Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Things about a "Changing City"

Alex at Flaming Pablum has his tickets for the WNYC-hosted forum tomorrow morning titled "The Places that Bind: Examining Preservation and Culture in a Changing City."

Meanwhile, Norman at the Atlantic Yards Report posted WYNC's program from Monday that serves as a sneak preview for tomorrow. Brian Lehrer talked with Rosie Perez, who's hosting the event, and writer/filmmaker Nelson George, on "the importance of mom and pop shops, stoops, civic gathering places, and neighborhood character in a changing city."

Atlantic Yards noted one of the comments from a caller to the program:

"A caller named Manny, who grew up in the Lower East Side and Washington Heights, expressed understandably mixed feelings. 'Is the city safer, yes, but at what cost?' he asked rhetorically. 'To have $90-a-plate food [at restaurants] on Avenue B is crazy... It's good, but it's also bad, because the poor people at the end have to pay.'"


Norman also posted two videos of the Dictators doing "Avenue A," from their 2001 record "D.F.F.D."



In this performance, as Norman, wrote, Mantioba "disses Avenue B (home of his bar Manitoba's) as 'Avenue Bistro,' laments seeing a New York University dorm go up where AC/DC opened up for the Dictators, and snarls, 'Give me back my fuckin' neighborhood.'"



P.S.
In case you missed it.... last week, WNYC hosted Lou Reed, Santigold and string quartet Ethel in a program Titled "Downtown: World in a Word."

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