I'm sitting here in the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library, one of Manhattan's few surviving Victorian gothic buildings. (It was a market and police station and a women's prison before its present incarnation as a library.) (Picture source.) And I'm in shock! I wandered around the neighborhood where I lived 2002-6 and in just a year many things have changed. The building I lived in has been repainted, from mud brown to cement grey - it remains the ugliest building in the city! But new ugly buildings are rising all around. And in the space next to my favorite neighborhood cafe, Paradise, a row of little shops has been swallowed by a giant pit from which a new monstrosity will doubtless emerge. In the Upper West Side neighborhood where I'm staying, three ugly new highrise condominium towers have reared their ugly heads, and many of the charming little family-owned shops have been replaced by chain stores, as the "greedy co-ops" (as my friend J describes them) which own the spaces have jacked up the rents. While the mouse is away, the cats do play!
Friday, July 06, 2007
Stomping grounds
I'm sitting here in the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library, one of Manhattan's few surviving Victorian gothic buildings. (It was a market and police station and a women's prison before its present incarnation as a library.) (Picture source.) And I'm in shock! I wandered around the neighborhood where I lived 2002-6 and in just a year many things have changed. The building I lived in has been repainted, from mud brown to cement grey - it remains the ugliest building in the city! But new ugly buildings are rising all around. And in the space next to my favorite neighborhood cafe, Paradise, a row of little shops has been swallowed by a giant pit from which a new monstrosity will doubtless emerge. In the Upper West Side neighborhood where I'm staying, three ugly new highrise condominium towers have reared their ugly heads, and many of the charming little family-owned shops have been replaced by chain stores, as the "greedy co-ops" (as my friend J describes them) which own the spaces have jacked up the rents. While the mouse is away, the cats do play!
