Essex Crossing is a massive development which will soon be built on one of the largest remaining vacant parcels of land in Manhattan. This, no doubt, will radically alter the neighborhood in ways unlike previous urban renewal efforts. The land is located on the south side of Delancey Street, near the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge, and is also known as SPURA (Seward Park Urban Regeneration Area). It has been vacant since the late 1960’s due to a failed urban renewal scheme (see NY Times article here and read the comments). This left the area with a big, gaping hole in its center, dividing the newer housing projects to the south and east from the older low rise housing stock to the north and west. Consequentially, other smaller parcels of land were cleared of buildings all over the LES and Alphabet City in the 1970’s and 80’s, mostly due to absentee landlords and overall neglect. This left the neighborhood with little habitable housing stock. When Giuliani became mayor in the mid-1990’s, many deals were made with developers, and thus began a cycle of regeneration/gentrification that continues to this day.
Giuliani wasn’t the first to try to gentrify the Lower East Side, and arguments could be made that attempts were happening even in the early 1900’s (I'm thinking Ageloff Towers on Avenue A). The first big push after the citywide decline of the 1970’s was actually in the early 1980’s, when the East Village and LES began to be populated by art galleries and performance spaces. The scene very different from the current crop of galleries, in that most operated with very little profit in repurposed storefronts and bedrooms. They were not the professionalized ventures we see populating the neighborhood today (at least not initially). Also many of the artists showing in the galleries lived and worked in the neighborhood, therefore it was often a local scene. Also at times the work being shown directly questioned the state of the neighborhood, politics, and housing policies (see The Real Estate Show and also somewhat related: Martha Rosler's show/book "If You Lived Here").
I recently started a visual project detailing the change on my street in the LES since I moved there in 1991. I don’t have a ton of pictures from the early 1990’s, but I have enough to piece together a timeline of sorts chronicling renovations, demolitions, and new construction on just a small portion of my block. A lot has happened in 20+ years, more than I remembered without the aid of photographs. I now realize I hadn’t considered the change which came from within, such as empty buildings being rehabilitated and occupied (there are many), as being the catalyst which kickstarted future larger developments. Looking back though, its obvious this was the case.
-to be continued………(due to lack of home internet posting is getting slower…….)
-to be continued………(due to lack of home internet posting is getting slower…….)
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Shifting gears here from the last post but going with a stream-of-consciousness kind of thing…..
We all harbor irrational signs which we turn into indicators of where future actions will take us. While flipping a coin might give an immediate answer for the occasional predicament, those long, drawn out, unpredictable quandaries often require more esoteric sources to determine a temporary resolution. Whatever these signifiers are they range from the highly probable to the probably delusional, helping us suss out some order within the chaos of our daily lives.
Lately I've been feeling more upbeat about the prospect of our landlord renewing our lease and not giving us a notice of non-renewal (though the upswing may be in proportion to the amount of coffee I've had that day). Most of our neighbors have moved due to non-renewal notices and out of 18 units I think there are only 4 still occupied. While major construction, such as "cutting holes in the walls to put in new windows" and "moving all the electrical and gas meters into totally different places" is still in progress, I am somehow able to rationalize a scenario whereby we'll still be here, intact, next year.
I'll start with my craziest thought first and work my way towards something more solid, and hopefully I'm not jinxing myself by saying these things out loud:
1) This bike.
This bike has been attached to the fence of a community garden on 3rd street for I-can't-tell-you how long. I *think* it may have been, at one point in time in the very distance past, my bike. I'd brought a bike very similar to this one from PA when I moved to the LES in 1991. In truth it was a bit too small for me and I didn't use it much. I sold it to a German girl I worked with briefly at Amazon Movers in the mid-1990's. She lived at Collective Unconscious when they were on Ave B (now Croxley Ale House). Soon after that there was a fire and Collective Unconscious moved somewhere else (Ludlow I think?). Maybe the bike was left there or maybe someone else nearby continued using it (I assumed it was damaged in the fire). Anyway, one day it appeared tied to the fence on this garden next to Mama's (R.I.P), and has not moved for years. I pass this bike almost every day on my way to work in the East Village. In my mind, as long as that bike is there, I will not have to move.
(addendum: the name of the garden on 3rd Street is Miracle Garden)
2) The Laundry Room.
We have a coin operated laundry room in the basement of our building. It houses two well worn washers and dryers which have always been cheap and convenient (especially when there when laundromats were few and far between). The contractors are currently completely tearing the basement apart, knocking holes in walls and ceilings, pipes jutting out all over the place, yet not once have we not had access to the laundry room. The contractors make a dusty mess, I complain to the building manager, and the next week they clean up. One day they left the construction plans in the laundry room allowing me a chance to see what they are doing with the basement, first, and second floors. While everything else imaginable is been moved, removed, reconfigured, or added, somehow in the plans the "existing laundry room" remains, except now with a door. This, in my mind, means that the "existing tenants" may also remain.
3) Heat (or lack thereof):
Each apartment in our building has its own heat and hot water inside the unit, a remnant of 1980's renovations. We have an electric hot water heater in the bathroom, a weird electric heater in the bathroom wall (I don't know how humid hot air and an exposed heater coil can be compatible, but the thing has worked reliably for years), and two gas blower heaters that look like air conditioners from the outside. Pair that with a severe lack of insulation (read: none) and what you have is very cold apartment in the winter and a rather expensive electric bill. One thing I was worried about with these new renovations is that all the units would have to be cleared for them to put in proper heat, but it looks like they are installing some sort of system that will create heat for each unit separately. This, in my mind, means that they do not have to kick everyone out to put in the new heat, so thats a tally on the "not getting kicked out necessarily yet" side.
bathroom heater mid-1990's
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