We first posted this last Tuesday... here's a reminder...
7-Eleven is coming to Avenue A at 11th Street. The residents of 11th Street won't sit for it. We're drawing the line of suburbanization here.
We have had about enough of chain stores and suburban franchises, Duane Reades, Walgreens and Chase Banks on every corner. We've chosen to fight. Join with us and let's start a city-wide resistance. Let's not sit for it any more.
MEETING: NO 7-11
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 6:30PM
545 EAST 11TH STREET
(Father's Heart Ministries, btwn A&B)
San Francisco has laws to restrict chain stores. NYC zoning laws don't prevent big box commercialism and the current mayor's planning department won't change those regulations. But a local election is coming.
Next year, this mayor will be gone — now's our opportunity to tell the coming administration that this does matter to us. If we don't raise the cry loud and clear, the new administration won't address it either.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the wholesale suburbanization and selling of New York lies in the hands of the people of New York. We've got to create the political will to fight against the death of this city. We've got to be visible and loud and persistent. New Yorkers have been sitting for it for a long time. We mustn't sit for it any longer.
There's likely a 7-Eleven near you, and if not, there will be. The 7-Eleven corporation has targeted the city for many more openings, intending to displace local commerce especially local bodegas. Don't sit for that.
Join the 11th Street resistance. Let's turn it into a Lower East Side resistance and a Manhattan resistance a Harlem and the Heights resistance and a Village and Chinatown resistance. Complacency=Suburbanization.
We're meeting on the 16th. Tell your friends. Bring your inventive ideas and your righteous indignation.
There's an addition to the meeting to note. Bowery Poetry Club founder Bob Holman will be there to tell to discuss "the No 7-11 campaign of No Chains on the Bowery," per the meeting invite. (Though there already is a 7-Eleven on the Bowery.)
Holman wrote this yesterday on Facebook:
You know my feelings about the architecture of my cross the street neighbors — that the Avalon Buildings are bland, tired, socialist post-modernism, while the Bowery is and always has been about life and art jazzed to extremes. But to be invaded by mall culture, the US's lowest common denominator, citizen as consumer —no! No Chains on the Bowery! They do it in San Francisco — let's go!
While you are at the meeting please consider making a donation to The Fathers Heart Church. Yes, the food lines can be a bit loud at times but they do a lot of good work for the community. They decided to have their building landmarked and try to restore it rather than build a large glass building. They need cash. Bring your righteous indignation and a check for the church to help them in this endeavour.
ReplyDeleteSocialist post modernism"? First of all, that's an oxymoron. But more importantly, this points out the petite-bourgeois nature of this struggle. Count me out.
ReplyDeleteI plan to attend. We need a bit of old fashioned community activism to protect the nature of our community as well as our truly local business owners.
ReplyDeleteJose, can you define "truly local business" for me? Thanks. Just wondering where you draw the line. And whats on the other side of the line. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThe Bowery petit bourgeios? Anti-bourgeios!! Until now. Sure socialism was modernist, so I get bob's socialist-revival-for-the-commodified-class as post modern. Everybody gets a spiffy cubicle: glass for the high-yield consumer, concrete for the low-yield. Organic slurpees for all.
ReplyDeleteIt's part of a much larger trend in land use & commerce that is the current mayor's legacy -- driving out ethnic and marginal neighborhoods from Alphabet City to Flatbush and Bed-Stuy. If East Villagers in their protest to reclaim the character of their own space can connect to those struggles throughout the five boroughs, a lot will have been accomplished.
hey a$$hole - mom and pops on one side and chains on the other.
ReplyDeletethat "celar" enough for you?
good.