This week’s readings offered a wonderful introduction into the politics at play to retain the heart of the Lower East Side in the face of efforts by the city government and their real estate allies to sanitize the area for their own economic gain during the latter part of the 20th century, taking away spaces that once held such importance to the city’s marginalized communities. Whereas the struggle seen during the 42nd Street Redevelopment Plan as outlined in Samuel Delany’s “Times Square Red, Times Square Blue” and elsewhere was the erasure of connections forged through patronage to various pornographic theaters and other similar convening spaces, the problem posed within the Lower East Side around the same time seems more urgent, as it is a struggle for life and shelter in an arena that so desperately wants to criminalize their existence.
As the progression of the global economy have pushed more and more for an emphasis on service and consumption, which Smith references in “New City, New Frontier,” there were those who resisted these shifts in an attempt to protect themselves from getting swept up by the forces of displacing development. The way in which Smith chose to make the comparison between the struggle for land between the Lower East Side’s historic working class, black, brown, and immigrant residents and the new class of young professionals, influenced by the Western aesthetic, and that between indigenous peoples and those who settled in the Plains (or their counterparts in the African continent), posed a parallel about the project of taking spaces which are deemed by others to not be operating at their full capacity (reminiscent of the views of settlers we read earlier in the class) from those who have long been living there and repurposing it for their own use, and then viewing themselves somehow as noble or charting new territory. It’s simply settler colonialism with a new name. It then becomes more clear why it is all the more crucial to occupy those remaining spaces, to make visible that they cannot be easily erased.
Last summer, I took up walking dogs in my free time, many of whom lived in the East Village, meaning which led me to frequent Tompkins Square Park. Not only was it (save for the ‘yuppies’, of course) completely void of many of the different groups we saw in Paper Tiger TV’s documentary on the park as well as in Smith’s description– the Ukrainian men playing chess, drug dealers, Puerto Rican women pushing babies in strollers, etc.– but I remember it appearing to lack any clear heart, or connection to the neighborhood in which it was embedded. I’d imagine much of that comes from as a result of the shift in demographics as well as the redesign, but since I’m coming at it from an outsider’s perspective, perhaps the new ways in which its newer patrons have made use of this space were not visible (though I’d imagine much of these relationships would come in contrast with or attempt to erase the uses of those who inhabited the space during these times of resistance).
In Starecheski’s account of squatting on East Thirteenth Street also outlined the ways in which groups of people can imagine a new way of relating to property in the city that doesn’t rely on the law and in fact actively refuses to abide by it, forcing officials who usually position themselves as the sole possessors of power over how the city is shaped to work with residents on their terms rather than simply impose. While different cases, this is something we’re also seeing in Spain, in which the government and the banks are forced to renegotiate understandings of space with those who are occupying it.
Very good connections! I’m interested in the concept of movement building here. Clearly, there is a disconnect between the notion that all people have a right to decent, affordable shelter and the notion that housing ought to be a commodity like any other. So many different groups could get behind a “decommodify housing” slogan, but why don’t we do it? What’s the obstacle? Is it that there are too many things to fight for? Is it that we don’t have a clear vision for what decommodified housing will look like (or how it will be managed)? Is it that our economy needs housing and land to exist within a speculative market so that the city itself is clearly valued? It’s interesting to hear your thoughts on Tompkins Square Park. It reminds me of some of the parks I’ve seen in bourgeois (in the actual use of the French term) parks in Paris, like the one at the Place des Vosges. But it used to be much more active, as you describe. It begs the question: what is public space for? Beauty only or also gathering? Is it necessary as green space for those who are otherwise living in cramped spaces, or is it an aesthetic additive to those who already have plenty of space in new housing?