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June 15, 2008
Bleeker Street Syndrome
As the Brooklyn civilization advances, I thought it might be worthwhile to caution the citizenry about a phenomena we've had here in Manhattan. There was a time, about 8 years ago when Bleeker St between Hudson and Christopher was a charming collection of small and unique business - antique stores, craft stores, book stores, a frame shop, even a Kim's video store. Then the gentrification started - and one day the Italian restaurant closed, and then Clarey & Co antiques, and then Kim's video... all mysteriously shuttered. And we all sensed something coming. That something was the Mallization of Bleeker Street. Now in the place of these neighborhood centric stores,we have Cynthia Rowley, Ralph Lauren (2 stores), Coach, Juicy Couture, Brunelli Cucinello (sic), James Perse, Marc Jacobs (2 stores). The rarified money crowd now trots up and down Bleeker, clearly not citizens from the area, with their high-powered tans, polo shirts, flashing gilded watches, and Hedge Fund gazes... they seem to be wondering where the Chauffer was off to. Oh well, that;s what happens - you live in a place like this for years because it ISN'T all this crap, and what you get is all this CRAP. So my friends, be wary of too much success in your revitalization plans - The Fortune 500 are not too far behind you, ready to push those commercial rents to the sky, and put you back in a rarified shopping mall. You can just move to the East 60's if you need that.
Comments
You just wrote that Bleeker street was charming 8 years ago. That's just nuts. I'm not sure what you even wrote after the second sentence. I can't get past the first two.
Posted by: Park Place at June 15, 2008 10:29 PM
Read this guy's other post where he actually used the word "ta-ta." Bleeker Street was interesting in the late 80s. I think I am safe for now - Fulton Street is still firmly in the Kennedy Fried Chicken stage of development.
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at June 15, 2008 11:19 PM
isn't it easier to seek what out what you desire than to lament what you have lost? change is inevitable, and YES you are still free to react how you wish.....
Posted by: deepBTUz at June 15, 2008 11:52 PM
what's a "hedge fund gaze??"
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at June 16, 2008 8:37 AM
"high-powered tans". sheesh. at least spell it correctly. bleecker really hasn't been interesting in more than 20 years.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 9:45 AM
which brownstone Brooklyn neighborhood is Bleeker street in? I would like to do some shopping at those awesome stores mentioned.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 9:58 AM
Very funny Putnamdenizen.....made it worth reading the initial post.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 9:59 AM
Thought 'bleeker street syndrome' was when 17 year olds puke on the sidewalk outside the red lion.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 10:00 AM
Bleeker street has not been interesting since the late sixties or early seventies.
Is there a place called the red lion?
I heard of a place called the lions den which was next to the stonewall.
Bleeker street went thru so many changes it is hard to keep up.
Posted by: Ysabelle at June 16, 2008 10:56 AM
I think his point was that too much success is not a good thing. A syndrome that, unfortunately, happens all the time. It must be a curse of developed nations, as no one is immune.
Broadway below Houston was industrial, with a smattering of interesting shops (same can be said of all of SoHo)Now it is a glorified strip mall.
Ebay used to be a cool place to get unusual things, collectibles and good deals. Now it's dominated by "entrepeneurs" selling watches, cameras, Ipods, and everything imaginable knocked off in China. You can even bid on wholesale lots of same to resell on Ebay.
I think the OP is warning us that we here in Brooklyn need to balance the charm of our neighborhoods and the desire for upscale commerce and amenities, against too much success which prices 80% of us out of the neighborhoods we've helped create. Not a bad point to consider.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 11:24 AM
I'm surprised that anyone who's seen the past 40 years of Manhattan gentrification would assume this wasn't going to happen. As a teenager I moved to Mercer St in Soho in 1971, back before there was ANY retail in the neighborhood. After getting chased from loft to loft by encroaching development, I wound up in a Noho loft at Broadway and Bleecker St. That lasted until '99 when I got totally fed up. When Wendys and Swatch became neighbors, I knew it was time to leave Manhattan.
I also knew it was only a matter of time before the Heights, DUMBO and Park Slope got hit with it too so I moved to Bay Ridge.
Posted by: Steve at June 16, 2008 11:55 AM
I think you moved to Bay Ridge because you couldn't afford the Heithts, DUMBO, and Park Slope.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 12:24 PM
Why do people talk like they need to run away from retail? Like Retail is chasing THEM (personally)...
Why do people talk like they can't get involved and help create the kind of community they want. Join your CB- or get more active in the community with your own cause. Don't run away because you can't have everyting exactly as you like it. If you're going to keep acting like that, you're in for a lot of moves, and if everyone acted like that, there would never be anywhere where there were anyting but corporate rentals and shopping malls.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 1:25 PM
Yes putnamdenizen...i remember the earlier post...He's 45 and has been on a bond trading desk for 16 years and he's looking at $600,000 one bedrooms. Spend it all on coke???
The conclusion was that he actually worked in the back office and fantasizes about a careeer as a "rich man" (see profile)
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at June 16, 2008 1:26 PM
Ahhh... yes. Lets see. I bought a place in SoHo in 1998 for 500,00 and now its worth 2.5 million. Yeah, it sucks. I hope it continues to suck.
The times they are a changin'...
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 1:37 PM
That's awesome you made a good investment, 1:37, good for you but every time I'm in Soho battling the throngs of tourists and shoppers in that bit outdoor shopping mall, I think "I could never live in Soho". The only people you could sell to are 20-something lookatme celebrities and Eurotrash.
Good investment but a crap place to live. For normal people anyway.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 1:52 PM
Maybe YOU could never live in SoHo, but besides the tourists (which are horrendous at times) its pretty convenient in every way: trains, cabs, groceries, shopping and near everything in East Village West Village and Tribeca. I live in SoHo and "celebrities and eurotrash" are not my neighbors. My neighbors are artists and families and young New Yorkers. At night there is parking galore and the streets are very quiet and window shopping is dreamy.
I think you are a little jealous, huh? just a little?
"crap place to live..." I can tell you, its not.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 2:20 PM
Not jealous.
Love Soho to visit and shop, but I'm serious, the crowds really really make me crazy there. Too many looky-loos and when it's time for lunch you can't get a table. I work from home so when I choose my home neighborhood it's a place I'm going to be all day and evening both. So the fact that Soho is more quiet at night wouldn't help me much.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 2:23 PM
Interestingly, I avoided soho like the plague until a few months ago. Now I sort of regret it. My kid loves the $1.50 butterfly plates I bought her from CB2.
Posted by: slick at June 16, 2008 3:23 PM
We just moved from the West Village to Brooklyn last month. I lived in the WV for 7 years and it has definitely markedly changed in that time period from cute boutiques with affordable clothing, cheap-o Italian places and antique stores to outrageously priced chains and trendy restaurants. If we could have afforded to buy a 2 BR, 2 bath there, I think we still would have moved to Brooklyn, b/c the WV has gotten overwhelmingly European and, as someone who grew up in Manhattan, I wanted to live somewhere a little more authentic New York. Also the amount of tourists was starting to get to me - when it takes a half hour to walk three blocks on 7th Ave South b/c there are so many freaking people, it's hard not to be the angry New Yorker.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 3:41 PM
Well, in the South Slope, businesses are shutting down by the day, and not being replaced by ANYTHING.
Vacant storefronts are becoming the norm.
Owners raise rents beyond the means of tenants, then the owners take the tax-loss, which is more beneficial to them than dealing with tenants.
7th Ave in South Slope will not become mallified with nationwide chains, it will simply become more and more vacant.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 4:44 PM
people, this kind of progression is seemingly inevitable. let's just accept that places are unique and interesting for only a fixed amount of time, and (literally) move on.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 5:04 PM
i work in Soho and it is pretty bad. it's very hard to walk anywhere. it did used to be really lovely during the day.
the weekends are claustrophobic beyond imagination. nothing is more depressing to me than having to get through soho on a weekend if i need to come to my office. i would absolutely lose it if i lived here. i need my weekends to be peaceful.
think this person just needs to move.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 5:20 PM
That stretch of Bleecker Street WAS more charming 8 years ago. Absolutely.
Posted by: Carol Gardens at June 16, 2008 6:27 PM
I thought Bleeker was overdone ten years ago, but the poster is right, it is much, much worse now.
My friend owns a building there, and although that's great financially, they've lost their deli, their diner and their laundromat, (although I guess being able to buy Antonia's Flowers without taking the jitney could be considered a plus.)
However, I'd like to posit that all of this gentrification to the point of absurdity isn't inevitable or irrevocable. What we all need is a nice fluffy recession.
And by the way, 1:37? It's worth pointing out that if you'd spent $250,000 on a brownstone in Park Slope in 1998 it'd be worth at least $2.5-3 million now.
And let's not even get into what would have happened had you bought in Carroll Gardens!
Posted by: Heather at June 16, 2008 6:35 PM
Yeah, all my newly married friends who are backing out of loans for defunt Brooklyn new construction at top of the market dollars are shaking in their boots.
Buy low sell high.
and as the other poster said, things are only unique for a short amount of time. then the next thing/neighborhood is cool.
How about Harlem, when do they get to piss and moan about the good ole days and when Marc Jacobs moved into town?
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 8:51 PM
I think some of the earlier commenters are revealing their ignorance about the stretch of Bleecker the original poster was talking about. The western stretch of Bleecker WAS charming (in a Cobble Hill kind of way) eight years ago. It was nothing like the part of Bleecker near NYU and Washington Square that you're probably thinking of, which hasn't been charming for decades.
Posted by: guest at June 16, 2008 9:23 PM
It's not change in general and arrival of fancy boutiques that's the problem. It's the crowds and tourists that come with all that. Blech.
I'm with the guy/gal who works in Soho and hates it -- I want peace on the weekends. Not a raving madhouse right outside my door. It's not glamorous, it's annoying.
Posted by: guest at June 17, 2008 12:42 PM
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