http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/06/the-end-of-new-york-how-one-blog-tracks-the-disappearance-of-a-vibrant-city.html
Our landlord, BLACKSTONE, can't handle Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village. There is a lack of enforcement of certain "rules," and no amount of notice to this alleviates the problems. We are continually being told half-truths and fabrications. And we have no viable Tenants organization, despite our TA asking for dues all the time. So far, the politicians have proven to be basically useless. A typical New York story.
"The blame, says Moss, lies with Bloomberg, turning the city’s population into consumers rather than citizens."
ReplyDeleteTrue, great line from the article. Thanks STR
LOL
ReplyDeleteAnother true, disgustingly sad and frighteningly close-to-home line from the article
On Gawanus
"The area is “totally polluted,” with the storm drains of luxury condos blocked by feces, he says."
Sounds like PCVST with our overpopulation of drunken students who pee in the stairways and bushes, have sex in the lobbies, and required new valves in the basements for all their flushes. GROSS
Another one!
ReplyDelete"New York becomes a chain-littered luxury suburb"
What is the difference between New York City, Dallas, Kansas City, Stamford CT, Los Angeles, Hong Kong etc. NOTHING!
We lost everything special and unique to NYC.
Thank god for Paris.
I like his take on Chinatown because that's exactly the way I feel. It really is the last Manhattan neighborhood left, though even it is starting to slowly disappear, with former dinning palaces being replaced by hotels and condos.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few places in Manhattan that Moss feels have escaped hyper-gentrification’s ossifying grasp.
“I love walking through Chinatown. It still looks like an accident—like how cities are supposed to look. You can see the layers of history, things are haphazard. People are making things happen on a small scale. There’s a lawlessness. There’s food put out in plastic buckets. No one is regulating them.”
This quote is priceless, too:
ReplyDelete>>As soon as vegan bakeries “or anything with the word ‘artisanal’ in it opens, there goes the neighborhood,” he says wryly.<<
STR = please please delete or shhhhhh on the Chinatown post. You are so right. I don't dare mention it as it too, will be gone soon.
ReplyDeleteUnder his pen name, Jeremiah Moss, he also wrote two great articles, one in the NY Times (regarding the Highline)and one in the Daily News (regarding the Central Park Horse Carriage industry). On his FB NY Vanishing page, there are always trolls who say, NY is always changing, get a life, etc. This is my standard response to them:
ReplyDeleteTwelve years of Bloomberg and Burden, who rezoned 40% of NYC, to draw in the favorites of the RE industry (who own this town), the rich, Euro trash, tourists, college students, the just post college Bro/Hipster/Tech crowd and the corporate chain stores that cater to them. Five transient roommates per apartment to share the high rent. The destruction of the NYC middle/working family class, with the steady weakening of the NYS RS law, is now almost complete.
The wonderful thing about Chinatown is that you see families there, from infants to 100 year olds. Not the non diverse Bro world that our community, the EV, etc., is turning into. Don't get me wrong, there are still young families here. But in my experience, that demographic is shrinking fast, dorm style apartments are now the standard.
ReplyDeleteChinatown died after 9/11, and all the great restaurants moved to Flushing. It's a 3rd rate shell of it's former self with it's only redeeming quality is the retention of the grit and run down feeling of tenement buildings that are 100+ years old. You're grasping at straws if you think that this is the last surviving Manhattan nabe.
ReplyDeleteI've been to Chinatown many times after 9/11 and it still lives!
ReplyDelete"Twelve years of Bloomberg and Burden, who rezoned 40% of NYC, to draw in the favorites of the RE industry (who own this town), the rich, Euro trash, tourists, college students, the just post college Bro/Hipster/Tech crowd and the corporate chain stores that cater to them. Five transient roommates per apartment to share the high rent. The destruction of the NYC middle/working family class, with the steady weakening of the NYS RS law, is now almost complete."
ReplyDeleteThat's about it.
Anony 10.35 PM here.
ReplyDelete"Chinatown died after 9/11, and all the great restaurants moved to Flushing. It's a 3rd rate shell of it's former self with it's only redeeming quality is the retention of the grit and run down feeling of tenement buildings that are 100+ years old. You're grasping at straws if you think that this is the last surviving Manhattan nabe.”
There are so many red flags in this post. This is a Foodie/RE industry shill. He would like the tenements to be replaced with shiny, new "clean" condos. Which, BTW, are constructed on the cheap. Just in Chinatown recently, had a great lunch at 69 Bayard (“69 is divine, 69 is divine”). While strolling on Mott Street with my wife, a young women came up to me, tried to hand me a flyer, she was saying “Massage?”. Right in front of my wife. No respect. “I Love This Dirty Town.” Chinatown was hit hard post 9/11. But it has come back. Little Italy is now a joke*, there is one of those 365 day/year Christmas stores on Mulberry Street. But not Chinatown.
*”During World War II, this Italian girl, she saved my life, she hid me in her basement, it was on Mulberry Street!”—Henny Youngman.
True STR and Bloomberg/Burden couldn't have done it without the assistance of the REBNY possessed Quinn city council ... that then REBNY/Cuomo arrogantly tried to bequeath the NYC Mayoral office to Quinn and the REBNY/Cuomo possessed City Council Speaker position to Garodnick. Recall Cuomo pushed hard for Garodnick.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, particularly worrisome today is Glen/Shorris history of alliances to Goldman / NYU - to borrow the line - entities that put consumers ahead of citizens.
69 Bayard ? I found a lump of cat shit in my food there, about 40 years ago....good times.
ReplyDeleteAnd BTW, what a lame defense of Chinatown it is to call me a
ReplyDelete"Foodie/RE shill" when all you do is draw implications from my comment. In fact, I lived here for 60 years, knew every nook of Chinatown there was and lost 90% of my favorite restaurants in the 9/11 flight. Bloomberg/Kelly royally fucked over Chinatown by closing Park Row and removing all the Municipal Parking, and nobody could sustain the business. The guy who used to sell broken fortune cookies on Canal St even fled. RE shill... HAH !
12.06 PM.
ReplyDeleteVery well said.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/federal-investigation-looks-at-cuomo-and-moreland-commission-referrals-1407459680
ReplyDeleteWe should each and all write or call Preet Bharara asking him to pursue the REBNY case. A lot of middle class homes could be saved across the city and state if Preet does pursue it. Mr Spinola outright boasted of his paying to own Albany.
Here are the telephone and address.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/contact.html
I wish these half-witted idiots on their skateboard, scooter, rollerblades and bicycles would just go back t the Fly-Over States where they belong. They don't fit in well with NYC and are a pestilence, like mosquitos and bed bugs.
ReplyDeleteThe never would have come here in the first place if they weren't parentally funded and encouraged by the false advertising of the CW/CR crowd.
This isn't simply a city that never sleeps; this is a 24/7 city because there are hospitals, firefighters, EMS workers, sewer workers and Cn Ed workers working their asses off round the clock so that the City can function next day. Add to that the bakeries, cooks, etc., who have breakfast ready for you at the break of dawn; the cops who patrol and clean up the streets though the night; the incoming and outgoing trains, 'planes and buses.
it's not about partying all night long. It's about keeping the City safe and ready for the day.
Rubes from the Flyover States, please know that "The City that Never Sleeps" isn't about partying, drinking and scoring. The City never slept for very good reasons well before your Mamas' and Pappas' assholes were half as big as a shirt button. Please go away and stop embarrassing yourselves and making us feel such unadulterated contempt for you.
Please. People knew how to get fucked and enjoyed it long before Sara Jessica "Horseface" Parker and her dopey DWI Killer husband came on the scene. Go away already.
ReplyDelete"I've been to Chinatown many times after 9/11 and it still lives!"
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree STR and frankly, to say it's a 3rd rate shell of its former shelf" is simply bizarre. Only a carpetbagger could say something like that. I don't know if it's the last surviving NYC neighborhood, but it's certainly one of them.
So the management got rid of the Strawberries store for another leasing office site. Well played again.
ReplyDelete>>I lived here for 60 years, knew every nook of Chinatown there was and lost 90% of my favorite restaurants in the 9/11 flight.<<
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone is arguing that Chinatown hasn't changed. But you made a very melodramatic statement about it being a 3rd rate shell of its former self, and that is simply not so. I go down to Chinatown fairly regularly. For me, there are some very unwelcome recent changes that are the result of big real estate concerns and higher rents on small businesses. My favorite Asian DVD/VCD store is gone, and a restaurant I always wanted to go to, which did seem a palace, is no more. But walk anywhere in the heart of Chinatown and you still get a strong vibe of an ethnic neighborhood that is vibrant and earthy.
If you want to speak of a neighborhood being a 3rd rate shell of itself, and even worse (it's basically disappeared), then speak of Little Italy.
The RS law is exactly what made it possible for this to happen on the residential level. All it has done is create a history of landlord tenant clashes enriching lawyers on both sides and giving politicians ways to score points with voters. The middle class would have been better served with ownership incentives instead and then they might actually have a say over what is happening in their neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteYes STR, let's argue about the important things .
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteOur neighborhood needs your attention now. The buyers Association is politicking hard and fast to get their grubby claws on this property the sneakily commercialized, dormitized, and carried out mass evictions of our neighbors for the past 5 years. Mr Guterman we are awaiting your proposal since it is the only way to save our community! According to the DOB CW has been installing more dorms for drunks all summer and is today as we speak.
Did they just install an NYU leasing office for the 4000 dorms?
ReplyDelete"Please. People knew how to get fucked and enjoyed it long before Sara Jessica "Horseface" Parker and her dopey DWI Killer husband came on the scene. Go away already."
ReplyDeleteFYI, Matthew Broderick was cleared of any wrongdoing (and was not impaired) when he had that tragic accident in Ireland. Get your facts right before posting such nasty statements.
>>Yes STR, let's argue about the important things<<
ReplyDeletePlease explain.
While I liked the "fun" of SITC, I agree it helped feed a marketing of NYC thing that Bloomberg ramped up to the point of turning NYC into a Vegas theme park of itself. But Matthew Broderick was born and raised here and successful actor or no is part of the fabric of this city like any of its native sons. I don't think he's the problem.
ReplyDeleteAhhh new neighbors last week. The apartment was painted and rented in three days. YOung as all hell, mommy had to move the three boxes they had with them. There are 3 girls so far - One Bedroom - loud as hell already. Gee thanks all. Especially Dan and
ReplyDeleteTenants ass.ociation