New York's heart loses its beat

[T_i_B]

I'll let you lot decide how accurate this article is as I'm over here and you're over there.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1548957,00.html

For decades the streets of Greenwich Village beat as the counterculture heart of American life. From Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac to the anonymous thousands fresh off the bus from Middle America, it has provided a sanctuary for the alternative and outcast or those simply fleeing a suburban childhood.

No longer. America's bohemian pulse has faded. Assailed by sky-high rents, chain stores and hyper-expensive eateries, Greenwich Village is starting to look more Wall Street than Beat Street. Last week a headline in the Village Voice, New York's venerable alternative newspaper, said simply: 'The Village is Dying'.

Another Voice column was more brutal. It called the remnants of the Village's bohemian lifestyle 'threadbare' and concluded that poor poets, struggling artists and wannabe actors had been forced out by a simple new reality: 'One must be rich to live here.'

For many New Yorkers that comes as no surprise. The Village has been remorselessly gentrified since the 1980s. Neighbourhood coffee shops have become Starbucks, local diners have become chic restaurants booked up weeks in advance or have been turned into a McDonald's. Now the Voice's strident tone and a documentary called The Ballad of Greenwich Village have shown how the final nails have been driven into the coffin of a neighbourhood whose artistic contribution to American cultural life is unmatched.

[maddiejoan]

1. NYC hasn't lost it's beat.

It just moved to Brooklyn.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Well, it definitely moved out of the Village (which has become a

tourist trap).

[maddiejoan]

5. Billyburg is where it's at.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn for those not in the know.

[BlueEyedSon]

6. Pretty expensive there already, huh?

Nice sig, btw.

[HockeyMom]

2. Nostalgia Lane

I grew up in the Village. My parents had an apartment on Christopher St. and I went to Catholic School down the street from the Stonewall Inn. You are correct in everything you say; the coffeehouses, the Beats, the Music, the Artists/Actors, the Students from NYU, etc. Back then you didn't have to be a highly paid professional in order to be able to afford to live in Manhattan.

My parents moved to Chelsea when I was a teenager, but I moved back when I graduated HS. At 17 I got a job at NYU, went to school there at night (free tuition), and moved into my own Studio apartment on Sullivan Street. In the late 1960s, I was able to afford to live on my own there on a Secretary's salary. My salary was around $175 a week, but my rent was $125 a month. Even if the apartments weren't rent controlled (remember that?), they were still rent stabilized. This is the MAJOR reason why the rents in Manhattan, and NYC in general, have become so unaffordable.

You can blame the high costs of housing on the changing of the neighborhoods, but where in NY is it affordable? I live in Suffolk County and you will be hard pressed to find even a Studio HERE for less than about $800 a month.

[mcscajun]

4. Plenty of affordable housing in upstate NY...just no jobs there.

No surprises...it's that way everywhere.

Still, it's sad to see the Village lose it's 'otherworldliness'.