Spike Lee on NYC Gentrification

[EagleSmack]

Oh Spike... you're doing (and saying) the wrong thing!

Spike Lee’s Comments On NYC Gentrification Spark Debate In Fort Greene « CBS New York

This is happening in quite a few big cities. I know it is happening in Boston.

 

[coldstream]

It's not just the 'black' neighbourhoods. NYC and Manhattan used to be a magnet for artists, poets, actors in bustling communites.. with cheap rents (for less than respectable tenements).

It used to have a thriving working class of dock workers (Manhattan was surrounded by wharfs) and small scale manufacturing (especially in clothing).

That has all but disappeared. Former artistic neighbourhoods are now dominated by trendy galleries and condominiums appealing to the super rich. The garment industry has vanished as has the wharves.

Wall Street and Free Trade have replaced the pulsing Manhattan of Walt Whitman.. with a pastiche replica, emptied of any real vitality.. where only the rich need venture.

 

[EagleSmack]

It's not just the 'black' neighbourhoods. NYC and Manhattan used to be a magnet for artists, poets, actors in bustling communites.. with cheap rents (for less than respectable tenements).

It used to have thriving working class of dock workers (Manhattan was surrounded by wharfs) and small scale manufacturing (especially in clothing).

Who could forget Hell's Kitchen and Five Points!

That has all but disappeared. Former artistic neighbourhoods are now dominated by trendy galleries and condominiums appealing to the super rich. The garment industry has vanished as has the wharves.

Have you been to NYC lately? The garment industry is still strong...but it is more on the design side. I took a tour a couple of summers ago and we passed through the garment district. It was pretty cool.

Even in Boston this is going on. The Chinese in Chinatown are complaining about the whites moving in and the Latinos in Jamaica Plain are complaining about the whites moving in. When rich White Liberals set their sights on minority neighborhoods there is nothing that will get in their way.

 

[Locutus]

Social Geography 101.

 

[coldstream]

Who could forget Hell's Kitchen and Five Points!



Have you been to NYC lately? The garment industry is still strong...but it is more on the design side. I took a tour a couple of summers ago and we passed through the garment district. It was pretty cool.

.

The garment industry is non existent. What you have is design studios.. who manufacture in China or Pakistan. It might employ 1% of what it used to support, if that.

 

[EagleSmack]

The garment industry is non existent. What you have is design studios.. who manufacture in China or Pakistan. It might employ 1% of what it used to support, if that.

Okey dokey!

 

[EagleSmack]

Social Geography 101.

I bet they never saw that coming.