There used to be this local artist/photographer on the downtown art scene of the 1980s named David McDermott. I probably shouldn't say "used to be" as he's invariably still around. In any case, he was a contemporary of folks like Jean-Michel Baquiat and Klaus Nomi and other cool cats like that. In fact, you can fittingly spot him alongside Basquiat in Glenn O'Brien's "Downtown `81" and the Klaus Nomi documentary, "The Nomi Song." In the former film, McDermott is billed as "The Man From The Past," and that was basically his shtick in real life. McDermott evidently lives the comparatively Luddite-esque life of a turn-of-the-century gentleman. This is manifested in both his self-styled 'archaic' photography through his flamboyantly eccentric wardrobe. I'd further imagine that you wouldn't find any modern conveniences like microwaves or iPods or a Tivo -- let alone a television -- in his home either. In a nutshell, he has renounced both the present and the future and prefers to live his life in the past. It's a neat trick, I suppose, if you're actually able to pull it off.
I can't help thinking how exasperated McDermott must get on a daily basis, although I'd suggest that each and every one of us dabbles in a similar state of -- sorry, David -- denial from time to time, albeit on a much smaller scale. For example, in the almost twenty years since I graduated from my college, I've only been back to visit the school once, and that was only mere months after I'd left it. I gather that in the ensuing years, there have been major cosmetic changes to the campus. Some of my peers have been back and said they barely recognized it. As such, I'd like to leave the university in my head just as I remember it, and if preserving that memory means never going back -- not a difficult feat, being that it's several states away -- then so be it. I often wonder if that's how I'll similarly feel about New York City some day.
As has been said -- and as David McDermott would probably be the first to tell you, though he still wouldn't acknowledge it -- New York City is changing. The slavishly beaten-into-the-ground rationalization for this, of course, is to paraphrase Heraclitis and say that change is the only constant in the urban environment. It's hard to contest that, but I'd always assumed that the changes that phrase alludes to are gradual ones. The changes that have engulfed New York City in the last decade and a half, however, have seemed rather swift and radical in comparison to any sort of gradual or organic shift. The changes to this city have been jarring and sadly irreparable.
In that documentary I posted about a day or so ago, "New York Lost," filmmaker Reed Korach culled some insightful testimonials from a fairly wide array of folks on both sides of the fence, but it's the words of the "pro-change"/"pro-gentrification" folks that have left me feeling so depressed, notably that contemptible Australian ex-pat who unreservedly states that "you don't really have a need for neighbors" when you live in Manhattan (hey Sheila, why not fuck off back to the Outback then -- you won't find a lot of annoying neighbors there either!). All I can say is that is that I've lived in Manhattan for all my life and have maintained active relationships with my neighbors in every single building I've lived in. Beyond my building, up and down University Place, I know most of the proprietors of the local businesses I routinely patronize by name, and I cherish that. It's that spirit of neighborhood community that makes living here special. Why would anyone not want that experience? I can't understand it.
But defying gentrification is a bit like attempting to stop a tidal wave. On a personal level, David McDermott's eccentric path might seem somewhat extreme, but there are people who take a conscious approach and live their lives and spend their dollars strategically. Given the petty minutia of everyday life, however, maintaining an anti-gentrification diet/shopping agenda must be a bit like being a Vegan in that you have to stop and consider the ramifications of every dollar you spend.
And while I'm generally more inclined to spend my dollars in local mom'n'pop shops than in big chain outlets, it's getting hard. Nine time out of ten, I'll sooner buy a compact disc at an independent shop like Other Music or Generation Records than at a Virgin or F.Y.E., although never mind gentrification, the advent of digital technology - let alone Amazon.com - has swept a vast swathe of those shops off the map already. People aren't "consuming" music the same way anymore. Similarly, I'll sooner go to Shakespeare & Co. for a book than Barnes & Noble, but the same rules are applying there.
Where I'm finding myself compromising these convictions, however, is with the staples. With two children to clothe and feed, I have to go where my money will take me the furthest. Unfortunately, this means that I have shopped at places like K-Mart, Babies "R" Us and fuckin' Whole Foods (or Ass-Whole Foods, as we've since re-christened it). Given the crushing expenses of living where we do, I don't have much of a choice in the matter. Of course, there's also the faction who suggest that I'm already part of the problem for having children in the first place. In the Vh1 documentary of a few months ago, "NY77," there was a quote from Blondie guitarist Chris Stein wherein he says that Manhattan shouldn't be safe for kids and strollers and such, being that it's "bad for the arts." He was semi-joking, I believe, but according to Wikipedia, he's got two daughters and he still lives here, so up yours, Chris. People procreate -- deal with it.
And if you're looking at it in a black & white, "part of the problem" /"part of the solution" sort of way, I'm already guilty. I'm a native New Yorker, but I moved downtown from the Upper East Side in 1996 to a building on East 12th Street. At this stage of the proceedings, the building -- to say nothing of the neighborhood -- was already a coveted piece of real estate, and while I may have been representing the bottom half of the building's collective income (don't go into journalism, kids, it's not a lucrative field), by moving there I arguably wasn't doing my part to help preserve the cultural and economic integrity of the neighborhood. So perhaps I should dutifully don my own scarlet letter "G."
Sure, it's naive to think that things last forever. But by the same token, it's lazily irresponsible to suggest that efforts cannot be made to save the things worth saving. To borrow a song title from the Sex Pistols, no one is innocent. I'm guilty as the next person for letting this all happen. That said, while I'm not a downtowner by birth, I sadly find that I know, revere, respect and appreciate the cultural and historical heritage of downtown Manhattan more than most of its current occupants. And you don't have to be a dyed-in-the-wool borough boy to notice how much has changed towards the bland, antiseptic, vapid and characterless, and not just in downtown Manhattan but throughout New York City. And you don't have to be David McDermott to acknowledge the luster, beauty and value of of this city's diverse heritage. Invest in it. Appreciate it. Help save it. When it's gone, it'll be gone for good.
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