"Whether or not the seedy Lower East Side will ever catch on as a trendy destination is open for debate"

Vice magazine celebrated its 15th anniversary this past weekend. To mark the occasion, the editors allegedly reissued their very first issue from 1994, which included this piece titled "Ludlow Street, Mon Amour."

The first paragraph:

The Lower East Side of Manhattan is not a fashionable destination. Populated primarily by dive bars, nodding junkies, and boarded-up storefronts, the thought of anything even remotely related to trendiness, fancy clothes, or art happening down here would be pretty hard to believe. In fact, the only reason anyone from another neighborhood would even set foot on the LES in 1994 would be if they were looking for illicit substances, of which there are plenty.

The last paragraph:

Whether or not the seedy Lower East Side will ever catch on as a trendy destination is open for debate. My guess is probably not. In fact, I hope not. Seeing Ludlow Street overrun with normal people looking for a “hip kick” would turn my stomach faster than a bad bag of dope. But last weekend, if only for one night, the Lower East Side was most certainly the place to be in New York.

I'm curious if anyone fell for this prank...

Related:
Hipster Media Magnate Picks $2M East Village Flower (Curbed)

Remembering Babyland: "We all want to go back to the womb, and here we are"

Speaking of NoTell Motel... I was looking for some background on the bar and came across an article from the Times dated June 26, 1994, titled "Set 'Em Up in Crib No. 2, Captain Kangaroo." It was about NoTell owner Deb Parker's new (at the time) hipstery/rather insufferable Babyland on Avenue A near Fifth Street. Used to be a mom-and-pop infant shop called Ben's Babyland. Anyway, brought back a few memories (not all pleasant)...

To the article!

The boys in the white crib looked comfortable enough, sitting together on the edge of the mattress pad, separated by a huge, dirty pink teddy bear. One was sucking on a bottle (filled, incidentally, with a vodka tonic), and the other was silently mowing down an ice cream sundae.

The crib was surrounded by other big boys and girls, most of them in their 20's, who were sitting in undersized chairs and drinking cocktails or quietly reading "Danny the Dinosaur" or "Goodnight Moon."

And!

Babyland appears to be inspired by Roald Dahl, its walls covered with childhood record-album covers and every corner filled with old toys: stuffed animals, supposed-to-be-sweet-but-actually-spooky-looking clowns, the Playskool barn with the mooing door, plastic letter magnets and dog-eared books. Naked Barbie dolls spin out of control on top of a ventilator, and a plastic baby-doll face has been plastered on a blender.

And!

Bar owners in the East Village face the special challenge of courting coolness by offering a hip, novel theme while still remaining cheap...

Childhood nostalgia is indeed a fashion statement, and the summer streets are full of women in little-girl dresses and sneakers, or T-shirts with Josie and the Pussycats decals ironed on to the front. It makes sense that the East Village corners of cool would capitalize on childhood comfort zones: Limbo, a cafe on Avenue B, serves up nonalcoholic treats to the many who pour in to play board games. Babyland will soon offer Twister and pinball in the basement.

And!

"We are all really babies, so this theme is great," said Sonja Patillo, a production coordinator who dragged two friends from Texas to the bar on Tuesday night.
[A]s Jack Dawe, 25, pointed out: "We all want to go back to the womb, and here we are."

P.S.
There's another article on Parker in the Sept. 7, 1997, Times.