I’m on vacation for the next week, but since New York’s subways never shut down, neither will Second Ave. Sagas. I’ve enlisted the help of a few bloggers to help keep things fresh around here. Today’s guest post comes to us from Sarah Seltzer, keeper of The Egalitarian Bookworm (Chick?)… a friend of mine since we were three. Enjoy.
Greetings, fellow mass-transit users, and thanks to Ben for letting me guest blog. I’ve known him since the days we used retro bus passes, bronze and silver tokens, and colorful paper transfers to get to pre-K.
My topic today is only tangentially related to mass transport and the subways, but I thought I’d throw it out to the the savvy and urbane Second Ave. Sagas readership. The topic is: what the hell is happening to Manhattan?
The subways and stations are getting even more packed with briefcase-toting businesspeople. Every time I turn around, a new sleek high-rise condo block has moved in to an area that was previously derelict and run-down, bringing with it yet another Duane Reade, Starbucks, and six banks.
Strollers own the sidewalks everywhere from Tribeca to Harlem, and I’ve just learned, after sitting in at a community meeting for the West Side Spirit, some of the top public elementary schools are getting perilously overcrowded.
Obviously there are some big advantages to the gentrification wave. For one thing, as Ben has documented so assiduously, more riders going to formerly neglected neighborhoods has resulted in some public transportation service improvements, not to mention the renovation of some formerly decrepit stations.
But what about New York’s soul? I can’t help but fret that our entire city may be turning into one giant episode of the “Real Housewives of New York,” (which is a good show, but still…)
So my question is this: what do you guys see as the future of Manhattan (and parts of Brooklyn?) Is the condominium madness going to continue indefinitely, or will the slowing of the housing market outside finally allow the city to balance out these past years of growth?
And should we grumpy life-long New Yorkers just get over it and welcome our new neighbors and new landscape, or do we have a right to be concerned about the loss of our loveable urban grit and menacingly glare at the fresh-from-the-suburbs-yuppies across from us on the 1 train?
I’m turning it over to you, subway riders.
6 comments
Sarah, as Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise once said, “When people are moving to a low-rent neighborhood, it’s called gentrification, but when landlords hike the rent and kick tenants out, it’s called development.”
If you think Duane-Reade and Starbucks are bad, think how bad it is to have nothing but bodegas. If you think six banks within walking distance is bad, think how bad it is to have zero. And if you think condos are bad, think how bad it is to have crime-infested projects and rental buildings.
I swear, sometimes “soul” is just a euphemism for “poverty.”
I am a gentrifier from the suburbs living in red hook and I will probably be priced out in a few months. Maybe it’s best to just move to a city where neighborhoods don’t turn over every 5 years. You can avoid getting priced out and can avoid the “white guilt” of disrupting the life of someone less fortunate. Of course, I don’t hear anyone complaining in the blogs about the white flight occurring in the inner ring suburbs. Everyone is just exhaling a long sigh of relief that cities aren’t totally obsolete after all. At least now we know the monetary value of grit. Maybe there is just a curse on neighborhoods that are about 50-60 years old. Always too old to be “new” and too new to be “quaint.”
There isn’t much that can be done about it, really. I suppose one could charge some sort of property tax in gentrifying neighborhoods and then give the proceeds to the current residents to help them afford to stay for a little longer. Of course, that raises a number of ethical issues. Neighborhoods change. Cities change, especially New York. It is a healthy process; the result of an active culture and economy. If you miss what has gone, missing it may be your only option.
The fast pace of change in some neighborhoods is actually caused by the slow pace of change in others. There are still enormous numbers of projects and rent-stabilized apartments, frozen in time somewhere in the early 90’s. There actually isn’t that much construction in the five boroughs, on average. It’s just that the high number of non-market-priced housing units forces everyone without connections (ie, people from the suburbs, recent college grads, etc) into a limited number of market-priced spaces. And because the supply is so small, only the richest can afford it. Hence an emphasis on luxury and the luxury venues that go with it.
Take a look at the area of Manhattan on the East Side between Gracie Mansion and 125th St. You can walk from $25 million townhouses to $600/mo project apartments in under 30 minutes. If all housing was market-priced, it would be used more efficiently and developers would build more middle-level housing. The grandmother who’s five children moved out a decade ago would no longer take up a 3-bedroom apartment by herself because it still costs her $900. And in her place would move in a “gritty” lower middle class family who would pay $1500. Instead, we have investment bankers moving into new high-rise 1 bedrooms that cost $3000.
As for more and more people squeezing into the trains- Manhattan’s population actually declined somewhat in the past 40 years, and now it is increasing again, so this is no surprise.
Perhaps its time to FINALLY get over it. I don’t know how old our guest blogger is, but as a life long New Yorker I suspect, you (like me) were born into a city that had deeply declined (I’m 44). This boom has been going on for 20 years now, since the beginning of Ed Koch’s first term as mayor?
I’m glad you recognize the benefits of gentrification. While there were pioneers who have been bid out (and a larger number who made boat-loads of cash selling co-ops), The fact is the mainstream has re-discovered and re-built New York from river to river (and beyond). The freshly paved streets are packed with productive people and tourists. The cultural scene is booming at every level. Transit is in much better shape with many renovated subway stations, brand new trains and buses too. Streets are being taken back for pedestrian plazas. There’s exciting new global retail and new conveniences all over the city. Our universities are rapidly expanding. Our parks are world class again (more on the way!). Buildings are in a state of good repair. Sidewalks are clean. People give a damn.
New York is no longer a dead man walking.
So wipe off the menacing look (it’s so 80’s) and join the party.
Make that a turn-around nearly 30 years in the making.
Ray,
I’m not sure if you are trying to say “the 80’s were not normal, now is normal and we deserve it” or “let’s celebrate how far we’ve gone.” But I’m surely siding with the former.
I like your optimism, but 30 years is a damn long time. I haven’t even lived that long yet. China has built entire cities in that time. Consider this from a financial perspective- are we getting a good return on our investment in the city? I think not. We pay some of the highest taxes in the nation. A few of our disadvantages have to do with nature, like weather (need to heat homes and remove snow in winter) and geology (subway tunnels are hard to make in bedrock). But most problems we have are manmade. And there continue to be many problems.