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New York City, U.S.A.
I moved to New York City in 1999, when the world was bracing itself for the potential computer apocalypse of Y2K – with hordes of elbow-bumping shoppers on a “just to be safe” quest to stockpile bottled water, batteries, canned food, and toilet paper. In retrospect, that chaotic scene feels quite quaint compared to the impending doom of the 9/11 attacks and a paralyzing global pandemic that would surface two decades later.
Soon to be a 21st century boy, I arrived with a Discman in hand. You could still smoke in bars, ethernet was the rage, the subway still used tokens, and there was a diner, not a Chase, on every corner. The only way you heard about anything cool was from a friend of a friend of a friend, a cryptic flyer, or a hard copy of The Village Voice.
As soon as I settled into the East Village, I was informed repeatedly that if I passed Avenue B, I’d probably get stabbed. The warnings were given with a slight tongue-and-cheekiness but also with enough gravity for me to heed them. Furthermore, it was ingrained in me weekly by the jaded neighbors around me that New York was now, in fact, “so dead.” As a very green Denver native, “dead” New York still seemed pretty alive, and I quickly learned that if you mind your own business and walk with a sense of purpose (or tunnel vision), your chances of being stabbed seem to lessen.
Although other Manhattan neighborhoods at the time had succumbed to Giuliani-induced gentrification, the East Village clung to bits of the heroin-addled punk bohemia that had long defined it, with traces of goth, glam rock, and club kid counterculture still very much percolating. Pizza slices were $1.99. Egg creams were still being doled out on the corner like it was 1945, and video stores were renting bootleg VHS tapes only. I had heard rumors of a Gap store at 2nd Avenue and St. Marks being shut down a year prior by neighborhood groups protesting against mass corporations infiltrating their dilapidated utopia.
I also learned (possibly from a thrift store cashier, definitely not from Google) that the half-abandoned building I passed daily at 19-25 St. Marks Place was the former site of the famed Electric Circus nightclub—home to The Velvet Underground and Nico’s iconic 1966 residency. The month-long pop-up, part of Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable series, was attended by downtown artists and uptown A-listers. It was a fast and furious epicenter that went on to define an era and shape and push the radical rethinking of cultural possibilities of the city at the time.
The large ramshackle building symbolized the neighborhood’s rebellion and resistance toward capitalism and greedy developers. Yet seemingly overnight, with no angry protests in sight, the structure morphed into luxury condos. The new ground floor tenants included a gourmet market that blared Dick Hyman and Harry James on repeat (so you could feel like you were buying vegetables in “Hannah and Her Sisters”), along with suburban strip mall staples Supercuts and Chipotle.
That’s the hard truth about New York: When you aren’t looking, something can be the height of avant-garde hedonism one day and an empty shell the next. And then eventually a destination for ten-dollar haircuts and burrito bowls.
Sometimes it’s an entire neighborhood that changes, from its varied faces to its very fabric. The most obvious examples are the transformation of neighborhoods like Soho, Meatpacking, Williamsburg, Bed-Stuy, and Two Bridges. It’s a New York tale as old as time: Low rent attracts young creatives to live and open businesses in downtrodden, often transient areas riddled with crime, drugs, and litter. Slowly and then all at once (when you were too busy dancing to even notice), the neighborhood flourishes into a subversive, cutting edge destination. This exciting new cultural hub is officially branded further by everyone from the media to real estate agents.
As interest grows from in-the-know to of-course-we-know, rent costs spike, the now “trendy” area is regularly featured in the New York Times (and not just in the crime section), magazine spreads, countless Instagram posts and the latest Darren Star vehicle, and its entire essence is diluted. Finally, the neighborhood inevitably succumbs to throngs of tourists and the chain stores they seek out and discriminating New Yorkers move along with a been-there-done-that mentality.
“Things always change. And New York teaches you that,” punk rock pioneer Richard Hell told Dazed & Confused in 2013. Although the musician and writer has lived in the same East Village apartment on East 11th Street since 1975, he isn’t sappy or wistful about the past. “It’s healthy to know that and to learn not to be sentimental or nostalgic because you can’t stop it.”
If you’ve lived here long enough, it can be hard not to be defined by your own raucous anecdotes of yesteryear. Often wearing them like badges of honor, we have pissing matches over who experienced late nights at the now shuttered CBGB, The Beatrice Inn, Rose Bar or Don Hill’s, or who attended fashion week when the shows were at the tents in Bryant Park. But we adapt to these changes. We accept them. Because the question is not if change will occur, but when.
As for the why? Look no further than the pissing match between commerce and creativity. That constant power struggle is what allows New Yorkers to overhaul their goals and dreams as quickly as a luxury condo crops up. It’s perfectly acceptable and even encouraged for actors to become hedge fund managers, CPAs to become ceramists, or divorce attorneys to become cabaret singers.
As New Yorkers, we are subconsciously coerced to “kill our darlings,” so to speak. Those of us who helped the world rediscover rosé, negronis and now espresso martinis have moved on to drinking vegetal tomato water martinis and biodynamic, skin contact wine with zero pretentiousness. There may be the current social currency of scoring a reservation at The Nines, Lilia, Claud, Dame, or Bonnies, but there is an unspoken understanding that in a few years, half of these places may not even be around – or if they are, our Aunt Susan will be able to walk in on a weekend and score a prime table.
New Yorkers’ response to change is inherently reactive and proactive. It is practically a survival tactic when faced with the city’s greatest and darkest moments of transition from natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and pandemics. Often these times bring on a renewed sense of solidarity, a deeper appreciation for the city and each other. “As in the aftermath of 9/11, there will always be ‘us,’ who lived it and survived it, and ‘them,’ who will never truly understand it,” writes Candy Schulman in a 2020 pandemic-themed Washington Post article entitled “Yes, New York Has Changed. That’s What Makes It New York.”
For those of us who don’t leave, living through such catastrophic milestones together heightens our senses, sands down our edges for a while, and recharges our optimism with a sense of togetherness. With the COVID pandemic came a sobering obsolescence. We watched city cornerstones – diners, bike shops, tailors, hat stores, dive bars, delicatessens, art-supply stores, cafes – disappear. We now mourn for places and events we didn’t even like or never have been because they represent a bygone era forcing us to ponder if New York is “over.”
Recently I found myself walking through the East Village again for the first time in years. I saw that the jazzy market was long gone, much like Woody Allen’s career. It has since shapeshifted into a quirky Japanese grocery. The Supercuts and Chipotle have transformed into two of the city’s most impressive and authentic Shanghainese and Sichuan restaurants, according to the New York Times. The only threatening riffraff past Avenue B consists of kale margaritas, 100-dollar haircuts, natural wine, and bustling beer gardens.
Near the corner of East 6th Street and Avenue A, I spotted an overpacked U-Haul and two twentysomething girls. They seemed overjoyed to be moving into a walkup themselves, brimming with the genuine, untainted wonder of friends arriving from hundreds or thousands of miles away, rather than just a few city blocks. I imagine that in the next few weeks, someone will tell them that they are too late, that “New York City is over” or “so dead.” Yet to them, everything is new. There is no love lost. They aren’t grieving over a party, bar, or shop that they miss or never got around to frequenting. They don’t care about some iconic building or glowing sign recently torn down. Instead, they are on a quest to find their own Electric Circus, to taste award-winning Shanghainese food, to evolve with their new surroundings.
The truth is, this city doesn’t die as much as it irrevocably changes. It’s perpetually resetting, rebuilding, and redefining itself. It’s why we find this place both challenging and irresistible.
Whether we care to know it, like it, or love to hate it, New York City will constantly change, and it will constantly change you. If it evolves into something that is not to your liking, you can leave. The other option is to do what any sane, rational New Yorker would do: sit back and wait for the next round of shapeshifts to come – with equal parts despair and delight.
The number of companies North Six joins as newly-minted B Corp.
