these people used to have the effect of making me feel like i was in a small town, even though the empire state building was looming in the background. it made me feel like an important individual to my huge surroundings, not like i was being swallowed up by it. I was never at all anonymous, as i waved to this person or shouted "YO!" to another. because without those small acknowledgments of recognition, it is a very easy thing to feel surrounded, yet alone.
sometimes it would suddenly occur to me how well i knew some of these people, like Shim See the korean deli guy on 85th street and Columbus. I knew him since i was a kid, and he had given me my first summer job slinging frozen yogurt for $5 an hour. he had also sold me my first 40 ounce. he was , like, a MAJOR person in my life, as were so many other individuals i need to strain to remember.
nowadays, as i walk past the latest Starbucks or Fastfood spot that used to be a small family run Pizzeria, i realize that the loss is larger then just the good Pizza. what we are left with is overpriced coffee, frustrated and over juiced yuppies, no wait for placing an order but a looong wait to GET the order (ever notice that little corporate trick? mcdonalds does that too). Plus these places are staffed by surly impersonal people who clearly don't want anything to do with the customers they ignore every day, and they get replaced like once a week. it's really very sad to think about how much that changes a neighborhood. the mom-and-pop shops full of people who had pride in ownership or in what they did all day. I used to go to a small grocery store run by turkish guys and one of them, Oktay, used to make me guess how much my mom's bill would be. if i was within a dollar i got a free lollipop. try to find that kind of awesomeness in a whole foods and you'll be standing there all day being told to move out the way.
The most shocking aspect about this painful process is it's suddenness. it was like bombs going off randomly making places and the people in them vanish overnight. the LAST deli on Broadway thats within 4 blocks of my house went out of business last month. this means that not only has rising rent managed to knock out BASIC services (like toilet paper and a bagel) to a neighborhood of people, it has also managed to make old friends of mine disappear like thieves in the night. there's never a going away party, a picture opportunity, a chance to say goodbye. you just walk out of your apartment one day, and down the block to the deli like you have for the last few decades, and suddenly you are facing an empty dark abandoned room where your deli used to be. Mohammed and his sons will never again serve me that coffee that was a mere 60 cents and yummier then starbucks. they will never see me all drunk at 3 am jones-ing for a bagel or a chocolate milk and have a laugh about it. they will never sell me the ny times on sunday again. they are just memories now. just like that. poof.
to add insult to injury, i have no doubt that what will end up being there is useless to me. i will be walking another 2 blocks just for TP, and will pass 2-3 starbucks and 7 banks along the way. this gentrification thing goes a little bonkers after a while. at first it's exciting to not duck bullets and crack heads, but when the delis go, and all those neighborhood people that defined the community go with them, what are we left with? bad coffee and a bunch of assholes who have NO idea what used to be there. grrr.
I guess it's hard to realize that what you thought was permanent and a large part of the character of your hometown is in fact, just a phase in a fluid process of change. i always wondered why old people were so grumpy about change. now i am starting to understand. things don't always change for the better. but they inevitably change, especially a big crazy place like New York City. thats the price we pay for such a non static environment.
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