East Village and the Curse of the Single, Thin, Young and Beautiful
How does a neighborhood grow up when no one older than thirty sticks around?
In the nineties, the East Village became a magnet for young people seeking an endless urban party. This turn of events came about when the neighborhood was made safe because police cracked down on drug dealing and other intimidating behaviors that had reined the streets.
The Times recently published an article by Dara Mayers who has lived in the East Village for ten years. When she arrived, we are told, “regular folk” were still commonly seen on the streets. She characterized them as, “Families. Fat people. The old lady with the dapper boyfriend. Ugly folk.”
She was speaking of the indigenous urban populations who, having lived through the era of urban decay, were invaded by the single, thin, young, and beautiful.
The writer saw the local bodegas close down and the boutiques and sushi bars take over. The regular folk dwindled to the point of extinction. East Village became populated by the narrowest slice of demographics.
So it went until the writer came to an East Village epiphany. “A friend put it this way: She hated seeing versions of herself 10 years younger, walking down the same streets she had walked down 10 years before.”
For her, this meant the party was over. She will be moving out of East Village, leaving it behind to…the single, thin, young, and beautiful.
How quickly the first wave of newcomers became relics in this modern incarnation of East Village. Yet I am struck by the feelings she expressed for her home, like someone who had put down roots.
“I will miss the old neighborhood,” she wrote, wistfully adding, “I don’t regret a moment of it.”
It was not a hopeful article on the future of East Village. A hopeful article would have been about a different sort of epiphany. One that would perceive that the true value of living in the East Village for ten years would come from a deeper engagement in the neighborhood. One that would reflect upon the idea that a decade of experience would be a precious tool to use for building a community that matters.
Such a hopeful article would have held out the promise of an East Village that was nurturing diversity. But that is not the article she wrote. What was written implied she was the last of her kind in East Village. In an oddly resentful description of her volunteer decision to leave, she wrote, “I'm the final sweep in the cleanup of the neighborhood.”
It is the tone of someone who feels she has been treated like debris from the past. As if she is a repository of a community never given the chance to find its own voice—except in this one final moment in the Sunday Times.
What will become of East Village without her?
If indeed, she represents the “final sweep,” then she belongs to a generation that came and went in the East Village without leaving any footprints behind, replaced by the next wave indulging in the fantasy of an endless Manhattan party.
How does a neighborhood grow up if no one older than thirty sticks around?
I really don’t see how it can.
In the nineties, the East Village became a magnet for young people seeking an endless urban party. This turn of events came about when the neighborhood was made safe because police cracked down on drug dealing and other intimidating behaviors that had reined the streets.
The Times recently published an article by Dara Mayers who has lived in the East Village for ten years. When she arrived, we are told, “regular folk” were still commonly seen on the streets. She characterized them as, “Families. Fat people. The old lady with the dapper boyfriend. Ugly folk.”
She was speaking of the indigenous urban populations who, having lived through the era of urban decay, were invaded by the single, thin, young, and beautiful.
The writer saw the local bodegas close down and the boutiques and sushi bars take over. The regular folk dwindled to the point of extinction. East Village became populated by the narrowest slice of demographics.
So it went until the writer came to an East Village epiphany. “A friend put it this way: She hated seeing versions of herself 10 years younger, walking down the same streets she had walked down 10 years before.”
For her, this meant the party was over. She will be moving out of East Village, leaving it behind to…the single, thin, young, and beautiful.
How quickly the first wave of newcomers became relics in this modern incarnation of East Village. Yet I am struck by the feelings she expressed for her home, like someone who had put down roots.
“I will miss the old neighborhood,” she wrote, wistfully adding, “I don’t regret a moment of it.”
It was not a hopeful article on the future of East Village. A hopeful article would have been about a different sort of epiphany. One that would perceive that the true value of living in the East Village for ten years would come from a deeper engagement in the neighborhood. One that would reflect upon the idea that a decade of experience would be a precious tool to use for building a community that matters.
Such a hopeful article would have held out the promise of an East Village that was nurturing diversity. But that is not the article she wrote. What was written implied she was the last of her kind in East Village. In an oddly resentful description of her volunteer decision to leave, she wrote, “I'm the final sweep in the cleanup of the neighborhood.”
It is the tone of someone who feels she has been treated like debris from the past. As if she is a repository of a community never given the chance to find its own voice—except in this one final moment in the Sunday Times.
What will become of East Village without her?
If indeed, she represents the “final sweep,” then she belongs to a generation that came and went in the East Village without leaving any footprints behind, replaced by the next wave indulging in the fantasy of an endless Manhattan party.
How does a neighborhood grow up if no one older than thirty sticks around?
I really don’t see how it can.
posted by Paul Cogley at 6:40 PM
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