Month: April 2019

The “frontier myth” discussed in the Smith reading helped me greatly to understand how the culture of the East Village was marketed to developers and buyers, it’s “personality” commodified to attract and justify gentrification in the neighborhood. This sort of miniature wave of manifest destiny relied heavily on an irresistible motif pushed in the media, the notion of rediscovering New York, the underlying desire to “tame the wild city.” While this story is historically commonplace, is is interesting to see it play out in such a relatively miniscule area of land. Developers found ways to create a “new social geography,” in which culture and place are synonymous, turning the small Manhattan neighborhood into a piece of “geographical performance art.”

These texts gave a clearer picture of the two perspectives at hand: the ‘indigenous’ neighborhood population and squatters, and the developers and wealthier members of society. While the wealthy arguably frame themselves as modern cowboys and conquerors of new and uncivilized lands, there is an unexpected yet somewhat pervasive theme of the squatters and protestors comparing their situation with Russian history. Local residents described actions of police during  “class war” at Tompkins Square Park as “cossack-like” (Smith). One envisions something akin to the rows of cossack soldiers descending the Odessa steps in Battleship Potemkin, police batons replacing bayonets. At the same time in an interview in the Starecheski reading, a resident at the (unofficially occupied) Thirteenth Street building described some residents as having a Communist rationality: “Represented in the public eye by John the Communist, these squatters explained their occupation as a rejection of private property, a taking of land in the service of building a revolutionary movement.” Later, in Stanley Cohen’s recounting of the trial in which Elliot Wilk claimed that the The Thirteenth Street Tenants Association owns the buildings, Cohen recalls reactions such as “What is this, fucking post-Tsarist Russia?” Of course, those against Wilk’s decision made this analogy in a negative light. Nevertheless, I found it worth noting that historical events such as the Russian Revolution were made relevant to contemporary class struggles in the East Village.

Mayor Dinkins allegation that Tompkins Square Park had been stolen from the community by the homeless is telling of the ways in which gentrification was justified in the East Village. The accounts documented by Abu-Lughod show the government’s consistent decisions to turn a blind eye to local community boards. Those in power chose to ignore the fact that the city had failed to cope with its homeless population (Smith). This way of justification does not take into account the ways in which the system itself has failed the homeless, it does not consider the vulnerability of the homeless population. While it was true that some squatters dealt various issues such as drug addiction, those justifying their displacement ignored the fact that these people were victims of a system that failed them.

 

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. 

In this week’s readings, the issues and methods of affordable and low income housing in 1990’s New York City paint a picture of great effort and limited success. Among the most thought provoking was the chapter from “Who Deserves Housing? The Battle for East Thirteenth Street”, by Amy Starecheski. In this chapter, a number of former residents of the east thirteenth street squats discuss their experiences, and expose many contradictions to the fundamental ideas surrounding squats. Early on, there is a distinction between ideological squatters and their counterparts, low income New Yorkers with few other options. It would seem that the tension between these groups compromised the efficacy of the overall squat. The very concept of the deprivation based squat, as described in the chapter as a carefully selected group of vulnerable people, to the exclusion of the “undeserving poor” which include drug addicts, is inherently problematic. The precarious legal status also deprived the community of the tenant rights and the protection of law enforcement, leading to a lawless and somewhat unharmonious existence. Despite the limited early success of the urban homestead movement however, as time went on, the squats faced opposition from legally established low income housing developers.

While the squatting efforts undertaken in New York in the 1990’s were flawed, the contemporary efforts in low income housing rehabilitation primarily by the Joint Planning Council were also flawed. As described in Janet Abu-Lughod’s writing, “Defending the Cross-Subsidy Plan: The Tortoise Wins Again”, New York City was struggling in the early 1990’s, and both the commercial and multi-family sectors of the real estate market were severely depressed. This increased the activity of the low income housing developers, who saw an opportunity to gain control of the city owned tenement buildings which the squatters had already appropriated, in the absence of interest from private, market rate developers, which had been actively seeking such buildings in the late 1980’s, prior to the collapse of the movement to gentrify the Lower East Side. While this could be seen as a good thing, however, the pitting of two forces, both signaling the need for affordable and low income housing, was counterproductive and was ultimately damaging to both movements. All this was presided over by the government of New York City, which did nothing to take control of the situation and wasted favorable market conditions which could have been exploited to improve the affordability of housing in the city.

Neil Smith in his chapter, “New City, New Frontier”, explores the contrived duality between aggressive urban development and taming the wiles of the frontier. Despite historically ruinous consequences, rapid urban development has been seen by many as necessary for ushering in a new, “controllable”, or appropriate population of people. Acting exclusively in the interests of the power elite, urban development is likened to frontier explorations of white men “discovering” and subsequently taking land to which they were convinced they were entitled. This paradigm acts as a means to both justify mass urban “renewal” and legitimize the authority pursuing its interests. The myth that European settlers conquered the New World is substantiated by few general assumptions: that Europeans are civilized men looking to tame the uncivilized, that white men are the ultimate authority of all things, and that existing or indigenous ways of living were wrong and in need of correcting. That these assumptions are communicated and reinforced in the ways in which individuals identify themselves indicates how pervasive they are in our culture and society.

The European settlers of the ‘New World’ assumed a divine right to the land they encountered. The further assumption that the native people of the land had no means to claim it drove the settlers to a greed-fueled land grab, wholly justified by the simple fact that they were white men. The pursuit to develop the untamed urban jungle is inextricably linked to the pursuit to tame the American frontier. Smith uses the fight for Tompkins Square Park as an example of how the interests of powerful white men are used as the means to justify claiming ownership of spaces where the question of ownership isn’t even addressed. According to Smith, Tompkins Square Park was “unremarkable” in its form but that’s what made it a “fitting locale for a ‘last stand’ against gentrification and the new urbanism”. (68). Its banality made it an unlikely but explosive site for protests against urban development. Residents and patrons of the park who were homeless, unemployed, young, and people of color, believed that the force with which the city attempted to regain control of the park was unnecessary. Violent protests and riots against police at the park were met largely with bewilderment… what was so important about this one park? Why was the city so invested in the happenings of that one park?

The simple answer is that Tompkins Square park was in the middle of a development plan to renew the area (Christodora Condos) and the riff-raff that frequented the park just didn’t fit in with the planned demographic. However, one can argue that as the real estate in the area steadily increased in value that the resistors of Tompkins Square Park would eventually be priced out entirely and give up the fight in search of more accessible spaces. However, the extreme density of NYC leaves finding more accessible spaces nearly impossible. Tompkins wasn’t just a community watering hole, it became a physical symbol of the resistance; a reminder that no matter the circumstances, all humans, all New Yorkers are entitled to appropriate housing. The temporary housing built inside the park and subsequently in lots near the park served as irrefutable evidence of a housing crisis in the city. The city’s then attempt to forcibly remove this inevitable population of people exposed the hypocrisy of it all. Here the city’s interests lie with the developers of luxury condominiums that would completely out-price the community. City funds were spent, not on remedying the situation for the homeless, but on securing the ownership rights to the areas in question (i.e. $2.3 million spent immediately on “fortifying” the park). As in the case of the American frontier, the narrow power elite with the assistance of the governing body managed to discount the interests of a pre-existing community as a means to an end; an end where the consequences are exponentially great. In the case of Tompkins Square Park, the city prevailed with a leveraged responsibility to the displaced community, however, action on this responsibility remains largely stagnant as the population homeless and disenfranchised New Yorkers continues to rise with each day.

In this week’s readings, what really jumped out at me was how the government tends to manage issues when it comes to dealing with prominent problems at the time. Mainly the text, Defending the Cross-Subsidy Plan: The Tortoise Wins Again, by Janet Abu-Lughod, was what really drew my attention to this issue.

Before discussing such a matter, I wanted to bring attention back to the situation of the time. Said case is that of poverty and economic hardship for many, “…The city had lost jobs at an even faster rate than in the 1975 recession.” Unemployment was running rampant currently. Many were struggling with finance, and ultimately this would lead to property problems. “…Sunday real estate section of the New York Times for auctioned residential and commercial units expanded from half a page to several pages…”. Knowing all this about how the housing market and economy was doing, its easy to understand how people would end up on the street and collect together.

Thus, bringing me to the bulk of my posting, what was the government doing. It states in the text, “… keep their refugee status alive and visible, had been unceremoniously evicted… removed from public spaces throughout the city.” here the topic discussed is how Tompkins Square Park evicted the homeless by using rat poison on the park’s property. However, what really interested me about this part was the trend when it comes to problematic issues. That trend is shifting rather than solving.

It was shocking how the government would allow such actions like the ones taken in Tompkins Square Park to occur. Rather than rolling out potential solutions to deal with the matter of increases poverty and homelessness in this area, the alternative was trying to remove the problem from the public eye. This is ultimately detrimental in the long run, and it was just stunning how the course of action taken by the people in power was to disperse an issue in New York to other parts of the city. By dispersing the homeless masses, the problem ended up throughout the city in higher concentrations. “Scattered, those without shelter were reduced to huddling under any available roofing in derelict city spaces or sleeping in doorways and over steam vents.” You have the poverty-stricken people who grouped in one area, who in turn had created a community out of nothing being ripped from their way of living. After an initial blow was dealt onto them by the economy, this was just another one.

All in all, two lines that really seemed to ring in my head when addressing the mindset that seemed to be coming from government at the time was, out of sight, out of mind, and kicking someone when their down. Projecting from the actions of government at this time I wanted to bring such mindsets to the present and view it from a lens of change. Has the government moved on from these types of practices, or rather, have they just gotten better at exercising these practices in a more quiet, less public manner?

In “New City, New Frontier: The Lower East Side as Wild, Wild West”, author Neil Smith discusses the concept of gentrification and how certain neighborhoods have developed over time. He describes how certain areas have evolved from run down and low income neighborhoods, occupied by working-class residents to affluent communities, dominated by high end fashion boutiques and upper-class citizens. Throughout the text, Smith parallels the gentrification of New York City to the “Frontier Myth” or the “Taming the Wild West” in order to represent the attitudes of the residents of New York City, as well as the “pioneers” who claim to have been the first settlers who started the transformation of these neighborhoods. The frontier myth is so powerful in that it, “makes the new city explicable in terms of old ideologies”, and even more goes as far as to, “rationalizes social differentiation and exclusion as natural and inevitable”. Smith puts forth that two industries defined the new urban frontier of the 1980s: the real-estate industry, and the “culture ” industry (art dealers, patrons, gallery owners, artists, designers, critics, writers and performers who “converted urban destruction into ultra chic.”). As a three-year resident of the Lower East Side, it is so odd grappling with the notion that not so long ago there were a sizable group of people the saw it as an undiscovered territory marked by danger and the unknown.

In reading Smith’s composition, I was taken aback by the notion that, “there was a strong ideological objection to the concept of relief itself and a belief that the rigors of unemployment were a necessary and salutary discipline for the working class” (67). With such societal dispositions amongst those of privilege & in power, it is no surprise that poverty was an inescapable condition. These attitudes reminded me of Barbara Ehrenreichs efforts in her book Nickel and Dimed, in which she sets out to examine the fundamental misunderstanding of American poverty, namely, that it is curable by employment, and the complexities of low-wage labor. Ehrenreich leaves her home, takes the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepts whatever jobs she was offered moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota. While one might think someone who has a Ph.D. like Ehrenreich could easily hold down a low-wage job, this quickly proves not to be the case, as no job is “unskilled,” and each required concentration and learning new terms, tools, and skills. Ultimately, Ehrenreich does not manage to find stability and longevity in any of the locations, despite pushing herself to borderline dangerous/unhealthy limits.

The complicated truth Ehrenreich investigation reveals is that many of the nation’s poorest citizens remain poor no matter how hard they work, no matter how many jobs they hold. They sweat, labor and toil, running on little sleep, eating mostly junk food, living in overcrowded conditions, and having to support young children just to survive day by day. This state is further exacerbated die to ever-rising rents at seemingly unpredictable times. Although Ehrenreich trials take place between 1998-2000, there is still significant overlap in mentality between upper echelons of society described in Neil Smiths, “New City, New Frontier: The Lower East Side as Wild, Wild West”.

Amy Starecheski “Who Deserves Housing? The Battle for East Thirteenth Street” opens with the first-person voices of squatters in the six squatted buildings on East 13th Street. This diverse bunch of people moved into left-behind spaces in the Lower East Side. They fashioned a community, built of their own imagination, connecting green space, community gardens, and the buildings they rehabilitated. These squatters sought legal title by virtue of their ten years of labor and occupation of the buildings, arguing that their history constituted them as a legitimate group that could claim urban space and collectively own inalienable property. Yet, despite their ardent efforts in court, ultimately their case was lost. An interesting dynamic arises in that the squatters were challenging private property, yet “some were dreaming of homeownership”. Therefore, similarities arise between the argument of some of the squatters and John Locke.  In “Of Property”, Locke asserts that “Labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to”. Likewise, it was the improvements and overall labor the squatters put into these East 13th Street building for so long that they felt legitimized their clam.