We Built This City on Rock-n-Roll?
I don’t have much sympathy for the plight of the oh-so glamorous Village and Lower East Side. This is the bitter little Holden Caufield in me winning out over the urban planning nerd and the socialist. I just feel like the invading Darwinist hordes, the yuppies, limeys and spoiled NYU students who priced out the previous residents, will get what they deserve. Either they too will one day be priced out, or they will be left with a community that’s been sucked dry of vitality and art.
Nightlife is what attracts many to downtown, but high rents are forcing prominent nightclubs to close. The Bottom Line closed not too long ago, and now Tonic and Fez are following. New York University actually foreclosed on the Bottom Line, which couldn’t meet the exorbitant rents that the university charged. The truth is that the Bottom Line should have hired new management years ago. The club was a beautiful cabaret with a full stage and generous seating, but it was stuck in a time warp. Musical scenes came and went in New York, but the Bottom Line could always be counted on to host David Johansen. (I saw Alex Chilton there, solo, and Ray Manzarek joined by Jim Carroll – great artists, but dating from the mid-60’s to the late 70’s).
Fez was a wonderfully intimate setting, with full-seating and a wonderful showcase for singer-songwriters. I saw Rhett Miller of the Old 97’s a couple of times there, test-drive new material. I also saw and met John Doe.
Well, they’re both gone, and, much worse, CBGB’s might follow.
Downtown’s latest problems are further vindication of Jane Jacobs, whose book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” is the bible of civic activists. Her book was not so much researched as observed. One thing that Jacobs observed was how too much of a good thing in a neighborhood can ruin what was good there in the first place. She used as an example a vital 24-hour neighborhood, with shops and restaurants and homes all within walking distance. Into this bustling neighborhood, at a prominent intersection, would move a bank. The bank would prosper and thrive and soon another bank would move across the street. Perhaps a third and even a fourth would join the block. Pretty soon, the character of the neighborhood has been altered. It is no longer a 24-hour neighborhood because the banks close at 5:00. The street goes quiet in the evenings and, with fewer “eyes on the street,” crime increases. Residents move out of the neighborhood and a vicious cycle begins. Balance is what Jacobs is arguing in favor of.
Balance is lost downtown. The 24-hour party people pay huge rents as admission to an urban playground. Corporate retail chains (your GAP’s and American Appaerel’s and what-have-you) buy their way into the neighborhood to get in on some of that party money. The stores price out the nightclubs. The 24-hour party starts closing early. The neighborhood becomes a bore, and the party people move on.
As it is, the artists have moved on. It seems like all the up-and-coming bands in New York are based out of Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn. Not only that, but they cut their teeth playing at Brooklyn clubs like North Six and Warsaw.
Thirty years ago, the members of Blondie rented a loft on Bowery across the street from CBGB’s. Now, if NYC is to be the home of any more future legends, be they Radio 4 or the Black Spoons or someone we’ve yet to hear of, their story is totally unlikely to start in Manhattan. They’re much more likely to be a Brooklyn band, playing Brooklyn clubs for Brooklyn residents.
Perhaps one day, if Williamsburg gets totally gentrified too (not too far-fetched as of this writing), the next generation of rock-n-roll bohemians will live in apartments that face the J train on Jamaica Ave. in Richmond Hill, and cut their teeth playing the Republican Club and the RKO Keith.
A Letter to the Editor, Re: Wal-Mart
The news that the UFCW had organized a Wal-Mart store in Quebec was hailed as a real breakthrough in some quarters of the labor movement. Quebec has a card-check authorization law, which means the union merely has to present union cards that represent a majority of the workers in the bargaining unit in order to be certified. This avoids the bruising, months-long anti-union campaigns that employers like Wal-Mart engage in when unions in the U.S. petition the NLRB for a union election. Quebec also has a right to a first contract under law. In the U.S., many companies “recognize” the union but never agree to a contract, which leaves the union dead in the water.
So, of course, with favorable laws like that (which, by the way, there’s nothing stopping New York or other so-called “blue states” from enacting similar laws), Quebec was recognized as a weak spot for corporations like Wal-Mart, where unions could get a foot in the door and then leverage those properties in tougher fights in other parts of the world. Predictably, Wal-Mart closed the store.
Below is a letter to the editor of Newsday.
February 11, 2005
Letters Editor
Newsday
235 Pinelawn Road
Melville, NY 11747-4250
To the Editor:
Wal-Mart’s decision to close a store in Quebec where workers had recently voted to form a union should be a cautionary tale for Queens. Wal-Mart’s claim that union demands would have made the store unprofitable is an obvious lie. The contract was to be settled by an impartial arbitrator who would never have imposed terms that would force the store out of business.
Wal-Mart’s long history of union-busting is well-documented. The company harasses, intimidates and fires workers who stand up for their rights. It breaks the law with impunity. In China, it cuts dirty deals with the government. And if all of this doesn’t work, and the workers still succeed in forming a union, Wal-Mart pulls up stakes and leaves.
Why then should citizens of Queens allow Wal-Mart to build a new store in Rego Park? After they put all of our favorite small businesses out of business, after they dump untold fortunes into lobbying against fair wage, benefits and rights bills in our City Council, and after their workers inevitably seek union representation, Wal-Mart is just going to close this store. We’ve seen this movie before. Let’s rewrite the first act and prevent Wal-Mart from ever poisoning our community.
Yours,
Shaun Richman
Trainspotting
I don’t know when or how I became a trainspotter. I just find myself walking through the older neighborhood to my south, Richmond Hill, to clear my head and wait for the odd train to pass by.
Richmond Hill was established in the late-19th century to be “country homes” for New York commuters. Eventually, the rest of the city grew out around the neighborhood, which simply became a part of New York City, although a distinctive part. The neighborhood has grand architecture, including its own Carnegie Library, a landmark RKO movie palace and lots of faded glory Victorian mansions. In the heart of the neighborhood is a dead train station.
The LIRR’s Montauk train line snakes through the neighborhood. It’s an overpass at Lefferts Blvd. that ducks under the elevated J train. It’s a dead end of many residential blocks. It’s two lonely non-electrified tracks that wind through a valley in Forest Park.
The train line’s western terminus is Hunter Point Avenue in Long Island City, where commuters ride ferries to Wall Street or Midtown. It’s not the most convenient commute. When the MTA closed the Richmond Hill station in 1998, only seven commuters rode it daily. Still, those seven people must have found it to be a quicker way to get to work than the Kew Gardens station eight blocks to the north, which zips passengers to Penn Station in under 20 minutes. Or else they just found it to be a more scenic route.
The official justification for the closing was that the behemoth double decker diesel trains that the MTA introduced that year were too high for the station’s antique platforms. The LIRR scaled back service on the line to just four trains every week day; two head towards Hunters Point Avenue in the morning rush, and two head back to Montauk in the pm.
The rarity of these trains is what makes them so interesting. Watching the train go by at a quarter after five is like being comforted by some ancient ritual. You don’t really know who rides that train or why, but you know that it will glide by again tomorrow at the same time. Sometimes I forget what time it is and I’m delighted to watch the train pass below me in the park, a modern marvel of a train chugging along on tracks that use centuries-old technology, zipping through a forest that’s been here longer than humanity.
A lot of people in the community want the whole train line shut down. They feel it’s too exposed, too dangerous for their kids. It is curious that the MTA would keep a train line in functional operation for just four commuter trains a day. Some people think they keep it running for the handful of factories and warehouses that still use the tracks to ship via freight. (I saw one such freight train today, and it was a special treat, coming, as it did, with no announced schedule.) Other people think they keep it around “just in case.”
Train infrastructure is expensive and difficult to set up; preservation of what’s already been set up just seems wise. Indeed, one of the many projects that the MTA has on its wish list is a new main line for the LIRR. Most trains that go to Penn Station pass through the same congested section of track in New York City (you know, the station stops that make Long Islanders grumble about slowing their commute: “…making stops at Woodside, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens and Jamaica; change at Jamaica for the train to…”). The congestion will just get worse when the LIRR finally begins service to the east side’s Grand Central Station.
That being the case, the old Montauk line makes a likely candidate for a new main line. One of the most expensive elements of creating a new train line is the cost of right of way, but here in the Montauk line the LIRR has miles and miles of scenic right of way, owned in full.
If modernized, electrified and expanded, the train tracks will lose some of their charm and I doubt I would remain a trainspotter for trains that zip through every 15 minutes. But faded glory is only interesting for imagining what was. I’d rather see rejuvenation through a return to full-service commuter transportation and new affordable housing and commercial development.
Valentine’s Day Blunder
Mike Bloomberg’s missing a real opportunity. On Friday, a New York State judge ruled that the state constitution, which places a much heavier emphasis on equal protection and civil rights than the United States Constitution, should be read as to allow same-sex marriage. Licenses for such same sex marriages could have been issued as early as tomorrow, if Mayor Bloomberg hadn’t announced that the city intends to appeal the decision to the state’s Court of Appeals. Bloomberg, who made a point of announcing his personal support for gay marriage, said he wanted to make sure that the decision was supported by the state’s highest court as soon as possible.
In fact, he is trying to have it both ways. He is trying to be pro-gay marriage for New York’s generally liberal general election voters, and anti-gay marriage for voters in the Republican primary, where he faces a real challenge from an actual Republican, former City Council Minority Leader Thomas Ognibene.
This is a shame, because Bloomberg could have done something so much bigger. This is February, which means not only are we on the heels of Bush’s State of the Union address, in which he reiterated his support of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, but we are just one week away from Valentine’s Day. I can’t think of a more grand, romantic gesture than the defense of equal rights and progress in the face of bigotry and reaction. Bloomberg should have opened City Hall’s steps to all couples, gay and straight, who want to get married on Valentine’s Day. It would be a potent symbol to the rest of the country that, while Bush won, his victory was narrow and regional and that, in New York at least, we’re not going to roll over for his agenda.
It also would have scored a lot of votes in the general election for Mike Bloomberg. But, he needs to win his primary before he can take his campaign to all of the city’s voters. The Republican party in New York City is tiny. There are more independents than Republicans and Democrats outnumber the Republicans by five to one. The tinyness is what appealed to Bloomberg in 2001. A socially liberal Democrat, with a huge personal fortune and media empire, he bought the Republican ballot line in 2001. Now he faces a real rebellion from this tiny collection of Archie Bunkers. Expect to see Bloomberg take two sides on a lot of issues in between now and September.
Ironically, if the Liberal party still had a ballot line, I think there would have been same-sex weddings on Valentine’s Day. It’s important to note that by the time of its demise the Liberal party was neither liberal nor a party, but a corrupt patronage mill with a name that appealed to enough voters as to allow the only two Republican mayors that New York elected in the last half of the 20th century to eke out wins. If Bloomberg could count on being on the Liberal ballot line in November, like Rudy Giuliani and John Lindsay before him, then even if he lost the Republican primary, he could still compete in the general election and maybe win (like Lindsay did in 1969).
Of course, one would expect someone who bought his way in to high office in order to do something good and leave his mark, to stake out the right position on same-sex marriage anyway, because it is the noble thing to do.