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I lived in Greenwich Village near Washington Square Park for ten years before moving uptown about eight years ago.
When I lived there the Village was cool. Lots of bars and coffee shops. Head shops and tattoo parlors. Art was everywhere. Chess shops lined a few streets where people would gather to challenge each other. It was such a chill place to be.
Over the past several years I have noticed a major shift. The old bars and restaurants that were there for years are boarded up. The corner of MacDougal and Bleecker is literally a boarded up corner. The successful bar that was once in one of the store fronts was forced out, not by higher rents, but by a land lord that wanted a bank to take the space. They refused to renew the lease. For the past three months the space has sat empty with a for rent sign.
Most of the chess and record stores are gone. Replaced by chains and bank outlets. The people walking the street seem sterile.
NYU has greatly expanded and Washington Square park has been remade into a sterile garden.
I read that owners of buildings are offering store front owners large sums of money to refuse to lease to bars, restaurants, etc. to keep the street "quiet" for the owners of the condos who are only there a few weeks a year.
Going over to the East Village I still get a bit of the old vibe, but even there it is fading fast.
Has the Village gone from a cool place to be to a sterile playground for the European elite? Has the Village lost its charm?
I think it has. Will never be what it was...used to be such an exciting place to be. I used to hang out in the East Village regularly....and I went back a few years ago and was just shocked by how different it was. The edge is gone....
This thread made me think back to high school....skateboarding in Wash Square Park and then digging for cheap punk records at Generation Records. Please tell me Generation is still open...they were still around last time I was there last fall.
I think it has. Will never be what it was...used to be such an exciting place to be. I used to hang out in the East Village regularly....and I went back a few years ago and was just shocked by how different it was. The edge is gone....
This thread made me think back to high school....skateboarding in Wash Square Park and then digging for cheap punk records at Generation Records. Please tell me Generation is still open...they were still around last time I was there last fall.
Same here! Those were the days. I actually liked NY then. Please tell me someone remembers and ate at Stingy Lulus. LOL Or Leshko's Coffee Shop??
Not sure about the record store.
East Village used to have the best thrift stores too.
I lived in Greenwich Village near Washington Square Park for ten years before moving uptown about eight years ago.
When I lived there the Village was cool. Lots of bars and coffee shops. Head shops and tattoo parlors. Art was everywhere. Chess shops lined a few streets where people would gather to challenge each other. It was such a chill place to be.
Over the past several years I have noticed a major shift. The old bars and restaurants that were there for years are boarded up. The corner of MacDougal and Bleecker is literally a boarded up corner. The successful bar that was once in one of the store fronts was forced out, not by higher rents, but by a land lord that wanted a bank to take the space. They refused to renew the lease. For the past three months the space has sat empty with a for rent sign.
Most of the chess and record stores are gone. Replaced by chains and bank outlets. The people walking the street seem sterile.
NYU has greatly expanded and Washington Square park has been remade into a sterile garden.
I read that owners of buildings are offering store front owners large sums of money to refuse to lease to bars, restaurants, etc. to keep the street "quiet" for the owners of the condos who are only there a few weeks a year.
Going over to the East Village I still get a bit of the old vibe, but even there it is fading fast.
Has the Village gone from a cool place to be to a sterile playground for the European elite? Has the Village lost its charm?
It's a play ground for Europeans and Ivy Ivy league types. Before the Village was home to generations of subcultures past like beatnik, hippie, punk, goth, grunge. The subculture scene moved moved over to Williamsburg in Brooklyn. The village is very monoculture.
This thread made me think back to high school....skateboarding in Wash Square Park and then digging for cheap punk records at Generation Records. Please tell me Generation is still open...they were still around last time I was there last fall.
Generation Records is open but Bleeker Bob's is closed. We were just in the Village a few weeks ago and yes, it is not the same anymore. I don't remember there being so many tourists.
Was it really that different just eight years ago? I remember it being very commercialized and crowded then, too.
FWIW, the first time I visited NYC as a teenager in the late 90s, my cousin who grew up here explained to me that the Village, though once cool, was now expensive and lame.
I lived a block from Washington Sq. for 7 years and left in 2005. The area appeared to be losing its edge even back then, I shudder to think what it's like now. I don't even want to visit as I don't know if I can bear to see what happened to my old neighborhood.
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