Soul Survivalist
Slowly, surely, larger and larger areas of Manhattan are becoming places I don’t like much any more. Neighborhoods have turned into bedroom communities for boring, self-involved, often very stupid people with lots of money. I’m sorry, but I just don’t know how to phrase it any other way.
Our neighborhoods in the East Village and Lower East Side are far from exempt: The archdiocese of New York saw fit to shut down my church Mary Help of Christians on 12th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A because there isn’t a big enough congregation. Along with it went the Salesian Order that has been in the neighborhood since 1898, the parish officially incorporated in 1908. It celebrated its last mass on May 20. (I was too heartbroken and too much of a coward to attend).
Call it shifting demographics, which truth be told is a legitimate claim, but let's be real about this. The funeral home on the corner closed, as well as the exterminator on the opposite corner, and the printing shop*; people still have to die and we all know exterminators don’t starve in this city. But these businesses and institutions stand on prime real estate. It doesn’t take a financial expert to add it all up.
Determined to worship in my community, I have found a great church over on Avenue D called St. Emeric’s. It is also mostly Latino. I walked in for the first time a few months ago and my spirit leaped. It was there that I was inspired to start writing a blog. In the meantime I can only hope we don’t get another bar, another restaurant, another bank, dry cleaner, or some dumbed-down franchise. I don’t want Jamba Juice, or Starbucks, or that frozen yogurt place.
Speaking of franchise hell, even my mother is disgusted. She is one of the most virtuous and modest people I know and she recently told me that she thinks that Times Square is “just awful”. She liked it better when it was seedy. She realizes that there is nothing romantic about a bankrupt city, urban blight, and crime, but “at least it had character then,” is how she puts it. Yes we needed some cleaning up there, and nobody says turn down the the tourist dollars. But Bubba Gumps and their ilk, we do not need. Neither do the tourists. Nobody comes to New York to eat fake Cajun food (or authentic Cajun food for that matter). And if they do, they should be escorted to the border.
Harlem is also losing its soul in a death by a thousand tiny cuts. The demand by “new” residents paying $1.5 million for their condos overlooking Marcus Garvey Park for the African drummers to stop drumming there just makes my head spin. There has been drumming in that park since 1969. Not content with taking away our drums the first time we set foot on North American soil, someone wants to do it again, and they don’t even get the irony of this because they either don’t know their history, or refuse to acknowledge it.
I guess what really sent me into orbit was the closing of yet another Harlem institution and small business, Copeland’s on 145th Street. Calvin Copeland, who is 82, opened the restaurant some time in the 1950s and it was a favorite neighborhood joint for decades, where locals mingled with celebrities on a regular basis.
I’m all for progress and improving communities, bringing in much-needed services, but I’m really tired of the price we have to pay in the form of sanitized neighborhoods, flat demographics and spoiled individuals full of unearned privilege moving in and then asking New York City to stop being New York City. Their complaints are many: It’s too noisy, too smelly, too dirty, too uncomfortable, too ethnic. Here’s a tip for all of you: Move.
So I’ve decided to redouble my efforts finding all that is beautiful and fine and authentic and good in Gotham City and bringing it to you. I want to show everyone that it's not that bad. I'm going to put on my mantle of soul survivalist.
*I have since noticed that the printing shop moved to smaller quarters a few doors down. Hooray!
Our neighborhoods in the East Village and Lower East Side are far from exempt: The archdiocese of New York saw fit to shut down my church Mary Help of Christians on 12th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A because there isn’t a big enough congregation. Along with it went the Salesian Order that has been in the neighborhood since 1898, the parish officially incorporated in 1908. It celebrated its last mass on May 20. (I was too heartbroken and too much of a coward to attend).
Call it shifting demographics, which truth be told is a legitimate claim, but let's be real about this. The funeral home on the corner closed, as well as the exterminator on the opposite corner, and the printing shop*; people still have to die and we all know exterminators don’t starve in this city. But these businesses and institutions stand on prime real estate. It doesn’t take a financial expert to add it all up.
Determined to worship in my community, I have found a great church over on Avenue D called St. Emeric’s. It is also mostly Latino. I walked in for the first time a few months ago and my spirit leaped. It was there that I was inspired to start writing a blog. In the meantime I can only hope we don’t get another bar, another restaurant, another bank, dry cleaner, or some dumbed-down franchise. I don’t want Jamba Juice, or Starbucks, or that frozen yogurt place.
Speaking of franchise hell, even my mother is disgusted. She is one of the most virtuous and modest people I know and she recently told me that she thinks that Times Square is “just awful”. She liked it better when it was seedy. She realizes that there is nothing romantic about a bankrupt city, urban blight, and crime, but “at least it had character then,” is how she puts it. Yes we needed some cleaning up there, and nobody says turn down the the tourist dollars. But Bubba Gumps and their ilk, we do not need. Neither do the tourists. Nobody comes to New York to eat fake Cajun food (or authentic Cajun food for that matter). And if they do, they should be escorted to the border.
Harlem is also losing its soul in a death by a thousand tiny cuts. The demand by “new” residents paying $1.5 million for their condos overlooking Marcus Garvey Park for the African drummers to stop drumming there just makes my head spin. There has been drumming in that park since 1969. Not content with taking away our drums the first time we set foot on North American soil, someone wants to do it again, and they don’t even get the irony of this because they either don’t know their history, or refuse to acknowledge it.
I guess what really sent me into orbit was the closing of yet another Harlem institution and small business, Copeland’s on 145th Street. Calvin Copeland, who is 82, opened the restaurant some time in the 1950s and it was a favorite neighborhood joint for decades, where locals mingled with celebrities on a regular basis.
I’m all for progress and improving communities, bringing in much-needed services, but I’m really tired of the price we have to pay in the form of sanitized neighborhoods, flat demographics and spoiled individuals full of unearned privilege moving in and then asking New York City to stop being New York City. Their complaints are many: It’s too noisy, too smelly, too dirty, too uncomfortable, too ethnic. Here’s a tip for all of you: Move.
So I’ve decided to redouble my efforts finding all that is beautiful and fine and authentic and good in Gotham City and bringing it to you. I want to show everyone that it's not that bad. I'm going to put on my mantle of soul survivalist.
*I have since noticed that the printing shop moved to smaller quarters a few doors down. Hooray!
Comments
Has there been more news of this? I had heard mention of some protest. I hope it happened - and continues to happen until the drummers can drum in peace. Maferefun Chango, master of the drum!