shakahislop

Well-known member

i can confirm that everyone in nyc has absolutly failed to keep the place quiet, it is noisy as fuck, mostly due to traffic, trucks, sirens, and because music just is played loud here in shops or whatever. there's a churros place near me that has a speaker outside and plays rap onto the street 24/7, even when its closed. some of the verizon shops do that too when they're open. construction often happens at night if its for roads and they do not fuck about, they do not give a shit if they are digging up your street with jackhammers at 7am. i don't think the gentrified areas are particularly quiet. the main distinction is between manhattan and the other boroughs i think. loads of the non-gentrified parts of town are quiet, coz they're pretty far from the action.

one non-gentrified part of manhattan tho, washington heights, is mostly dominican and i thought that the reputation it had for being 'loud' was some bullshit or other, but i stayed there for a couple of weeks and it was pretty much impossible to do an office job and live there. people would just crank up the volume to serious levels and leave it on until 5am on like a tuesday night. fair enough, i was the one who was out of place for sure (coz i wanted a cheap airbnb, which is to say, one where a room wasn't $200 a night). really fucking annoying to be around though if its new to you and if your livelihood requires you to sleep at predictable times. i was dying by the end, seriously sleep deprived.

seperately there's a super interesting thing going on in this genre of writing where 'the gentrifier' is a personage who you can give a good kicking to. it's a weird one coz its so often pretty elite people writing this stuff, who are also the genre of people from which the gentrifier tends to emerge. there's some kind of self-loathing thing there i think.
 

Leo

Well-known member
one non-gentrified part of manhattan tho, washington heights, is mostly dominican and i thought that the reputation it had for being 'loud' was some bullshit or other, but i stayed there for a couple of weeks and it was pretty much impossible to do an office job and live there. people would just crank up the volume to serious levels and leave it on until 5am on like a tuesday night. fair enough, i was the one who was out of place for sure (coz i wanted a cheap airbnb, which is to say, one where a room wasn't $200 a night). really fucking annoying to be around though if its new to you and if your livelihood requires you to sleep at predictable times. i was dying by the end, seriously sleep deprived.

a couple of years ago, I walked from W 184th to W 125th, and even I got a little annoyed by Washington Heights. actually, it was good and bad: it was annoying, as you describe, but also a little heartening to see a stretch of Manhattan that was essentially unchanged from 30+ years ago. well, it's less dangerous now, but still plenty of opportunity for trouble.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
a couple of years ago, I walked from W 184th to W 125th, and even I got a little annoyed by Washington Heights. actually, it was good and bad: it was annoying, as you describe, but also a little heartening to see a stretch of Manhattan that was essentially unchanged from 30+ years ago. well, it's less dangerous now, but still plenty of opportunity for trouble.
yeah totally 100% agree. its always interesting and heartening to see where people are able to hold out against the wave of money. i guess washington heights is a bit too far away from brooklyn for the arty wave of gentrification to hit, but i guess it does make sense geographically for some of the midtown types. the other places i always think about are chinatown and south williamsburg. totally on the path of the deterritorialization / reterritorialisation money machine, both adjacent to areas where that's happened comprehensively, but somehow they're totally suceeding in holding out. it's so odd that like ridgewood and red hook are gettig gentrified despite being miles away at the end of the subway while those two places aren't. odd but good.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
@Leo what the hell happened to puerto ricans in nyc? i know the history more or less but where have they gone since they got pushed out of all these neighborhoods? williamsburg, LES, that northern bit of greenpoint. where are the enclaves now?
 

luka

Well-known member
sitting on 'the stoop' enjoying a cold one just watching the world go by. leaves blown in the wind. hot chicks on roller blades. peurto ricans shooting dice. its a beautiful day in the Big Apple.
 

Leo

Well-known member
sitting on 'the stoop' enjoying a cold one just watching the world go by. leaves blown in the wind. hot chicks on roller blades. peurto ricans shooting dice. its a beautiful day in the Big Apple.

you forgot wifebeater t-shirts, kids playing in front of the open fire hydrant, someone with a boombox,
 

Leo

Well-known member
@Leo what the hell happened to puerto ricans in nyc? i know the history more or less but where have they gone since they got pushed out of all these neighborhoods? williamsburg, LES, that northern bit of greenpoint. where are the enclaves now?

Seems like there's been a decline over the years. I think there are still enclaves in southern parts of the Bronx: Castle Hill, Clason Point, Hunts Point, Mott Haven. Surprisingly, there's still a stronghold in the East Village, Aves C and D. Also East Harlem.

This is student populations
 
Last edited:

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
@Leo what the hell happened to puerto ricans in nyc? i know the history more or less but where have they gone since they got pushed out of all these neighborhoods? williamsburg, LES, that northern bit of greenpoint. where are the enclaves now?
a couple things have happened:

1. Puerto Ricans are more widely dispersed around NYC these days; they're less segregated than in the past (IMO a good thing!), and more have moved into the middle class and beyond. For example, when I was last in New York in October I went up to Riverdale in the Bronx to see an old friend and I could see that there were many more Latinos there than there were in the past.
2. Many have moved out to the suburbs, especially to New Jersey
3. Lots have moved to Florida, both directly from the island as well as from the NYC area
 

Leo

Well-known member
yeah totally 100% agree. its always interesting and heartening to see where people are able to hold out against the wave of money. i guess washington heights is a bit too far away from brooklyn for the arty wave of gentrification to hit, but i guess it does make sense geographically for some of the midtown types.

never thought about it but this hits on a change in gentrification patterns. it used to be that all the hipster arty types lived in lower Manhattan, and would lead the gentrification push to other parts of the borough such as far upper west side. but now, the concentration of hipster arty types is in Brooklyn, and the waves of gentrification now emanate from there, to areas that are next closest to them (instead of downtown Manhattan).
 
Last edited:

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
never thought about it but this hits on a change in gentrification patterns. it used to be that all the hipster arty types lived in lower Manhattan, and would lead the gentrification push to other parts of the borough such as far upper west side. but now, the concentration of hipster arty types is in Brooklyn, and the waves of gentrification now emanate from there, to areas that are next closest to them (instead of downtown Manhattan).
It's been posted here before, but worth revisiting:

 
Top