With this ... I'm going to start highlighting comments on a regular basis... Very often, comments here deserve their own posts... As always, thank you for chiming in and being part of this conversation...
From yesterday's lively thread about the Halloween night protest at Tompkins Square Park... I give you
Vagabond Beaumont...
To all of those who moved into the Loisaida and were expecting the Upper East Side....
Loisaida was a place for those who wanted to live in a different way and not be harassed by outsiders or even looked at as outsiders at all... The Loisaida was a place for the freaks to gather and rub up against one another... It was a place that not only respected difference but celebrated and encouraged it... It was a community of freaks banding together to create a freak community of immense diversity...
This tribe of freaks coming together is not much different from the waves of waves of immigration of various ethnic groups that came and continue to come to NYC... Those immigrant groups looked for ethnic neighborhoods where they could feel safe and not feel like outsiders... The Jews did it, the Italians did it, the Germans did it, the Polish did it, the Chinese did it, the Puerto Ricans did it, even the African Americans (who were not immigrants) did it...
The freaks of the Loisaida were following in a tradition of gathering in a way to protect themselves and to have a place of their own... The diversity of the Loisaida and the commodification of what came out of the Loisaida (Spoken Word, Punk, Hip-Hop, Graffiti, Avant-Garde Theater, etc...) made the Loisaida a cool place for non-freaks to want to live...
So the non-freaks move in - in their 20's and because the Loisaida is a place of tolerance the non-freaks are welcome... Then the non-freaks get into their 30's and start getting married and having kids and instead of renting a studio in a 5th floor walk-up tenement they buy a $1.2 mil. 2 bedroom condo and all of a sudden what was cool @ 20 is now an annoyance @ 30 and by the time the non-freaks (who were welcomed by the Loisiaida) are 40 they are calling the cops on the freaks because of the noise and complaining to politicians about the deteriorating conditions of "community"...
The majority who live in this city now are people who want don't want freaks around... Don't want them to have a place... Don't want them to exist... Are wiping out the places where they gather and live... It happened in Soho, it happened in the West Village, it happened/is happening in Williamsburg, in Harlem, in the South Bronx... It seems that as fast as the freaks find a place the non-freaks find a way to strangle the life out of it...
But one day when NYC has finally paved it's path over us freaks and the entire city becomes a safe respected shopping mall... Then you non-freaks will have what you always wanted... A suburb without a lawn and a shopping mall @ your doorstep...
NYC the most vital and exciting and diverse collection of freaks in the world will not be able to create and as a result of that the non-freaks will not have the fruits of these freaks to commodify. Because the freaks will not exist... And you non-freaks will have to find another way to pay that $1.2mil. condo mortgage...
When you default on that mortgage and your the system starts to crumble for you and that condo building becomes an abandoned building... The freaks that were in hiding will show up...
Squat your $1.2 mil. condo and generate fruits once again...
The Loisaida is not yours... You are passing through... Remember that the next time you call the puh-leez or the politrixters to complain... Your kind will not remain... And not because we freaks are going to do anything about it or ever had the power to do anything about it... You will destroy yourselves, you need no help from us... But don't worry... we freaks will be here to forgive you of your past transgressions and show you how to live another way...
[Photo by
John Penley]
