Thanks to Alex at Flaming Pablum for this link to "Viva Loisaida 1978." (The link has been making the rounds on Facebook.)
The description via YouTube:
Produced by "Gruppe Dokumentation" & "Tylis" and filmed in Loisada, by Marlis Momber, this 10 min. commercial gives a brief preview before gentrification occurred in Lower East Side in the Fall of October, 1978 with Chino Garcia & Bimbo Rivas.
16 comments:
one thing I notice right off the bat. fewer bums.
Notice the distinct lack of drunken frat boys puking in the streets.
The cars were so cool and it makes me remember why people were such car lovers. I wish there was backfiring in this little film, it was a constant sound from the streets. Who can get excited about a Toyota?
@Jill I was thinking the same thing. The cars make it. The mural at the end is pretty epic.
"Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way"
Lovely. I came to New York around this time (makes me a native New Yorker by now, I think!) and moved to Loisaida not long after. Many memories here. It was a neighborhood, say what you will...
wow thers my squat and the wine and dine crew..
All the Yuppie creeps from all over the nation have come to New York to piss in the street, scream, yell, knock over garbage cans, throw up, and otherwise "make their mark" on the city, while Bloomberg, now worth $16 Billion, continues to close hospitals and sell the property to his developer friends. Welcome.
Wow. Now I know I'm old.
The guy being interviewed around 7:30m mentions "...the Quondo building" (aka "Quondo"). I remember the name, but can't for the life of me remember where or what it was.
Where did they buy their cappucinos and froyos?
And everything else too?
I like some of the comments posted after folks watched this 10 minute excerpt of the 41 minute 1978 VIVALOISAIDA documentary and it is available on DVD just in case people have an attention span of 41 mins. it is amazing how little has really changed despite of the physical appearance. How do they do it: fool the m "asses"
This is the NYC I remember as a child- the awesome cars, the grayness and grit, the streetwise people who've seen it all. Development in scale so that cars can drive and people can walk. Neighborhoods that were for the people who lived there, not Times Square everywhere. Thank you for posting.
1:26 PM please STFU
did you see those burned out buildings?
believe me, Bloomberg has very little to do with a booming city , good or bad.
and he really could care less about developers.. stop saying that , its not true and annoying.
I for one do not wish to go back to the open heroin dealings on B and C and all the rest of the bad stuff.
hoods get better, or get worse.
better is better to me.
change is the only constant.
@Anon. 8:02 - What was being talked about was "Cuando", also known as The Church of All Nations, an art and performance space that used to stand on East 2nd Street and Second Avenue.
Much as I decry the corporate chain-ization and fratification of the East Village, I don't see much in this video to be nostalgic about either. It hardly looks like a utopia. Rather post-apocalyptic, actually.
Rents were cheaper, more artists and musicians, but crime was higher, streets look filthy, etc. There is no perfect era to live in.
I'd vote for jazz-age NYC though. But then you had all the racism and other negativity. So again, no utopia.
Why can't we retain the best from the past and improve upon the rest? The city seems to replace one problem with another. That's called "progress" or "gentrification".
- East Villager
exactly what hospitals has Bloomberg closed?
St. Vincents? a private catholic hospital that was so mismanaged that they squandered tens of millions of dollars , some of it from the taxpayers.
the nursing homes in East Village ? again privately owned.
What land did he sell? SPURA, not sold , only approved for housing after 40 years as parking lots - AND with 50% guaranteed affordable? Who is going to build it? probably no one as they took the profit out of the project and there are no government funds for it.
Try and write facts.
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