What Happened To Smith?
I've never been a member of the cult of Brooklyn. It's nothing personal, it's just that I've never lived there. I have friends who swear by it. I've had friends flee Manhattan to Brooklyn's (slightly) less expensive environs, and now smack their foreheads wondering why they didn't do it sooner. They love Brooklyn. Hey, that's cool. Brooklyn's alright with me, although any time I see one of those "Defend Brooklyn" t-shirts - invariably on some chinless Williamsburg hipster with ironic hair - I want to douse them in gasoline and strike a match. But otherwise, yeah - Brooklyn's great.
I spend much of my time on this weblog bitterly lamenting the tireless gentrification of my borough, Manhattan, although not quite as bitterly as the endearingly irritable Jeremiah Moss of Vanishing New York, whose posts are filled with deliciously palpable vitriol for the condo kids, the "yunnies" and the vacuous "Sex And The City" obsessives who are gradually sucking the character and lifeblood out of our beloved island. I discovered Moss' website a couple of months ago, and now welcome each new post of his, and shake my fist along with him.
But it's not just the cultural and historic fabric of downtown Manhattan that's slowly disappearing, it's the entire city. Doubtlessly inspired by Lynn Ermann's recent article about the Upper East Side from the New York Times, I took my little daughter uptown yesterday to check out one of my old neighborhoods, Yorkville. Huge swathes of East 86th Street have been razed to accommodate a clutch of new, homogenous and monolithic condominiums. Many of the age-old businesses I remember from my childhood are long gone, replaced by Starbucks, Barnes & Nobles and the like. With all the frontiers discovered, pillaged and exhausted, it seems like only a matter of time before New York City effectively eats itself.
At this point, I was going to write a detailed account of the best song about the gentrification of New York City I've yet encountered. It's titled "What Happened to Smith?", and it's by one of my favorite local bands (I've written about them here before), Life in a Blender. But I see that an equally grizzled gentrification-loathing Brooklynite has beaten me to it. Whatever your borough, the lyrics speak volumes about the current trajectory of the city.
Sale on the dairy in the circular by my feet
If I keep my eyes downward, it’s the same old street
Then there’s the unlettered awning and the one blue light
And the trancelike music and the crowd’s all white
There’s a clap of goatees
Someone’s puffing a spliff
It’s 90 percent Manhattan
Man, what Happened to Smith?
What Happened to Smith? (x4)
The old gang on Sackett’s closing up their blades
All the social clubs are pulling down their shades
Where’s the five dollar hero? It’s just $20 and tip.
I might as well starve tonight
Oh man, what happened to Smith?
Forget about rent, don’t think about rent, it’s already spent
Just try to scrape through, pass the well-to-do
Dressed down in their thrift clothes
Still you’ll see the clues all the girls balanced
in their Manolo Blahnik shoes
Yellow-tinted glasses, exposed mid-riffs
Oh man What Happened to Smith?
Some TV cop show producer wants me to move my automobile
Well up your ass I think your cellular phone you should conceal
I’ll wait it out by the Gowanus. I’ll wait for the scene to shift
I’ll take the stench of the canal
Over what happened to Smith
Play it loud and punch out a real estate developer.
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