Former East Village resident Chloë Sevigny on the neighborhood today in The Daily Beast:
"Walking around the East Village, I just want to cry at the state of it. There are so many fuckin’ jocks everywhere! It’s like a frat house everywhere. I don’t know if it’s a sign of the times, but where are the real weirdos? The real outcasts? They’re a vanishing breed here. Maybe New York isn’t drawing that anymore because it’s too expensive."
54 comments:
Gee Chloe yo think so??
Tell me Chloe, how many meals did you have at the Cauldron on E6th St?
Nuff said!
PS Thanks for jumping ship!!
Gee, another hater. She needs to get a life. Maybe she should move back to Darien, CT. One of those Generation X curmudgeons. Doesn’t she understand that the EV has moved beyond her?
Her & her brother are part of the problem...
I am sorry that Chloë can not afford to move to Florida. She needs to put up windows in her apartment, or maybe she needs to go out in the city at night and try to have a good time. Damn 50 year old Chloë.
It's hard to argue with this against or for what she's saying, because I hate these fucking annoying kids around here, but I'm actually in their age group (30's.) How can someone in their 30's even act so immature? I'm born and raised on 5th and D and hung out on St. Marks most of my youth, and got along with every single diverse type of person ever there... Except these preps/jocks. I'm not one of those "fuck the rich" types or anything like that, but I just can't understand how these "over-privileged" tools around here now can really (or seemingly) get away with everything these days. Find me smoking a joint or drinking a beer on a corner and a cop ignoring me... Not going to happen. Unless I throw on a button down.
She's completely and utterly right
Thanks guys, we really needed the frathole pov
"Doesn’t she understand that the EV has moved beyond her?"
Gee Crazy E, don't you know you're living off the bones of a dead world? What's sadder or more pathetic than that?
Not being a frat boy, but a long-time resident of the East Village, I feel humbled at taking advice about the neighborhood from Chloe who, according to Wiki, bought an East Village apartment for 1.2 million in 2006 and sold it for 1.85 million in 2013 (now living sumptuously near Prospect Park). Neighborhoods change (for the good and for the bad). It's a constant complaint that the East Village isn't what it was--no neighborhood remains static. The best that long-time residents can do is fight encroaching landlords and support decent local shops.
Who cares that the neighborhood doesn't attract weirdos anymore? That's a good thing!
I will gladly take Paul or Chloe over any of the frat assholes who either live here or invade the 13th Step and its ilk every weekend
Hey Chloe you're 39 and I never saw your face in the East Village ANYWHERE in the '90s and you contributed to the gentrification of the neighborhood as much as anyone with your $1.2M East Village apartment purchase, so shut up.
Oh btw, I ran across an ad for a storefront rental in the EV for only $7K / $84K a year. Where are you to open a store or whatever in it with the $600K profit you made on selling your co-op?
Put up or shut up especially if you have millions of dollars.
She is right...
Thanks, Captain Obvious Sevigny.
Nothing is as it once was....that's the nature of the beast...i've been down here since 1973 and every group complains about the next one....from the hippies to the punks to the yuppies to the celebrities to the current crop....that's nyc for ya....the underlining reason is real estate...folks are willing to shell out...the vibe of the ev stopped meaning anything a long time ago....maybe some of the folks who are upset with this could frequent small local businesses a little more.....perhaps the artists among you can get together and start a scene....working together rather than competing.....who knows?
I will take Chloe over any of the frat boys and sorority girls who have invaded the neighborhood. She may have made money from acting, but she was never a tool like the bros and hos we have to deal with now.
A few weeks ago, I came out of my apartment and there was a dude with a facial tattoo, passed out in a wheel chair with puke next to it. I stepped over the syringe and walked to the park.
I'm not sure how much more out of control Punk she needs, but I really wish she'd been around that day. I felt really badly for the guy and didn't want to call the cops (cause that's not a solution for him), but i could have put Chloe's entourage of frat boys to work cleaning up my messed up neighbor.
I hate this gentrification argument. You're next to NYU dude. Walk down to Ave D if you miss the craziness. It's still alive and well. Ok, not well. It's alive and passed out in a wheel chair.
She spilled the truth tea.
Jenny, it appears you're using the old 'what we have now is a lot better than the worst of the crap we had 30-40 years ago' argument. It's not that black and white. It wasn't all punks, they weren't all shooting up. Mostly it was artists, filmmakers, oddball types who didn't fit into the preppy uptown neighborhoods. They have been replaced by jocks, bros and morons who think our neighborhood is their personal playground, which they fearlessly and sociopathically use for their enjoyment without respect for others.
Now, let's talk about the thousands of smart, decent 20-somethings who have also moved here....
I love Chloe and agree with what she says, and by the way, 9:33 person, I have lived here since the 90's and actually did see her around the neighborhood a bunch of times. That's a silly argument, anyway. And seems to me she is lucky she didn't cross paths with you, you are not very nice.
As late as pre-2009 I could always get a good night's sleep. Since the sports bars and open facade bars and their loud as fuck client's invaded the hood I have 311 on speed dial, sleep with white noise machines and daily must clean beer bottles, 7-11 cartons and other bro-hole and sor-ho droppings from the front of my building. If you don't think actors could be considered weird then you have never met one, they are the perfect fit for the EV.
CS, move back here -- was always good to run into you at Village Farm on 2nd Ave/E. 9th. It's just so dull now w/o the likes of you and yours... MEATHEADS AND THEIR GALS preside sadly. Aren't you BORED in the new 'hood???
Ok, let's do this again sans the comment about the journalist.
"You're next to NYU dude."
We did not land on NYU, NYU landed on us.
"Walk down to Ave D if you miss the craziness. It's still alive and well."
Well guess what, NYU, the bros , and the developers are landing there now too.
And ditto to and thank you John M.
"Who cares that the neighborhood doesn't attract weirdos anymore? That's a good thing!"
Spoken like a true amateur...
Sounds like Chloe is one of the last to figure this out. Better late than never.
Same can be said of a lot of San Francisco neighborhoods.
While i do agree, I want to know how old you are, something is telling me your in your 20's ....yeah also are you a native??? kinda doubt it too
Hey first commenter Jonathan Leiter -
How many meals did she eat at the Cauldron? Hard to say - she would have been 7 years old and living in Massachusetts when it closed in 1981.
Billy, I like your observation of the EV. I'm doing a small film about the LES. Can I speak with you further?
Loisaidafilms@gmail.com
I would encourage everyone to read the article as it is filled with contradictions and makes it clear that Chloe has no clue about what is happening here. She makes several comments that make no sense about fake goth kids and frat boys dressed as hipsters yet she is a fashionista whose clothes harken back to the 60s and are not cheap. She laments the loss of Mom and Pop shops yet is an avid supporter of the nightlife industry, an industry that drives out the Mom and Pop shops. Of course the 13 Step is a nuisance, but do we really want more places like Maiden Lane, Donostia, Summit, Bolton and Watts etc. Many people still live here and are doing great things to save the neighborhood, not profiting from it as a back-drop for fashion shoots and flipping over-priced apartments, so how about showing some love to those people, instead of commenting when you leave with a nice chunk of change in your pockets. The crowd she travels with are part of the problem and are part of the reason landlords chase out longtime tenants and businesses. I am so glad she didn't get on the community board so she could advocate for her brother to open a club here and would like to conclude by saying turn-out the lights and don't let the door hit you in the a** on your way out.
I have lived here since 1990 and saw Chloe out and about in the East Village quite a bit in the '90s. She was definitely part of the scene. I haven't seen her around as much the last 10 years or so probably because she was working a lot but would occasionally see her at Mogador. She's a cool chick and I don't begrudge her any financial success she has had. I also see why she would want to get out of the East Village. If I could afford to move, I would also seek greener pastures. Did Parker Posey leave, too? She was another of those iconic '90s girls I used to see around, but I haven't seen her in years.
I don't see anything hypocritical about Chloë. Just because she's now a success and rich do not mean she's soulless. And being an artist -- as an actress -- is sort of a weirdo métier.
Madonna,, Iggy Pop, RuPaul... are weirdos. Now that they are rich and famous, can they not lament and complain about the lost of EV Bohemia?
[On the other hand, although he's famous and an acteur, David "I wanna be a good neighbor" Schwimmer is just weird, not a weirdo. He'll never complain about the loss of bohemia; doubt that he even knows what does mean. He probably just think it's a name of someone's pet monkey.]
what she's saying is true but she helped to make it true.
1) Ban comments from anonymous posters. We don't need to hear from these balless twats.
2) It's not about money. There are many, many, hardcore East Villagers whose incomes have improved due to hard work and luck. Appreciating a good restaurant and the richness of our neighborhood are not mutually exclusive.
Chloe is an actress of note. She has style. She likes fashion. So fucking what! I like seeing her and a many other stars slinking around the hood in their daywear. Thing is, they have the money to move, but they've chosen to remain in the neighborhood they love.
The East Village has always been about cool and self-expression, whether one counts oneself as one of the "children of the dirt" in Thompkins Square Park or an aging artist in paint-spattered Rick Owens or somewhere in between. If you're cool, you're cool. Period. Its not about the money, it's about who you are, what you've contributed and about appreciating and honoring the neighborhood and its history.
The problem we have now is the douchebros and douchebaggettes who’ve moved to the neighborhood because they thought it was cool or their realtor sold them on the neighborhood’s (former) cool. Post middle-management jocks straight out of bro-school. Plump princesses swinging status bags, mainstream magazine fashion and celebrity shades.
The new residents are transients, with no interest in investing in or contributing to the East Village. From here it’s on to med school, some mediocre “fashion” magazine, start-up, Houston, Murray Hill, or wherever the fuck Deloitte and Douche sends them. For them, for the moment, they (think) made it in New York City! It’s all about screaming rooftops at 3 am in an alien neighborhood (or in my backyard), raging four-abreast down First Avenue on a Saturday night, or, not often enough, falling off a roof (as in the West Village last weekend) and being claimed (more) brain-dead than before venturing up to said roof.
The neon irony is that these twats moved to the East Village because it was cool, but now that they are here, it’s no longer cool.
True, there are a few younger new East Villagers who “get” the East Village and appreciate being here. I’m glad they’re here. I wish there were more, but with rents the way they are, the only way they can be here is due to their, uh, “‘rents.”
So, yes, I agree with Chloe. To the word. If one could pull up the Soylent Green dumptruck and scoop these fucks up turn them into fertilizer, I’d be fighting for the wheel.
And to the wittle douches who unwittilingly think we like that they’re here because they're supporting the opening of yet another fro-yo, Starbucks or boutique (an consequently encouraging the shutdown of beloved mom and pops), please know that, pretty much across the board, anyone over 40 basically is thisclose to pushing you in front of a speeding bus.
I can't disagree with what she's saying, but it's also like, you're from a "sailing family" (her words) from Darien. Yes, she dresses suitably weird (and she's a fantastic actress, no doubt), but she is such a rich kid, proto-hipster variety. And I prefer those to jocks -- at least they read and they like cool movies and weird bands -- but still get to live here, barely employed, while the rest of us work 12-hour days and give up on our artistic pursuits because we're tired, broke, and trying to hang on to our shitty apartments.
I know, I'm just jealous.
I'd be interested in hearing what other celebrities have to say about the area!
This originally posted as an anonymous comment, which was not the point. My name is Andy Reynolds and I've lived on E. 7th Street for 23 years. I work in the creative arts/publishing and am a former East Village Radio DJ.
1) Ban comments from anonymous posters. We don't need to hear from these balless twats.
2) It's not about money. There are many, many, hardcore East Villagers whose incomes have improved due to hard work and luck. Appreciating a good restaurant and the richness of our neighborhood are not mutually exclusive.
Chloe is an actress of note. She has style. She likes fashion. So fucking what! I like seeing her and a many other stars slinking around the hood in their daywear. Thing is, they have the money to move, but they've chosen to remain in the neighborhood they love.
The East Village has always been about cool and self-expression, whether one counts oneself as one of the "children of the dirt" in Thompkins Square Park or an aging artist in paint-spattered Rick Owens or somewhere in between. If you're cool, you're cool. Period. Its not about the money, it's about who you are, what you've contributed and about appreciating and honoring the neighborhood and its history.
The problem we have now is the douchebros and douchebaggettes who’ve moved to the neighborhood because they thought it was cool or their realtor sold them on the neighborhood’s (former) cool. Post middle-management jocks straight out of bro-school. Plump princesses swinging status bags, mainstream magazine fashion and celebrity shades.
The new residents are transients, with no interest in investing in or contributing to the East Village. From here it’s on to med school, some mediocre “fashion” magazine, start-up, Houston, Murray Hill, or wherever the fuck Deloitte and Douche sends them. For them, for the moment, they (think) made it in New York City! It’s all about screaming rooftops at 3 am in an alien neighborhood (or in my backyard), raging four-abreast down First Avenue on a Saturday night, or, not often enough, falling off a roof (as in the West Village last weekend) and being claimed (more) brain-dead than before venturing up to said roof.
The neon irony is that these twats moved to the East Village because it was cool, but now that they are here, it’s no longer cool.
True, there are a few younger new East Villagers who “get” the East Village and appreciate being here. I’m glad they’re here. I wish there were more, but with rents the way they are, the only way they can be here is due to their, uh, “‘rents.”
So, yes, I agree with Chloe. To the word. If one could pull up the Soylent Green dumptruck and scoop these fucks up turn them into fertilizer, I’d be fighting for the wheel.
And to the wittle douches who unwittilingly think we like that they’re here because they're supporting the opening of yet another fro-yo, Starbucks or boutique (an consequently encouraging the shutdown of beloved mom and pops), please know that, pretty much across the board, anyone over 40 basically is thisclose to pushing you in front of a speeding bus.
Bitching aside. Granted we hate the jocks and the princesses raised in McMansion USA, but that said, who is your ideal neighbor?
3:29pm I was all over the EV in the '90s and never saw her around, and I have nothing to gain by saying that.
She was part of "the scene" - what scene? Certainly not the hardcore punk scene the realest scene on the EV after the '60s that's right no CBGB no EV after the '70s. She wasn't an artist. She was a club kid...who used to go to Limelight, The Tunnel etc. Not East Village - never was or will be. Limelight = Flatiron District. The Tunnel = Chelsea. BTW "Kids" didn't go east of Broadway or even east of University Place/Washington Park East. The pool scene is at Leroy Street Pool in GREENWICH VILLAGE. The "Kids" hung out mostly in Washington Square Park in GREENWICH VILLAGE. The club she goes to is not in the EV and the apartment with all the kids is somewhere on the West Side.
She was a girl from CT who mostly hung out west of Broadway. Just cuz she lived in the EV in the '90s doesn't make her part of anything there.
So fuck her revisionist history. Kids was not about the EV or LES.
This november will be 23 years that I've lived in the EV, but I'd always hung out here before living here. I am a musician and I was always playing or catching someone else playing in one club or another - CBGBs, Lizmar Lounge, The Cat Club, Woody's, Pyramid - so many places, I can't remember them all. And a lot of us looked like freaks in black leather and goth make-up, purple spike mohawks and tattoos. Some of us didn't look too freakish, but enough. But we'd all meet at Alcatraz for a drink. That was the East Village. Not SantaCons, Not pub crawls. Not FratBoys and Sorority Girls who can't hold their liquor.
I know neighborhoods change, but the speed in which the East Village is being transformed is mind boggling. And so is the greed of the developers and landlords. And the only people who can afford to move into the area are people with money.
I am a native New Yorker, born and bred in da Bronx, moved to Manhattan when I was 24. I'm 53 now, I've seen many neighborhoods change, but none have made me want to cry as badly as this.
Living here a mere ten years I have seen much change I miss some of the vintage shops and small businesses I welcome the construction projects. Think a construction worker on the job can offer his family a pot roast for dinner instead of mac and cheese I like watching them go up and take shape things change some dive bars are iconic like Manitoba some just a 311 call always in the dead of night its change and it happens regardless of what you want.
@2:41: Well said. The neighborhood has completely transformed into something that no longer contains even a whiff of it's former self.
@4:38 Being there 10 years is not enough to witness the radical changes.
One had to be there in the 80's/early 90's (the last gasp) to understand what the East Village has now become. It truly was a haven for misfits and the birthplace of many subcultures. No more though.
As 2:41 mentioned, all I feel is sad when I visit the neighborhood now. And like 2:41, I lived in the hood for 22 years, visiting it before that in the 80's. It was heartbreaking to leave, but I feel I made the right choice.
On a recent trip to the city, I steered clear of the East Village completely, as there's no reason to visit anymore. Writer Barry Miles had this to say about London, and the same holds true for New York: "With the coming of the internet, underground publication has effectively disappeared. There will always be cutting-edge activity but bohemia has been globalised. Now, more than a location, the underground is a state of mind."
As Jack Sal similarly mentioned in his interview here; no one NEEDS to live in New York anymore.
"Bohemia" has moved online.
Ha ha! That was the best description of the Millennials I ever heard - "Living off the bones of a dead world"
I'm still waiting for her to join the Community Board... any Community Board.
yes, I remember that promise.
A couple of you are obviously. missing that Crazy E. is being sarcastic in retort. to that narcissist on. that NYU posts. who comments. like this. with the liberal use of period.
I stumbled upon the East Village by accident back in 79, when I took a bus to New York from London Ont. with my art school. The EV was incredible, like nothing I had ever experienced. Whats happening to it now is not unique, it's happening in every big city that has any culture. This hipness and diversity has become a commodity, packaged and sold. But a homogenized version, all the rough edges smoothed down so as to be palatable to the largest demographic. This frat-house mentality is a plague. All the oddballs, misfits and malcontents are either in hiding or living in their heads.
She's right.
But now she can go back to shooting pornography and calling it "art".
To 12:20 a.m., just because you were all over the East Village in the 90s and never saw Chloe doesn't mean she wasn't around like others say. She was here and she enjoyed the neighborhood like the rest of us. What you are saying would be like me saying Iggy Pop wasn't part of the East Village. I lived two blocks away from his apartment and never saw him once in all the years we lived in the same area but I don't deny the man was here!
I left east Village in 2009 after over two decades. Haven't been back since and I hear it sucks worse now than it did 5 years ago. Now I'm in Hawaii living in paradise. If you don't like how things change, move away and find happiness somewhere else. Complaining about it ain't gonna help. Aloha!
Thanks for pointing out the fact that what is happening in the East Village is happening in every major city that has some semblance of an economy in the world.
It's happening to culture in general. It's sanitized and be monopolized by juveniles with juvenile tastes.
Still, if you want to be hardcore, move to Detroit. Rents are cheap and there's a growing art scene based around people who don't have to spend 80 hours a week making enough money just to live.
Or just move to the Bronx or Queens. I always found it funny that white bohemian types thought the EV was as tough as it gets when, even when it was run down in the 70s and 80s, it wasn't even the toughest part of New York.
Anonymous 6:04 - Good point, re Detroit. Artists who move there can get involved in the struggle to stop the privatization of water, too -- Make your art about something other than your navel!
Anonymous said...
1) Ban comments from anonymous posters. We don't need to hear from these balless twats.
Absolutely agree. Who are you, anyway?
"I can't disagree with what she's saying, but it's also like, you're from a "sailing family" (her words) from Darien. Yes, she dresses suitably weird (and she's a fantastic actress, no doubt), but she is such a rich kid, proto-hipster variety."
Yet another example of someone chiming in with no knowledge of Chloe's background whatsoever. She has always discussed her hardships growing up, and that her family were nowhere near as wealthy as the rest of the Darien, CT folk and that they only lived there because they wanted a safe place to raise their children (Chloe and Paul). She isn't some Ivy League brat, she was a self-proclaimed screw-up and 'loner' in high school and she swept the courts of a country club her family couldn't afford to join for pocket money. Also worth noting is that her childhood home was one of the very FEW single storey homes in the town Darien. It wasn't a three story Colonial mansion with a manicured garden and a picket fence, so it certainly stood out like a sore thumb. She is as much apart of the East Village as any other true eccentric artist! Her humble beginnings are a testament to this. She isn't from some multimillionaire family, so let's not assume that just because she grew up in Darien.
You people are getting it SO wrong. Also, Chloe's comment about fake goths makes EVERY bit of sense and only people with an interest in fashion/youngsters will understand it. You see, what's happened, with the rise of blogs like Tumblr, and the emergence of "indie" as a mainstream trend, people have started embracing this kind of dress sense and making it popular, even though a) they aren't indie and they've probably never been an outcast in their lives b) they don't even listen to indie/goth/alternative music or watch indie films c) they have no idea that the look they are trying to emulate is the look of people they used to bully in high school.
It's just absurd to think that a Jock, or a ditzy cheerleader would start wearing goth clothing, or punk clothing, or suspenders and cardigans and American Apparel or anything associated with alternative dressing, because it goes against everything they are. They need to stick to the Gap, or Topshop, or Forever 21 and leave the indie attire to people who actually effing lead indie/alternative lifestyles.
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