East Village, Then and Now
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When I moved to New York, my first apartment was in the East Village. More specifically, I was in Alphabet City at 10 St. and Ave. B, one block north of Tompkins Square Park. This neighborhood in many ways formed my first impressions of the city and street life in New York. To many, however, it comes as a shock that I chose this neighborhood. Those with knowledge of the city in decades past remember the grit that is part of a NY Times article today - East Village, Before the Gentry.
[Image: Satellite image of East Village, centered on Tompkins Square Park. Courtesy of Google Maps.]
The article serves as an interesting point of reflection for the experience of two residents, 20 years apart.
[Image: Alphabet City, June 1986. Courtesy of NY Times.]
The article serves to showcase Tompkins Square Park, a new release from Japanese photographer Q. Sakamaki, and to highlight major differences between the neighborhood then and now.
Upon arriving in the city in 1986 [Q. Sakamaki] settled in the East Village, where he was alternately charmed and horrified by what he found. Dilapidated and abandoned buildings lined the streets. Entire blocks were filled with little more than rubble and bricks. Heroin was sold in candy stores, and gunshots sounded in the night. In the morning he sometimes spotted the bodies of people who had been killed or had died of overdoses.
Even more surprising was the abundance of people living on the sidewalks. ‘The homeless were spread out all over the neighborhood,’ Mr. Sakamaki recalled on a recent afternoon while sitting on a bench in Tompkins Square Park. ‘It was like a third world city.’
[Image: September 1993. Courtesy of NY Times.]
This is obviously no longer the scene. Today, the neighborhood still has it’s homeless contingent, but now adds hipsters, yuppies, immigrants, and many other groups looking to live in Manhattan and not be gouged by rent.
[Image: Tompkins Square Park, June 1991. Courtesy of NY Times.]
These days are soon over though, and is part of the reason I moved to Harlem. Despite this, the neighborhood is still my favorite in the city. It is the one I know most intimately, and return to often for dinner, drinks, and diversity on the streets.
For me, it is interesting to compare my own fascination with the East Village as it stands now, compared with the sentiments of Q. Sakamaki that are expressed in the article.
In the end Mr. Sakamaki’s book is a valediction of sorts to lost people and a lost place that has been supplanted by a neighborhood that he finds rather sterile and uninspiring.
“We lost our culture,” he said, “and we lost control of our dreams.”
[Image: Officers seeking to enforce a curfew in Tompkins Square Park, 20 years ago this week. Courtesy of NY Times.]
[Image: Musical protests in Tompkins Square Park. Courtesy of NY Times.]
I don’t intend for you to take this at face value, because he also clarifies his opinion.
Strolling through the neighborhood, he elaborated, saying that he favors safe streets and finds no romance in poverty. But, he said, change that is primarily driven by monetary profit “destroys the lives of poor or weak people.”
I think this is an important distinction when we are constantly bombarded in New York by sentiments of anti-change. New York is constantly changing, that’s what makes it wonderful and fresh. It is very difficult to get comfortable in this city. This often means one of your favorite restaurants or coffee shops changes ownership or is replaced by boutique retail. I don’t call this progress, but I call it the nature of the beast. I think what is most difficult for New Yorkers to overcome, when faced with change, is the change or displacement of people rather than the replacement of businesses and buildings.
“I’m happy that this garden is still here,” he said, gazing through the fence at the pastoral spot, where city dwellers sat beneath a willow tree. “But I’m also sad, because the people I knew are not inside anymore.”
[Image: Tompkins Square Park, May 1991. Courtesy of NY Times.]
The people that Q. Sakamaki knew are no longer there, so it is difficult for him to view the neighborhood in the same light. However, it still carries a familiar air for myself and many other new faces. Soon, though, that will change for us as well, as it becomes the neighborhood of new groups of people.
New York will continue to go on changing faces. It’s why so many people love and hate this city.
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In line with musings on neighborhood sentiment, I share with you a post from Brendan at Where or Neighbors Project.