus, I'm fairly certain the people behind the National Trust for Historic Preservation don't actually live in the LES (probably DC), so this really ain't a matter of some LESers' seige mentality against gentrification.
Ox can explain it all...
Everything is different, but the same... things are more moderner than before... bigger, and yet smaller... it's computers... San Dimas High School football rules.
If a neighborhood doesn't have uber-hip bars at which I can pay $12 for a cocktail, then that neighborhood isn't worth preserving.
@bittergreen: yeah, but it isn't worth gentrifying either.
Hell yeah, it's endangered. I saw the writing on the wall the minute somebody went over the WK Interact garage-door diptych on Ludlow Street.
How will future generations appreciate the struggles of the neighborhood's original gentrifiers, those art students, band members and rich, directionless dilettantes that gave the neighborhood the edgy hipster stink for which it is famous? For God's sake, our children will know the L.E.S. is cool without even knowing why! Won't somebody please think of the children?!
@FitnessMadeSimple: I suppose when, while at Starbucks, you hear more people discussing the eclectic differences in symptoms, rather than their fledging memoirs.
I made an oops and cited that from a "crunchy" friend who, now that I think of it, perhaps shared this broad statistic with me an in attempt to rationalize any pesky STD's she's contracted while boozing on the LES. More disturbing, though, was my reaction: "That's one of the curable ones, right? Well, OK then."
I knew it was over the day I walked over to one of my favorite haunts, the Bowery Poetry Club, after a year-long absence and saw (gasp!) a hugh condo complex in construction! Right near the club. Another slap in the face, right after the death of CBGB.
@Bsana: huge, not hugh, oops
I've been living down here for nearly 4 years, and I know I have no grounds to complain, but my building is old and has a tiled star of david in it..and I love it. Even when I moved down here, it was bad, but not THIS bad. I knew it was REALLY over when the parking lot on the corner of my street got turned into The Ludlow: Live like a Rockefellar, Party like a Rockstar. Fucking assholes.
@clucksandfries: Seriously? The Ludlow doesn't just invite people to be douches, it also provides the instructions? Damn.
is ABC NO RIO still there?
@veeelchop: Yes, right next door to an expensive sneaker shop.
No wonder Lockhart Steele Curbed (ar ar) his enthusiasm for the LES...
@Bsana:
Okay, please refrain from mentioning CBGB as a great institution, it was a SHIT HOLE....no wait....yeah, it was a SHIT HOLE. Overpriced show, the place stank, the drink were overpriced and alot of crappy bands played there.
I GET IT, The Ramones played at CBGB...but you know what?...still sucks.
They were also a shitty, crappy band. I'm tired of people using closing of CBGB as yardstick of what is now wrong with LES and lower manhattan.
Manhattan & Brooklyn are now playground for the rich and those willing to live pay check to pay check to live like the rich.
I hate work today.
@EleanorRigby: Wow, I thought I was the only person who ever read those. And lately, it seems like I dreamed them and they never existed in the first place.
I'm not sure there is any neighborhood left in NYC that is what is was. I'm all for progress, but it seems like everything is beyond gentrified. It's becoming like one giant issue of Vanity Fair.
@tokenblackgirl: Okay, that's your opinion. I still like CBGB. Have a better day at work tomorrow.
I had my wedding at ABC NO RIO. Happy days. Rats, junkies and always, holes in the walls but I especially loved the beauty supply shop across the street.
@Aunt Penny , the Vanity Fair metaphor is spot on.
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