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 12 th 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...