TM Prompt 235: Show Us Where You Live
I moved to Manhattan when I was seventeen. Back then - nevermind what year it was, okay? - the Village wasn’t nice, safe clean and all full of chain stores. The building I ended up in was full of junkies, a fair amount of what we called “sexual deviants” when we were feeling charitable, struggling artistes, a range of kids trying to choose between being any or all of those, and other social misfits of persuasions too numerous to list. Now? If it hadn’t gone co-op right at the moment I was able to sell my parent’s house, I wouldn’t be able to afford my wannabe walkup (the elevators in this place are and always have been mainly for show - they only work on federal holidays on alternate years.)
Back then, the big excitement was you might see Dee Dee Ramone scoring junk somewhere in the back of a club. Now? You can’t spit without seeing a “somebody” around here; it’s gentrification gone nuts. With the a-b-c and d- listers trying to maintain their lifestyles comes a raft of upscale joints where they can buy the food, clothes and accessories with the brand names they crave, driving up the price of real estate rental, making it hard for the thrift shops, porn stores and greasy spoons we no-listers frequent to stay open.
Sometimes, though, especially later at night, when the tourists clear out, and the nice upper-upper-middle class people clear out, the bones of the neighborhood show. It’s still New York, it’s still the Village, it’s still gritty, gross and real. It’s still home.
Back then, the big excitement was you might see Dee Dee Ramone scoring junk somewhere in the back of a club. Now? You can’t spit without seeing a “somebody” around here; it’s gentrification gone nuts. With the a-b-c and d- listers trying to maintain their lifestyles comes a raft of upscale joints where they can buy the food, clothes and accessories with the brand names they crave, driving up the price of real estate rental, making it hard for the thrift shops, porn stores and greasy spoons we no-listers frequent to stay open.
Sometimes, though, especially later at night, when the tourists clear out, and the nice upper-upper-middle class people clear out, the bones of the neighborhood show. It’s still New York, it’s still the Village, it’s still gritty, gross and real. It’s still home.