The Death of a Once Great City: The fall of NY and the urban crisis of affluence

[BnaBreaker]

Sounds like this guy just needs to move to The Bronx.

[maru2501]

sadly NYC is losing its character. It just is. Everyone knows the blogs that are chronicling it. And people were already writing about the disneyfication 20 years ago.

anyway, a little trollish (no offense) for a chicago person to post it, I guess. Especially when Chicago is fixing to do the same thing.. Rahm Chicago is 1 percent Chicago.

we still have some old school neighborhoods with their dive bars, but they have a target on them due to economic forces etc.

[10023]

New York has dive bars. And Chicago has chain stores.

If anything, the dying off of mom & pops and the proliferation of chain stores is strongest in middle class neighborhoods. Not poor ones, but the masses who shop at the same stores that can be found in every American shopping mall, from Herald Square to Des Moines.

[maru2501]

weird issue with no real fix.. chicago happening slower but still happening as artists and interesting people are chased out of neighborhoods

the NYC of Taxi Driver and the Chicago of the Blues Brothers were of course more interesting, but I don't think anyone would press a button and turn them back

[dubu]

ive heard about this with london on a music forum a long time ago. saying london used to be much cooler. but with america the whole place is getting pretty ugly. people in the uk probably laugh at the us

[montréaliste]

I spent a week in New York a coupla weeks ago and hadn't visited in 23 years.

New York has a lot of good things going for it in spite of a leveling; the sort of dulling of the senses that occured with standardisation and increase of wealth.

I feel good that the subway trains which I first took in the late seventies are now clean inside and out. New York authorities did a great job rehabilitating monuments and infrastructure. Just think of the life-giving value of Bryant Park's restoration, the High Line's inception, etc...

The New York Public Library is now impeccable, You could hardly decipher the details from decades of suet for a very long time, ditto the cleaning of amazing skyscrapers and sumptuous architecture. One of the benefits to New Yorkers and visitors alike is that visitors now amble in Brooklyn and Queens whereas they mostly used to keep to Manhattan unless they had family there.

I think New York has experienced some of what happened in other cities but always on steroids like most of what happens there. The meatpacking district has gone and been replaced by lofts for the very wealthy, and artists who aren't A or B listed will have moved on to cheaper digs in other boroughs. Seventh Avenue's fashion district with the pushcart guys moving clothing for different operations from one building to another is gone because the garment industry has vanished.

Of course, cigar stores and newspaper or shoeshine stands have disappeared like many other outdated businesses. Hell's Kitchen's Avenues and sidestreets are now replete with restos and terraces where there used to be cheap diners and dive bars. 42nd street is no longer the den of iniquity it once was, it has grown into shopping malls integrated to massive towers.

A lot of what made New york special in the past was its dinginess. I first visited, enthralled by the variety of it in 1978. It was a lot darker and grainier, felt more malevolent.

One thing that disappoints is the sheer tastelessness of a lot of the food in many restaurants. A lot of the bistro fare is not much better than the slapdash diner stuff of old IMHO.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Trae

You're forgetting that Blacks in the Hunters Point-Bayview and Fillmore have been one of the groups displaced in pretty large numbers by the yuppie tech crowd.

Not yet. I live a few blocks from the Fillmore. There is no observable displacement there since the mass block-clearing of the 1960s which was before I arrived. And that tragedy was more about architecture than people--the old Victorians were bulldozed and replaced by public housing highrises and low income garden apartments, still mostly occupied by black people.

In BayView, the black neighborhoods remain largely intact but with some white infill. What may really change that area is yet to come: The massive redevelopment of the Hunters Point Shipyard and of Candlestick Point.

The "yuppie tech" crowd mostly wants to live in the Mission and SOMA and the outcry has more to do with Hispanic displacement but, again, most of the newer housing the techies want is infill and not actually dsiplacing many people.

[Pedestrian]

And now it spreads to the sunbelt:

As Nashville Rapidly Expands, Residents Worry the Metropolis Is Growing Too Fast
By Cameron McWhirter
June 18, 2018 5:30 a.m. ET

NASHVILLE— Kathleen Ervin moved here 12 years ago from the Northeast, drawn to the relaxed atmosphere, green parks and relatively low cost of living.

But in the past five years, her commute time from her 1950s ranch house in the Glendale neighborhood to her job about 12 miles away has tripled on some days to 45 minutes because of increased traffic. Developers are buying nearby properties, tearing them down and building “tall skinnies”—multistory homes geared toward wealthier home buyers.

“We hear all this talk about how Nashville doesn’t want to become Houston, Nashville doesn’t want to become Atlanta,” said the 54-year-old account manager at a merchant processor. “Who is preventing that from happening?”

Anxiety about the rapid growth is widespread here, as a city known for country music also becomes known for its skyline full of cranes and traffic congestion . . . .

https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-nash...s&page=1&pos=3

No need to quote any more (even if I were allowed to)--you know what it says.

[pico44]

I fell in love with the 1970s/80s New York. It was a different city back then. Wonderful in the fact that it was the most intransigently urban city in an otherwise aggressively suburbanizing country. And wonderful as a cultural center unlike anything outside of 15th century Florence and 19th century Paris. It was bizarre and alive and vital in a way that I've never experienced in another city since. So seeing the city change into something quite different is a little sad. I love to indulge my nostalgia for the idea of that place, but I'll never let it blind me to how awful it was in real life. Scary dangerous and inhumane. Sure the city might be more inhospitable for cobblers and bookstore owners and diners serving crap food; but what healthy city isn't? I loved the old Channel Video on Columbus Avenue in the same Upper West Side neighborhood that this fool is eulogizing, but its disappearance is simply a fact of modern life, not a symptom of a city failing to fulfill its purpose. And as every other city unsuccessfully attempts to recreate the vitality and importance of 1970s New York, this city is off to something new. Alive as ever

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by maru2501

weird issue with no real fix.. chicago happening slower but still happening as artists and interesting people are chased out of neighborhoods

the NYC of Taxi Driver and the Chicago of the Blues Brothers were of course more interesting, but I don't think anyone would press a button and turn them back

This is a joke, 50%+ of Chicago is still neighborhoods where most "artists" (as if they are the innocent ones, not the harbingers of gentrification) wouldn't be caught dead in or wouldn't move because they are afraid they would literally be caught dead.

Like all anyone needs to do is go drive, no walk (I dare you) through the vast majority of Chicago after dark to verify this. It's not running short of dereliction by any stretch of the imagination except those of people with an agenda dying to paint a picture of "woe is me, my $500 apartment on the bolevard a block from the train is $1500 now".

All I freaking do is rent to artists and I can tell you they have plenty of space in downtown proximate areas. If anything Chicago is developing a whole new generation of "non-chain" businesses. Where were the microbreweries, craft cocktail bars, MCM furniture shops, etc. a decade ago? They didn't exist. You can't expect brand new businesses to have that lived in feel right off the bat, but todays microbreweries are tomorrow's dive bars (dive breweries?)...

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by 10023

New York has dive bars. And Chicago has chain stores.

Even New York's dive bars have been gentrified. Especially the ones of the Lower East Side, which was once the mecca of dive bars. Nowadays, the "dive bars" still there will charge as much as the deliberately yuppie places, and they attract a similar demographic of clientele.

[jtown,man]

Manhattan is like what, 1.6 million of the 8.5 million NYC residents? Northern Manhattan is not the UES or UWS or Tribeca. Parts of Queens and Brooklyn are pretty gentrified...but lets be real, streetview many parts of Brooklyn away from Prospect park or Queens or Bronx or SI and tell me NYC has lost all its character. This author seems to view NYC as a tourist would, only thinking of the prime areas of Manhattan.

[LouisVanDerWright]

It's almost as if the author is a rich white douchebag who has never left Manhattan...

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by 10023

New York has dive bars. And Chicago has chain stores.

If anything, the dying off of mom & pops and the proliferation of chain stores is strongest in middle class neighborhoods. Not poor ones, but the masses who shop at the same stores that can be found in every American shopping mall, from Herald Square to Des Moines.

I think it's actually the poorest neighborhoods that are the most chain-oriented, and I'd wager the residents are happy with the changes. Places like the South Bronx and East NY/Brownsville barely had any chains a generation ago. It was mostly marginal, extortionate independent retail barely hanging on. Now the commercial stretches in the least desirable neighborhoods have high rent, no vacancies, and an endless parade of Duane Reade-Dunkin Donuts-Payless-Old Navy-Red Lobster-Planet Fitness-TJ Maxx.

And the streets are packed. Fulton Street in Bed Stuy and the Hub in the South Bronx have higher retail rents than many prime avenues in Manhattan, because sales volume.

The wealthy neighborhoods are probably less chain-filled than a generation ago. Bleecker Street, Columbus Ave, Court Street and the like don't have that many chains outside of international retailers. Brownstone Brooklyn has very few chains. I live off 7th Ave. in Park Slope and can't think of any national chains nearby except for Starbucks and Chipotle.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Brownstone Brooklyn has very few chains. I live off 7th Ave. in Park Slope and can't think of any national chains nearby except for Starbucks and Chipotle.

Just for kicks, I dropped the Google Street View orange man on 7th Ave. randomly in the center of Park Slope and believe it or not, almost right in front of me was a Dunkin Donuts (306 7th Ave).

(however, after a bit of exploring those blocks, you're right, surprisingly little chains!)

[pico44]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

He's right about one thing - the growing rate of closing stores, empty storefronts, and proliferation of global commercial chains is alarming. My favorite dry cleaner closed last year. A Starbucks is going to take its place. There are literally six Starbuck's within a ten block radius. Walking down Bleecker a quarter of the stores are vacant. My favorite movie theater closed. Most of the Ukranian restaurants in the East Village closed. There is a real, palpable sense that while the bones of New York may remain the same, the flesh and blood that made the city unique are withering away.

This post is amazing. Heres a kid who moved to New York three years ago talking about how it just isn't like it used to be. Oh if it could only be 2015 again. Haha!! Washington Irving and Henry James also wrote about how New York was changing too rapidly, though much more beautifully than this mope in Harpers. This isn't new folks. A city in continuous flux, ruthless to the past, contemptuous of anything mediocre. It's what makes this place both loathsome and incredible, and constantly lamented.

[jd3189]

Well, all I know is that NYC was a very cool and unique place that was relatively safe in the 90s and early 2000s. Heck, if I was alive then, I would feel right at home in the 70s and 80s.


I get that the gentrification scare is exaggerated, but I still believe that what makes cities interesting is that they are able to have it all. The rich, the poor, the middle, everything. Places like NYC, London, Paris, Tokyo, SF, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Rio, and other global cities unique from most suburbs is that you can experience different facets of life while roaming the streets.


That's where I agree with this guy. Despite it being better off financially these days, losing that culture and being just like everywhere else pretty much makes NYC a less interesting place. And no, it's not just reverting back to what it was before 1960. Even before then, NYC was interesting with the Italians and Jews. It was interesting even in the 19th century and in its early days. It's changing again, but now to a slowly bland place with Starbucks on every corner. Screw that crap. If that's how it's going to be, might as well live somewhere else.

[Ant131531]

Someone on here said it best with one quote: NYC(And really every single fast growing American city) is turning into expensive urban developments with shopping malls on the ground floor. They're lacking the unique, quirky establishments that makes cities so damn interesting.

Is it not a coincidence that in every American city, the most interesting restaurants and stores are generally in older buildings and not newer developments?

[pico44]

Originally Posted by jd3189

If that's how it's going to be, might as well live somewhere else.

That's Florida's state motto

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by lio45

Just for kicks, I dropped the Google Street View orange man on 7th Ave. randomly in the center of Park Slope and believe it or not, almost right in front of me was a Dunkin Donuts (306 7th Ave).

(however, after a bit of exploring those blocks, you're right, surprisingly little chains!)

I think that's the DD I spent an hour in one day warming up during the "polar vortex".