It Is Time for Us to Stop All of Our Sobbing
I've talked about this here at Gotham City Soul myself and I must say I'm even tired of hearing myself complain about it, this thing I will call the luxury malling of Manhattan. It's been ugly, gentrification, the pushing out of minorities, the working poor, and others to make way for mostly rich or well-off white people. Churches closed, mom and pop shops run out by high rents, building destabilized and converted to condos, other buildings knocked down so that greedy developers with no vision and no clear love for New York City besides its real estate value can erect flimsy glass and metal boxes with no aesthetic value whatsoever.
But something I read the other day has stopped me in my tracks, and I've decided I've done enough fussing for now. There's just too much bad news in the world to keep adding to it. The article to which I'm referring was in the local newspaper The Villager. It is about Florent Morellet, who, for 23 years owned the magical Florent restaurant on Gansevoort Street in the meatpacking district. It closed at the end of June because Florent's lease was up and the owners of the building are charging an unbelievable amount of rent, in the tens of thousands per month. Bad news for those of us who pitched up at this oasis on late late nights and early mornings because, aside from the Empire Diner, there was nowhere else to eat in the area; we found ourselves in a warm, colorful, noisy world of everyone from truck drivers, to transvestites, to superstars, and neighborhood folk; and bad news for those people who will never get to experience this wonderful little place. But not bad news for Morrellet, not really. He is doing something that is rare—he is refusing to be bitter. I'd take it further and say that he's not capable of it:
“‘I realized a long time ago that being angry and staying angry only hurts oneself,’ said Florent Morellet, speaking two days after his famed Florent diner closed in the Meat Market. . .
“He said he was not bitter about losing his lease.
‘As far as I know, we’re in a capitalist society,’ he said matter of factly. If people want to limit development, he added, they ‘should look into that and not just be angry.’
“Moving forward, Morellet intends to spend his free time doing art, working on Community Board 2’s Traffic and Transportation Committee and perhaps writing a book, which likely would focus on the restaurant.
‘Sometimes, it’s good to get kicked out of doing something,” he reflected. “When you’re good at something, sometimes you just do it until the day that you die. And that’s pathetic.’ ”
All I can say is that Florent the restaurant and naturally the owner, made a nerdy girl from Jersey, who was never really hip enough, or cool enough, or clever enough to be a part of the admittedly wild and often breathtaking scene back in the 1980s feel right at home on more than one occasion. You can read Gabriel Zucker's entire article here, and Morrellet's short and completely sweet autobiography here at the restaurants online magazine Papotage. For an audio slide show with reminiscences from Morrellet and more see the article in The New York Times
But something I read the other day has stopped me in my tracks, and I've decided I've done enough fussing for now. There's just too much bad news in the world to keep adding to it. The article to which I'm referring was in the local newspaper The Villager. It is about Florent Morellet, who, for 23 years owned the magical Florent restaurant on Gansevoort Street in the meatpacking district. It closed at the end of June because Florent's lease was up and the owners of the building are charging an unbelievable amount of rent, in the tens of thousands per month. Bad news for those of us who pitched up at this oasis on late late nights and early mornings because, aside from the Empire Diner, there was nowhere else to eat in the area; we found ourselves in a warm, colorful, noisy world of everyone from truck drivers, to transvestites, to superstars, and neighborhood folk; and bad news for those people who will never get to experience this wonderful little place. But not bad news for Morrellet, not really. He is doing something that is rare—he is refusing to be bitter. I'd take it further and say that he's not capable of it:
“‘I realized a long time ago that being angry and staying angry only hurts oneself,’ said Florent Morellet, speaking two days after his famed Florent diner closed in the Meat Market. . .
“He said he was not bitter about losing his lease.
‘As far as I know, we’re in a capitalist society,’ he said matter of factly. If people want to limit development, he added, they ‘should look into that and not just be angry.’
“Moving forward, Morellet intends to spend his free time doing art, working on Community Board 2’s Traffic and Transportation Committee and perhaps writing a book, which likely would focus on the restaurant.
‘Sometimes, it’s good to get kicked out of doing something,” he reflected. “When you’re good at something, sometimes you just do it until the day that you die. And that’s pathetic.’ ”
All I can say is that Florent the restaurant and naturally the owner, made a nerdy girl from Jersey, who was never really hip enough, or cool enough, or clever enough to be a part of the admittedly wild and often breathtaking scene back in the 1980s feel right at home on more than one occasion. You can read Gabriel Zucker's entire article here, and Morrellet's short and completely sweet autobiography here at the restaurants online magazine Papotage. For an audio slide show with reminiscences from Morrellet and more see the article in The New York Times
