Some quotes from a beautifully crafted opinion piece in the NY Times on that eternal question that afflicts cities like NYC, and us: When did we stop being cool?
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My City Was Gone. (Or Was It?)
By ADA CALHOUN
People have pronounced St. Marks Place dead many times over the past centuries — when it became poor, and then again when it became rich, and then again when it returned to being poor, and so on. My theory is that the neighborhood hasn’t stopped being cool because it’s too expensive now; it stops being cool for each generation the second we stop feeling cool there.
When I asked nostalgic people to name the street’s golden era, they cited a range of years — often falling between 1960 and 1982, but sometimes 1945, or 1958, or 2012. … I began to notice a pattern: The years people said the city was at its best almost always coincided with when they themselves were at their hottest, typically in their late teens or early 20s.
Who understands the soul of any place? Who deserves to be here? Who is the interloper and who the interloped upon? Who can say which drunk N.Y.U. student stumbling down St. Marks Place will wind up writing the next classic novel or making the next great album? It’s hubris to think you can tell by looking at them. The beloved artist Keith Haring, whose giant green sculpture now stands on the corner of St. Marks and Third Avenue, spraypainted “Clones Go Home” on the borders of the East Village in 1980 to try to protect it from invasion by some of the same people who now feel invaded. When he waged this campaign, he was a middleclass college student from suburban Pennsylvania who had been in New York for two years.
I think it’s worth considering the possibility that, yes, it is over — for you. But for plenty of others, the city is as full of potential and magic as it was in 1977. Or 1964. Or 1992. Or whenever you last walked down the street and felt like it belonged only to you.
Ada Calhoun is the author of “St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street.”
Thanks for pointing me to that article. A bit late on responding here.
I actually went to High School with Ada. Having grown up in New York and went to High School in Manhattan, I too remember the good old days of St. Marks Street actually being cool. And going to CBGB’s to listen to a horrible punk band. But even then, I had the feeling that the East Village’s peak had passed, but mostly because my brother (a whole 3 years older than me) told me how much better the neighbourhood used to be. It’s too simple to say that the city is just as “cool” as it used to be, but just not for you. The city is so much safer now. Kids in our high school were regularly shaken down or mugged on their way home (and we went to a good school in a nice neighbourhood). Now, something like that is unthinkable in the East Village. I’m not saying that I wish the city were less safe, but when things are too safe and predictable, some of the edge is lost. When things are too expensive, it is that much harder for odd and creative things to flow up organically.