In ancient times, "The Bowery" was a synonym for New York City's seedy, seething underworld. Today, the final remnants of Bowery poverty are, like any good metaphor, moving to Brooklyn and being replaced by a boutique hotel.

Two days after Spike Lee's anti-gentrification rant, someone spray-painted "Do the Right Thing" several times on a house next door to Lee's old home in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn.

Last night, Spike Lee delivered an impassioned, scathing critique of gentrification and how its changed Brooklyn, and New York City as a whole, for the worse.

"American Secrets: New York City" is an audiovisual attempt at reckoning with Stop and Frisk, gentrification, and coming of age New York City by three young American artists (two emcees, one graphic designer) and their Mayor. The song and video embedded above deal with these hard questions; the lyrics are pasted…

Williamsburg, Brooklyn is one of the most famously gentrified neighborhoods in the country, having completed its transition from industrial wasteland/ ethnic enclave to "place where financiers live in glass towers and joke about the 'hipsters' who can no longer afford to live there." But a few years ago, well—…

Last I saw you, you were stamping a kiss onto my forehead. I don't remember what you were wearing, or your smell. Only that you gave me a kiss the night before you left. That was twenty-three years ago. I was five.

We all know that "DC" has traditionally stood for "Duh, [our] City [is an epicenter of hipness]." An ill (slang for "bad") wind this way blows, however. Could gentrification be threatening Chocolate City's young, hip vibe?

Today we read of the ruination of Williamsburg, starting much conversation about that neighborhood-in-flux. But, as one commenter reminded us, this problem is not specific to the L train, or even New York! Attend the sad tale of South Beach.

Today the New York Times tells us that the urban locavore purist population of New York's still-hippest neighborhood, Brooklyn's Williamsburg, are furious about the encroachment of Duane Reade and Starbucks into their 'hood. Well, most residents are, anyway.

There was a time, historians say, when Manhattan's Lower East Side was home to a thriving community of wretched poor people. Now, their former tenements host only idle young yuppie layabouts such as yourself. Where shall the L.E.S.'s poor-helpers go?

The gay community is famous for moving into gritty neighborhoods, sprucing them up, and moving along once wealthy heteros start buying up the real estate. That's fine, but before we start mourning the gayborhood, let's get a few things straight.

The NYC Housing Authority is spending $248 million to renovate two shitty Brooklyn housing projects, while "a developer recently spent...$152 million [building a] condominium tower nearby." Which is probably languishing unsold! Just give everyone a free condo, the end. [NYT.]

"I'd rather see more coffee shops and restaurants open than bodegas and nail salons," said one dude opening a coffee shop in Crown Heights, currently home to many bodegas and nail salons. There is so much beef now.

Here is how cities work: Seedy neighborhood+Gentrification= Only a faint romantic halo of former seediness, which is used for real estate marketing purposes. Any attempt at neighborhood reversion to pre-gentrification standards will be terminated with extreme affluence.

Ghetto Pass was a written tour of "the people and places of browner territories". Yesterday photo-auteur Diana and I frolicked about El Barrio with hopes of capturing a beautiful spring day in pictures.