A Million Shoppers

Thank you Curbed.com and Gowanuslounge.blogspot.com for alerting me to the following image:

first of all, is that leila & hayley in black back there? the two horsewomen of the apocalypse... I offer, for humor's sake, an alternate rendering:

Wow. I’m floored. I’ve seen a lot of shit regarding Williamsburg development in the recent past, but this tops it all.

In the course of 3-1/2 years in New York, I have lived in Jackson Heights, Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Crown Heights. Now, I’m a newcomer to NYC, I can’t claim any cred for being here for very long, or being from the area. I’m an outsider. I know that writing an entry like this is generally a controversial move for someone like me – that is, if my blog were well-read by locals. Being that it’s not, and you, dear reader, probably both know me well and are not from NYC either, I shall continue wading through this murky water.

I hopped freight trains to NYC from Florida in 2001 with my buddy. So NYC was the culmination of an amazing journey for a young man of 22. all the rules changed, everything I knew about society, architecture, urban planning, culture, day to day life, social networking, politics, education, communities – everything was dramatically different here in the big city… but I’ve mentioned that before…

I am currently reading Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Some of the terrifyingly beautiful descriptions of turn-of-the-century Chicago recall what I felt after a few visits to NYC. I immediately thought that I had found a place whose mysteriousness and sublimity were magnetic & made sense to me, a place whose mechanics, relics, and social & architectural history were worth investigating, if not protecting.

As it turns out, I fell in love with a big gritty machine already in the midst of a great transition, and what I saw was only the tip of an iceberg that had already melted significantly.

So when I say to you that I am appalled at all the development that’s going on in the little neighborhoods I’ve lived in since moving here, I realize that it’s a “natural” real estate trend. It’s what makes us nomads.

I just can’t help but feel the sadness and anger that the above image implies. What the fuck are people thinking? And if I feel so invested and personally attacked by this rendering, I can only imagine how others who have made Brooklyn their home and feel inspired by this place, feel about it. again, wow.

But I represent a very small slice of the demographic pie. Barely visible, I imagine. And what’s more, I feel like new Yorkers in general represent a similarly small national slice of pie. Now you have representatives from the big meaty national pie imposing suburban ideas into outer-borough urban environments. Ikeas are going up. Beautifully scaled building fabrics are being raped by condominiums that dwarf their predecessors, both in height and market value. Oh, and they also all suck in terms of design, but that’s a given, sadly.

So when I see this rendering, my only solace is in the possibility that those two gothy (albeit condo-goth) ladies in the background are packing Uzis in their shopping bags, and they’re about to Matrix-bank-scene (that’s a verb) everyone else in sight. I’m sorry, mothers of the earth, but in this dystopian state my brain wants to see the woman in the salmon explode. And what’s with joe-condo in the blue strutting his shit-eating grin next to her? One slow & painful, please.

Unfortunately, those gothy-chics are just walking to the L train, which – and this goes out to CURBED commentators – is at this point working flawlessly because the money and the REAL people have finally moved in, the movers and shakers, the computer-generated doll-eyed wastoids who will eat this borough alive. They have jobs in the city, most likely because they’ve gotta pay high rents to live in those condos.

But it happens everywhere. It starts at a point when most folks are afraid to walk around at night, in places where it’s not safe to have a family, places that are commercially barren. Cheap rents attract parasites like myself, who enjoy the fringes of big cities because of the lower rent and the proximity to the beating heart of that tastey ol’ magnetic sublime. Soon, buzz is created, and you get your first brunch restaurants next to the pioneering coffee shops and bodegas. Next thing you know, you feel safe walking around with cash at 2am after drinking at the local bars or clubs, and by that time, plans for the condos have already been drawn. Sprawl hits home, as it did for the classes you and your friends replaced. Etc, etc

But what happens next? Can we rely on past models of different areas? Can we look back and see the same thing happening in the exact same area under the cloak of a couple decades? Are other adventure seekers snarking at my bitching while reading their laptops in secret cracks and loopholes in the belly of the beast? Is New York really dead?

No, it’s quite alive. This cycle is all the evidence that I need. Cities undulate at frequencies only giant sloths who live hundreds of years can comfortably read. We ants are restless, and don’t have time to wait for the next supernova. So what’s in store?

I know f’sho I’ll be making some monstrous drawings as a result.

PROPS ~

http://curbed.com/archives/2008/02/05/gateway_to_williamsburg_meets_kelloggs_diner.php

http://gowanuslounge.blogspot.com/2008/02/big-box-gateway-to-williamsburg-coming.html#links