Q-and-A with Richard Ocejo, author of 'Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars'

Richard Ocejo, an assistant professor in sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, is the author of the new book "Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars" (Princeton University Press).

As we're cutting-and-pasting from the news release:

The product of four years of fieldwork in the East Village and on the Lower East Side, "Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars" in New York City uses nightlife as a window into understanding urban development and explores what community institutions, such as neighborhood bars, gain or lose amid gentrification.

Ocejo considers why residents continue unsuccessfully to protest the arrival of new bars, how new bar owners produce a nightlife culture that attracts visitors rather than locals, and how government actors, including elected officials and the police, regulate and encourage nightlife culture.

Ahead of a panel discussion on the topic tomorrow night (see details at the end of this post), we asked Ocejo a few questions via email about his research.

Why was this topic of particular interest for you to explore?

I started by studying one bar, Milano's, on Houston. It was an old Bowery bar, until the area started to gentrify and newcomers — artists, students, writers, musicians — started moving in, around the 1980s and 1990s. These folks joined the homeless men who had been going to the bar for decades, until they began dying off or simply leaving as the Bowery became less of a Skid Row and more of a place for downtown luxury.

Then, in the 2000s, the "newcomers" were mainly people who wanted to visit the bar because it was a "dive." I was fascinated that these three generations of customers were all hanging out at this place, while the neighborhood was completely changing.

As a sociologist, I was taught to look at the larger context to truly understand what happens to specific people, small groups and places. So I decided to learn more about these changes in the surrounding area and in the city to see if there was any connection to what I had been observing at Milano's. It led to me exploring how downtown's nightlife scenes grew, who was involved with their growth and who was effected by it. I was really interested in what I thought was a unique form of gentrification, namely an advanced level in which forms of everyday life become upscale, as examined through the lens of bars and nightlife.

You spent four years in the neighborhood doing legwork for the book. How would you describe the changes that you witnessed during that time?

In that time I witnessed a lot of piecemeal changes — old businesses closing and new ones opening, old buildings getting renovated and new ones going up, community groups fighting gentrification both dissipating and forming. These changes happen in most neighborhoods, but what they look like and how they occur always vary.

I would describe them in these neighborhoods as like a slow death, I'm sorry to say, more so than a rebirth, as gentrification is often characterized, although these neighborhoods certainly have a lot of life in them, of a certain sort. It's both, and I came to appreciate many of the new cultures in these neighborhoods now. But I felt I was witnessing the spirit of downtown fading over the years. The new people and cultures don't have the same spirit.

Vanishing New York blogger Jeremiah Moss describes what happened on the Bowery as "the quintessence of hyper-gentrification." What do you think of that assessment?

I agree with him, and I believe his term is similar to my "advanced gentrification" concept. The British geographer Loretta Lees has also used the term "super-gentrification" to describe when really wealthy people gentrify an already wealthy neighborhood — certainly a possibility in these neighborhoods.

A difference between them, I believe, is their emphases. Bowery (the avenue) is interesting because historically the avenues and streets to its east gentrified earlier and more gradually than it did. I think it took a while for it to lose its Skid Row stigma. But once Bowery started to transform, it really went into hyper-drive. My concept deals with the result of the gentrification enterprise in a neighborhood. But I'd agree that what's happened on Bowery happened at a pace and scale unique among streets in the area.

Why do you think the Bowery is so appealing to developers, restaurateurs, bar owners, etc.?

Well, its zoning allows for tall buildings and mixed uses as of right. It's also right in between SoHo/NoHo and the East Village and Lower East Side. I'd like to say that its historical importance as a place for working-class culture is what attracts people there, but at this point, I think its history is insignificant to the people building and opening businesses there, at least in the sense that it doesn't seem to play a role in the places they open.

Early newcomers, like B Bar, at least referenced the street's past (not very delicately, but still). Now new bars, restaurants, hotels, and other businesses draw from a broad array of themes when they open their establishments, many of which point to upscale forms of leisure and consumption.

What can local residents and preservationists do, if anything, to slow down this nightlife gold rush on the Bowery?

The conclusion I reached in my book is, not much. They can certainly have little victories, like reducing a business's hours or altering its method of operation or even withdrawing from the space. But we haven't seen many examples in New York of gentrification reversing itself, if we've seen any at all (slowing down or stagnating, sure, but not reversing).

This pattern of growth is quite entrenched in New York politically and economically; it's what most officials and leaders feel it needs to operate.



So where do you see the Bowery in 10 years?

Barring some major economic catastrophe, I see the street becoming even more upscaled. Perhaps more so on the lower parts of the street, which still have lighting stores, jewelry stores and a strong Chinese presence.

But with many new Chinese immigrants living in less-expensive areas of the city, with increasing rents in Manhattan's Chinatown, and an aging Chinese population, it's likely that Chinatown will shrink further, giving way to similar developments we see on the upper parts of Bowery.

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Via the EVG inbox...

"Upscaling Downtown" book launch

Please join the University Settlement and the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors for a panel discussion to celebrate the publication of Richard E. Ocejo's "Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars in New York City."

Representing groups examined in the book, panelists will express their thoughts on its arguments based on their own unique backgrounds. A Q-and-A period will follow.

Where: University Settlement, 184 Eldridge St.

When: Wednesday, Oct. 15, reception at 6:30 p.m., panel begins at 7 p.m.

Free and open to the public

About the panelists
• Rob Hollander: Neighborhood Historian and Activist
• Bob Holman: Poet, Founder, Bowery Poetry Club
• Matt Krivich: Director of Operations, The Bowery Mission
• Mike Stuto: Owner of HiFi Bar
• Richard E. Ocejo: Assistant Professor of sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY
• Sara Romanoski, Director of East Village Community Coalition