When did NYC become Disneyworld?

[DasBlunt]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Chelsea

During its lifetime Hotel Chelsea has provided a home to many famous writers and thinkers including Mark Twain,[19] O. Henry,[19] Herbert Huncke,[20] Dylan Thomas,[19] Arthur C. Clarke, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Sam Shepard, Arnold Weinstein, Sharmagne Leland-St. John, Arthur Miller, Quentin Crisp, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams,[19] Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac (who wrote On the Road there),[20] Robert Hunter, Jack Gantos, Brendan Behan, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Wolfe, Charles Bukowski, Jan Cremer, Henk Hofland, Raymond Kennedy, Matthew Richardson, James T. Farrell, Valerie Solanas, Mary Cantwell, Rene Ricard and Brad Gooch, R. K. Narayan.

ahahaha, :you're an idiot.

Chelsea is way different than times square, which I was referring to. I had to walk around there in the early 90s....before the cleanup. it sucked.

[fastfred]

like benny said, when Giuliani took over things changed quick, living upstate you quickly saw demographics change as rudy started kicking certain people out of the city and giving them bus tickets to small upstate towns, he promised them the same benifits with a lower cost of living, so they took it, thats when shit changed

spent alot some time at the jane "hotel" it was cheap and sometimes you didn't know if the chick you ran into in the bathroom actual had a stick. it's now a boutique hotel and it's not cheap, not sure how they got some of the long term renters out of there

[iceman]

I knew this guy quite well for a very short period of time (we had a girl problem), but I haven't seen him for many years, Lin Felton, "Quik" he was all over the NYC subways in the late '70's and '80's, I mean all over. He actually was the stage show for a Clash tour in the '80's, he did graffiti onstage behind them as they played. He had tons of stories about how they snuck into the train yards at night, pretty cool shit.









He came down to DC for a weekend and literally 2 years later we were still finding new things he tagged in those 2 days, he was a maniac.

He got busted and the judge threatened to send him upstate if any new "Quik" tags showed up so for a while there...


^^that one's kinda cool, across the bottom he's saying sorry, it was rushed, but hey it's me, Quik here.

You could legitimately wonder about the motivation that drove these guys but who cares now, they did some cool art.

He's still doing his stuff, not on trains but hey.

[BmillsSkier]

You guys know you can still get smack and hang under an abandoned railway in Queens right?

[iceman]

You can still find plenty of trouble in Manhattan too, but now you're a lot less likely to be in it by accident. I basically just hike when I'm in the city, there's still a few places where it's a good idea to just look at the sidewalk and keep walking.

[skiballs]

Bite the big apple
Don't mind the maggots

[St. Jerry]

More gentrified since 1990? Yes. But a far-far better place to live and visit now. (says the guy who moved to the 'burbs three years ago after 20 years in Manhattan).

[The SnowShow]

I miss Beat Street Records. That place was the shit.

[berko]

I remember in the 90s having the squegee guys disappear seemingly overnight. I didnt miss them.

Now it seems that everyone without a ton of money is disappearing and I do miss them.

[Benny Profane]

I remember in the 90s having the squegee guys disappear seemingly overnight. I didnt miss them.

Before Times Square, there was Guliani's "Quality of Life" enforcements, which dramatically improved, well, the quality of life in NYC practically overnight. Squeegee dudes, graffiti (ahem), public urination and drunkeness, but also turn style jumping, which was a tool of enforcement that usually exposed a lot of outstanding warrants, which was the whole point with that one. Nothing was being ignored anymore, I remember Greenwich Village as a real shitshow on the weekends, basically a big traffic jam with boom cars (an evolution from boom boxes), and much of above sloppy partying drunkeness and urination, all of which the cops ignored. Enter Bratton from Boston, Rudy's first commish, and he started what is now an established approach to policing in many cities, going after petty shit, which usually led you to bigger things. It was pretty amazing what happened in the Village. Almost overnight, that shit stopped. And those people didn't vote for Rudy, they hated him, but, a lot sat back and said, damn, I've got my neighborhood back.
Too bad he turned into such a crazy old get off my lawn fuck, but, he was pretty nasty back then, too.He was what NYC needed after Dinkins, though.

[::: :::]

Before Times Square, there was Guliani's "Quality of Life" enforcements, which dramatically improved, well, the quality of life in NYC practically overnight. Squeegee dudes, graffiti (ahem), public urination and drunkeness, but also turn style jumping, which was a tool of enforcement that usually exposed a lot of outstanding warrants, which was the whole point with that one. Nothing was being ignored anymore, I remember Greenwich Village as a real shitshow on the weekends, basically a big traffic jam with boom cars (an evolution from boom boxes), and much of above sloppy partying drunkeness and urination, all of which the cops ignored. Enter Bratton from Boston, Rudy's first commish, and he started what is now an established approach to policing in many cities, going after petty shit, which usually led you to bigger things. It was pretty amazing what happened in the Village. Almost overnight, that shit stopped. And those people didn't vote for Rudy, they hated him, but, a lot sat back and said, damn, I've got my neighborhood back.
Too bad he turned into such a crazy old get off my lawn fuck, but, he was pretty nasty back then, too.He was what NYC needed after Dinkins, though.

that plus the dot.com boom
lotta money suddenly for a lot of people
put more pressure on housing too

[Benny Profane]

Well, in NYC, it was the rise of finance which saved the city. That, on the high end, and, this could start some arguments, but a flood of immigrants from all over the world reviving crappy neighborhoods in the boroughs on the low end. After watching that (I remember places like the South Bronx and Jamaica Queens from the 70s) I can never agree that immigration is bad for our country.

[Timberridge]

If you're looking for the old 'edge,' the Bronx is still in NYC.

[HansJob]

Stop and frisk. That was Gigi's baby too. Love the QUIK art, Ice.

[nutmegchoi]

There still South Bronx to keep things real.

[nutmegchoi]

5 Pointz is gone, but The Bushwick Collective took over.

[Dexter Rutecki]

If you're looking for the old 'edge,' the Bronx is still in NYC.

There's a bridge involved. Doesn't count.

Place started looking up when I moved back into town (seriously, look it up--well, thinking about it I guess I was a few years ahead of Giuliani).

Lived on 21st in the early/mid 90's (a few blocks from Benny's place, The Anvil--didn't occur to me there's an Apple Store there now), and I can distinctly remember walking on 22nd in about 97 or 98 and seeing a group of Japanese tourists among the still mostly under-used warehouses. That was when I knew the tide had turned.

Most graphic illustration of the change for me is the Meatpacking District. Now home to uber-expensive boutique hotels, restaurants, trendoid clubs--was previously the city's best selection of transvestite prostitutes. It's a sad day when you're in Manhattan and you don't even know where you can find a tranny prostitute (maybe that's what the Bronx is for?).

But it's always changed, and always will.

Buster reminded me of the time I was hanging in an East Village dive bar and we almost got in a fight with a few members of the New York Dolls...just found out that that bar is now fancy, millennial, bespoke cocktail place (we used to go because drinks cost $1 or $2 less than elsewhere).

[Benny Profane]

Google Mine Shaft gay bar manhattan.

[Groomer Gambler]

Like it or not, this is true.

After the Velvet Underground, New York Dolls, Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Beasties, Grandmaster Flash, Television, Patti Smith, punk/new wave in general, the era of great rock from NYC has faded.

Still a decent punk scene going on... Dirty Fences, NANCY, Cuts, etc that I've seen. Plus now that the above type of music has become trendy again I've seen a few older groups come back and play some killer shows. Hanks is still around, Ottos Shrunken Heads, Trash Bar when it was kicking all pretty decent. Good shows in deep Brooklyn and Queens too.

But yah, overall I can't see how younger musicians could ever afford to live in NYC. I just visited over New Year's weekend and even in the past few years since I've last been there it's amazing how much the sky line has changed.

[MontuckyFried]

Seems that this is the general tone here. Love this song. FWIW, LCD Soundsystem's from Brooklyn. Seems appropriate:

[gravitylover]

Chelsea is way different than times square, which I was referring to. I had to walk around there in the early 90s....before the cleanup. it sucked.

You just weren't looking in the right peep show windows. Rookie

[Lostmyboards]

Here's a tag by my favorite graffiti artist, the PK Kid. He works in NY and NJ. He's not so much an artist in what he paints, but where. He trespasses and uses ropes. This is as extreme as sporting gets in NJ. PS loved the LCD video. I still morn the loss of 5 Pointz, like blowing up a museum.

[Benny Profane]

That's not graffiti art, that's tagging.

[iceman]

Stories vary a bit, but the consensus seems to be that it's two guys, PK and Kid. Benny is right it's tagging, but the cool thing is how crazy their locations are. Like that tower above, you can see it plain as day from the Jersey Turnpike (if it's the same one). A lot of them really leave you scratching your head about how the fuck they got there to tag it. It's pretty cool really.

[fastfred]

can you still buy drugs on st marks or tompkins sq park