What the heck happened to NY? (New York, York: school, live in, move to)

[Woozle]

Originally Posted by marilyn220

Those people are dead and lived here at a time when NYC was AFFORDABLE.

Yuppies have made living here unbearable for new talents like the people you mentioned. If Warhol was alive he'd throw up at the thought of even seeing a Yuppie in his vicinity.

Warhol made his living for awhile painting the portraits of wealthy Upper East Siders. He knew enough not to bite the hand that feeds. At the sight of a yuppie, he'd try to sell his services to him.

Artists need clients/patrons.

[hummmmm]

For those posters who did not live in NY or know NYC in the 70's, 80's...I get the feeling that you think that all of Manhattan looked like a war zone. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, there were areas that had deteriorated, had high crime rates and needed to be avoided for safety reasons however, a lot of Manhattan was easily traveled in. I walked around in all parts of Manhattan from the time I was a teen in the 70's till I moved to another state in my early 30's. I still visit because my family remains in NY. Yeah, you had to develop a keen sense of awareness and have your wits about you but you have to do that in most large cities. I had relatives that lived on 137th and Broadway and in the west part of Jamaica that were not good areas (gangs were there like the Savage Skulls) but was never accosted. I had one relative whose family lived in west Jamaica who was mugged and moved to eastern Jamaica and had no problems. You had to know where to go and where to avoid. Lower income and poor people had no choice about where to live and were in considerably more danger. That was terrible for them and their families. I have no illusions about that, all I have to do is look at my cousin's knife scar to remember.

But I also remember a thriving community of artists and galleries in SoHo - artists, who by the way, were there BEFORE the art galleries because they were drawn to cheap, large spaces where they could do their work, as they are in so many places now. Artists go where they can keep focused on their work and do whatever they have to to support their commitment to their art, usually restaurants and bars follow and then, galleries, collectors etc. At which point, the rents sky rocket and the artists have to find elsewhere to live. SoHo was full of creativity, art in the streets - literally - remember SAMO (Basquiat) and that other guy who used to leave shadows of human forms on walls, art welded to the street signs? The art in the galleries pushed the envelope and it was exciting to see. I will never forget seeing Leon Golub's paintings for the first time. Or seeing the shows at the New Museum. I haven't had the same visceral experience with the art in Chelsea. I loved watching the people in SoHo. They were unique and interesting. I loved walking from Tribeca through West Broadway and to the village to catch the subway home. Going to the Blue Note to hear Sarah Vaughn.

I remember the East Village with it's artist squatters, the sculpture garden at Rivington St - an abandoned corner reclaimed by artists - ABCnoRIO, who also reclaimed an abandoned building for art and later bought it from the city for one dollar. I remember the rise and fall of the east village art scene with graffitti artists like Futura 2000 and Kenny Scharf in the galleries. (Graffitti in galleries? How weird was that?) There was lot's of bad art too and a vitality that died with some of it's artists.

I remember the AIDS epedemic when there were no cocktails of drugs for AIDS patients and the disease took so many of the creative community in NYC in a very short time.

I remember taking a class at the newly opened NY Academy of Fine Arts. A lecture in a cadaver lab by Elliot Goldfinger. Andy Warhol came in to photograph the cadavers and three months later he was dead. This strange white haired, black clad figure who I had seen a various times all over NYC while growing up. He was such a part of HOME. NY in my bones.

I am saying this because I knew NY well. I worked there in Tribeca and 57th St in the 80's. I showed my art in the LES in the mid-80's. I had lot's of artist friends who both lived and worked in the city and in Brooklyn before the mass exodus to Brooklyn. My brother (also an artist) worked at the WTC till three months after 9-11 when his lungs became diseased.

New York, Manhattan, is not the same and I agree with Marilyn, it will never be the same. But, that doesn't mean given the proper nutrients that it can't evolve into a new era of juiciness, a renaissance.

The bottom line is, when you lose your creative communities, a city loses it edge, it's vitality. Gone are the musicians, dancers, actors, poets, writers, painters, sculptors, theatres, thinkers that keep infusing new thoughts, socio-political awareness and new imagery into a community. Human beings need new images, new music, new awarenesses to grow. Artists - right-brained processors that they are - are needed by a community to bring what is unconscious to the surface to be attended to by the community. When a community's images are replaced by commercial images designed to keep one in a perpetual state of consumerism the community goes blind to itself, blind and deaf to it's needs on a deeper level. It can no longer hear the soul or dreams of it's inhabitants. I think what you get then, looks like homogenization, copy cat imagery, no authenticity, no new dreamings. This is happening all over America and the world as communities are "westernized", as their unique images are replaced by marketing images. Don't underestimate the power of imagery on our human brains.

Six years ago Walmart moved into the small community that I now live and one by one the Mom and Pop places began to go out of business. Next, came the chain hardware stores, the chain restaurants, the strip mall nail places, the chain clothing stores and freakin Starbucks. Now, Main Street is struggling. We are beginning to look like Anywhere, USA. Manhattan is starting to look like that. Don't let it happen!

So why do I write this? Why do I even care if I no longer live in NY? I'll tell you why. Once a New Yorker always a New Yorker. New York lives in my blood, it's story lives in my heart, it's present and it's future will always affect me no matter where I live in the world. I know that I am not alone in this feeling. New York is an icon of possibilities to people all over the world. The people who live there now are it's stewards. You make the decisions that affect one of the the most incredible cities on our wee planet. Be aware of it's history, be conscious in your choices. It's all of our hearts that are on the line.

[nyc2va76]

Once a New Yorker always a New Yorker. [/quote]

That's is the truth no matter how you put it.

[Tungsten_Udder]

Originally Posted by SlickRick1

This time however, we drove through the Poconos, Pensylvania and through Jersey by Giants stadium. I did not like this route I did not like the view of Manhattan from Jersey, furthermore I did not like NY being sprung upon me like that.

I don't really understand your comments here. Could you go into more detail about what you did not like about the ride and the views?

Which leads me to the subways. What the heck happened to the subways? . . . Times Square . . . what the hel@ happened. How did we ever let it get to this.

Here's the part I don't get. I've lived here now going on 16 years. The changes in Times Square and the subway system were well underway within 2 years of my moving here. How could it be that you've been visiting the city regularly over the last 14-15 years but you haven't seen these changes already?

[SlickRick1]

Originally Posted by Tungsten_Udder

I don't really understand your comments here. Could you go into more detail about what you did not like about the ride and the views? Here's the part I don't get. I've lived here now going on 16 years. The changes in Times Square and the subway system were well underway within 2 years of my moving here. How could it be that you've been visiting the city regularly over the last 14-15 years but you haven't seen these changes already?

For one, I did not like the ride through that part of Jersey. No big deal. It was just me. I like the ride through the Bronx, but it takes longer that way. I didn't like witnessing beautiful Manhattan from the end of the tunnel. I think it looks bigger and nicer coming in from the Bronx. Just my personal opinion, not a big deal.

As far as your second question. In my first post, It states, "now I know that Times Square has been changing for about a decade now, but just now am I speaking up".
Then in my second post, I believe page three, once again I said, "now I know that Times Square has been changing for about a decade which means that I have been there, and actually its been changing a little longer now". So if you really read my post thoroughly, you would have seen where I said this. No big deal though. But for the record and third or fourth time now, I know Times Square has been changing for quite a few years. The change has become so commercialized that finally I felt compelled to address my thoughts pertaining to that change. Just my opinion. We all have our own thoughts regarding NY. I still love NY, and will always love NY. It is still by far my favorite city in the world, not just America. I just wish it could get some of its old flavor back. Even after writing this, I am sure NY will. NY always reinvents itself and even through change things somehow come full circle, so Im not to worried. But just dont tell me that at this point this new commercialized hum drum version of NY is better, because in my eyes, it's not.

[Artmeliana]

Hummmmm, I want to make a modest comment on what you and others say about the arts scene in NYC. While reading this long thread, I've formulated an idea.

How about this: all crime and grittiness aside, I think what created much of the vibrancy and energy that so many of you miss from the days of "old" New York has just been a part of societal evolution. Perhaps the reason why back then it felt so subversive and new and exciting is because it was just that - a reaction to two World Wars and the subsequent changes that inevitably take place after such periods of conservatism and reservedness.

Poodle skirts, rock n roll, beatnik poets, James Dean boys with slick hair and rolled cuffs were once shocking. Next, it became the mini skirt, Woodstock, psychedelic drugs, and shangri-la. Society OPENED up in the 60s and 70s to a degree never seen before in history, so there were two decades of creativity and art and new music that the world had obviously never seen before. So of course in the 80s new thinks like rap and hip hop and breakdancing which had no problem entering the scene thanks to what had preceded it. By the 90s, grunge was a shoe-in.

All these rebellious teens and alternative youth - we got used to it. It went mainstream. It's absorbed in every day culture now. What's new? We're not shocked anymore. The vibrancy in the arts still exists, but it's no longer a novelty and those early pioneers opened the way for today's artists to make it an acceptable career route. Once upon a time, when young people wanted to be artists, their parents were disappointed that they weren't following in their father's footsteps, taking over the business, or joining the firm. Now, when someone wants to be an artist, there's no longer a surprised intake of breath.

Sure, artistic communities are still very different to yuppie communities, but at least they're not shunned on the outer edges of society so much.

This is just my outlook on the relationship between the arts, creativity, and society from a sociological point of view.

(My creds: degrees in psychology and art history.)

[TriMT7]

Only in New York can a reduction in crime and an influx of business, tourism, families, and tax paying citizens be construed as something "bad" by the "locals." If only Detroit had the "problems" that New York now has.

"Gentrification" = bad, but "Ghettoization" = gritty cool culture. I said it once before, and I'll say it again: Everytime white people decide to move somewhere, SOMEBODY has to come along and give it a negative connotation. Whites fleeing in the 50s, 60s, and 70s = "White Flight".... whites coming back to the city = "Gentrification."

Get over yourselves. Maybe the people who USED to live in the gritty dirty parts of the city (the romantic yearnings for a return of the exploited and crack addicted hoes, their abusive and exploitative pimps, the desperation and oppression that gave BIRTH to hip hop and graffiti "art") finally got to leave. Maybe those oh so thrilling "other" people who gave you such a thrill as a young person WANTED to leave but couldn't back in the day, and now have moved on to something a little more bucolic.... and are HAPPY about it!

The Carnival and freak show packed up shop and your disappointed? Follow it.

[SobroGuy]

Excellent point Tri....and if the freak show and criminals are what they seek..Detroit awaits!

[tully]

hipsters embrace and SEEK crime, conciously or unconciously. The low-grade variety that is. Bragging and one-upping about the "bums and weirdos" they weaved throughout their day is straight out of Stuff White People Like.

Violent crime, not so much.

Ditto graffiti- it's "cool" if the tagged object is a trash recepticle. The 100 year old brick building on YOUR corner, not so much.

Could the recession, and how the crime trends play out, effect the poseur ranks? Would an uptick in (God forbid!) violent crime cause them to declare NY 'over' and flee. Would an uptick in lower-category stuff (graffiti, car thefts, hos) swell their ranks like moths to flame? Which to root for depends how you view hipsters I guess.

[lamexican]

Originally Posted by TriMT7

Only in New York can a reduction in crime and an influx of business, tourism, families, and tax paying citizens be construed as something "bad" by the "locals." If only Detroit had the "problems" that New York now has.

"Gentrification" = bad, but "Ghettoization" = gritty cool culture. I said it once before, and I'll say it again: Everytime white people decide to move somewhere, SOMEBODY has to come along and give it a negative connotation. Whites fleeing in the 50s, 60s, and 70s = "White Flight".... whites coming back to the city = "Gentrification."

Get over yourselves. Maybe the people who USED to live in the gritty dirty parts of the city (the romantic yearnings for a return of the exploited and crack addicted hoes, their abusive and exploitative pimps, the desperation and oppression that gave BIRTH to hip hop and graffiti "art") finally got to leave. Maybe those oh so thrilling "other" people who gave you such a thrill as a young person WANTED to leave but couldn't back in the day, and now have moved on to something a little more bucolic.... and are HAPPY about it!

The Carnival and freak show packed up shop and your disappointed? Follow it.

Do you have any ties to NY! This is a complicated issue for someone who is not from here, or spent a significant amount of time here! Way more complicated than could be understood by reading through a blog!