Extinction |
| by Katrina Lencek-Inagaki, '08 |
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We called it the "Baby Park." Officially, the 1.6-acres of Lower Manhattan was called, "Washington Market Park," but every one in the neighborhood knew what you were talking about when you mentioned the Baby Park. With its simple wood and red metal playground, patchy lawn, community garden and dilapidated gazebo, the park may not have offered much for "big kids," but it was a paradise for younger children. Warm weather meant cavorting in the sprinkler (my older brother Misko quickly learned to manipulate the height of the spurting water by plugging certain sprinkler holes), birthday parties in the gazebo, and children selling various goods outside the park's black wrought-iron fence. We set up a lemonade stand in front of the Baby Park once, but it wasn't very profitable, and our mother had to console us with ice cream bars: a gumball-eyed clown bar for me and a Mickey Mouse one for my brother. I remember it all so vividly: the big white ice cream truck outside the entrance, the pain of getting splinters from the rough wooden playground equipment, the joy of running across the swinging wood and chain suspension bridge that led to the slide, the slide into the sand. I remember the Baby Park the way it was fourteen years ago when I started as a kindergartener at the school across the street from it, P.S. 234. But in the spring of 2002, all the old equipment was removed, and one million dollars worth of shiny equipment has since replaced the ramshackle set-up. Just the other day, I walked past the park. How alien it looked! The sophisticated new playground with its "airy, minimalist" play ship, the beige and gray striped safety surface decorated with yellow circles. The small garden plots once cheaply rented to neighborhood families are now a single, company-sponsored, "Children's Garden." These days, the park is far more crowded, filled with kids mostly with their nannies (parents evidently went the way of the old equipment) and as for sidewalk sales, well, rich kids don't sit on the sidewalk selling junk now do they. It is not just the playground that has transformed, it is the entire neighborhood. What happened to the Triangle Below Canal? Thanks to gentrification, that home, that vibrant, dynamic, artistic community -- the TriBeCa of my youth -- no longer exists. I know, I know, the area has been changing since before I was even born. Manhattan's trapezoidal Lower West Side area was not even called 'TriBeCa' until the 1960's when enterprising developers coined the catchy name. I grew up among history's leftovers: crumbling brick buildings with wide canopies, old warehouses and rusted, metal storefront signs such as Warren Street's, "United Rubber Co." Even my loft's big windows with their low sills, an architectural feature characteristic of TriBeCa, are left over from the days when workmen passed crates of dairy products through them. For, once upon a time in the late 1800's, TriBeca was New York City's wholesale dairy district. The district, known as the Washington Market, soon expanded beyond butter and eggs (interestingly, "Butter and Eggs" is the name of an overpriced furniture store a few blocks from my house) and by the 1930's the wholesale markets of the Lower West Side had become the world's largest, selling Sardines from Norway, Venison and bear steaks, 7,500,000 cases of eggs and 4,500,000 tubs of butter, as well as other nonfood items as diverse as pets, radios, garden seeds, textiles and church supplies.(1) But as the 1950's progressed, the industry began to rely less on horse-drawn carriages and more on big trucks. Huge vehicles were not compatible with TriBeCa's narrow, ancient streets and this transportation difficulty combined with economic changes, the shift of trade businesses out of New York City and the Washington Street Urban Renewal project spelled trouble for the Lower West Side wholesale district. Bad news for the manufacturing and selling firms, good news for city artists who by the mid-70s were already starting to be priced out of SoHo. TriBeCa's industrial spaces offered the high ceilings, profuse natural light and inexpensive cost ideal for artists, especially those working in the large-scale format popular at the time. These lofts, not yet legally converted for residential use, were so desired that artists moved into them anyway. Although not among this illegal wave of colonizers, my artist parents were pioneers when they moved into TriBeCa in 1982. During my early childhood, all the basic amenities such as the supermarket, veterinarian, and laundromat were in SoHo. TriBeCa was empty and quiet. It was common for kids to play catch in the street. I learned to ride a bicycle in a parking lot. The area was still transitioning out of wholesaling goods, and according to my mother, I used to love looking at the fish tanks at nearby Petrosino Fish Market. That fish market is gone now, and though I do not remember it, I do remember the Pennsylvania Pretzel Company, Job Lot, Hamburger Harry's, Downtown Cottage, Woolworth's, Ray's Pizza and the comic book store on Chambers Street. And most of all, Nolan's Deli, right across Greenwich Street from P.S. 234. A thin layer of dust covered the entire place, kids with Jansport backpacks jostled to buy Sour Pour by the piece and the deli man sold Penthouse to 5th grade boys. Gone. All those restaurants, all those stores, gone. I can still remember mailing letters at the stately, century-old Prince Street Post Office -- now the proud home of Apple's flagship New York store. Though it's hard to tell now, SoHo wasn't always Downtown's answer to Madison Avenue. But back then, no frills meant residents were a self-selecting group. My mother, a visual artist and active TriBeCa resident says, "as an artist you want a certain environment that allows for creative freedom. Grunginess feeds creativity. You don't see, you don't want. In TriBeCa you could go out looking tough and kind of disappear into the scruffiness of the neighborhood." Today, dry cleaners, pediatricians, video stores, preschool programs, buildings with doormen, expensive restaurants (Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Grill opened in 1990, Nobu in 1994) and antique stores abound. Rising rents have ushered in pricey boutiques and big chain stores like Starbucks. Plans for a Whole Foods are in development and in the past two years, there has been an absurd proliferation of gyms. Gyms! In 2004, according to Corcoran, the average TriBeCa condo sold for $924,000, the average loft $1.49 million. Real estate reports including last year's Citi Habitats' Black and White Report have cited SoHo/TriBeCa as the most expensive place to live in the city. But most painters, sculptors, dancers and writers do not have the kind of income necessary to secure a loan for a multi-million dollar home. But for these nouveau TriBeCans, money is no object. Between 1980 and 2000, Tribeca's population boomed by the tens of thousands; the U.S. Census reported TriBeCa and Battery Park City's combined population to be 15,918 in 1980, 34,420 in 2000. Census data for 2004 has not yet been released, but the population has grown sharply since 2000, thanks in part to the government's aggressive post 9/11 development programs in lower Manhattan. The new residents come with different expectations, they are not seeking quiet artistic refuge, they want an investment and the "neighborhood experience." My mother remembers back in the day, "Everybody shared the venture of pioneering, of getting into a building that was a warehouse or a manufacturing building with freight elevators, exposed brick walls, rattling windows, and stairs that weren't fire-proof. They took what was there and made the best of it, trying to fix the space up so they could live and work in it. And then when they had children they would break up the loft spaces into working and living spaces." The bond, the shared understanding between TriBeCa's first residents, remains strong today, even though they no longer dominate the neighborhood. My brother and I were part of the first generation of TriBeCan-born children and all my playmates parents' were neighborhood artists. This past December, I visited the New Museum's exhibit on the 1980s art scene, "East Village USA," and I saw work by three of my childhood friends' parents: a sculptor, a video artist and a musician. TriBeCa provided these artists with an environment to create successful work but you did not need to be an established artist to live there. As a consequence, we, their children, grew up in an environment of genuine creative struggle, grew up in a very specific, and in some ways, idyllic fashion. We were encouraged in our individuality, progressively schooled, and blissfully unaware of the material culture that so pervaded uptown elementary schools (when I entered the Upper East Side school Spence as a 9th grader, I was shocked to see first graders with highlighted hair, wearing pink UGGS). There were so few of us that we all knew each other, and, in true TriBeCa fashion, I had several multi-racial friends (like me!) at a time when interracial dating was still a social faux-pas. I wonder if the Banker and Glitterati residents realize that they are not only ruining the open and village-like environment of my youth by formalizing every thing, but also sabotaging themselves by moving into high-rises and overcrowding the schools. Locals used to call TriBeCa, "sky country," but the open vistas are quickly disappearing as demand for living space increases. The government does play a significant role in this particular aspect of Tribeca's gentrification -- over $800 worth of Liberty Bonds were issued to development companies to build massive residences like the currently underway 24-story, 274-unit Tribeca Green on Warren Street and North End Avenue. The government has a vested interest in developing areas, rehabilitating them and gentrifying them for economic gain. Not only do rich neighborhoods equal lots of tax dollars for the municipal government, but businesses are good for the economy... artists in warehouses are not. So while the influx of business-types (including entertainment industry executives) does contribute to gentrification, the government is partially to blame for gentrification as well. After all, the government paid for the creation of the luxury condos in order to lure a specific kind of resident. In the past eight years, gigantic residences such as, "20 River Terrace - The Solaire" have popped up in Battery Park City, blocking the view from my father's TriBeCa apartment. We used to be able to see the whole river from my father's balcony on Greenwich Street, but now we are left with a tiny sliver peaking between "full-service" buildings with indoor pools, childrens' playrooms and garages. I want my view back! I do suppose there is some consolation to be had: 20 River Terrace is America's first environmentally advanced residential building. And, thanks to multi-level humidification and ventilation systems that supply filtered fresh air to each residential unit,(2) the building residents needn't breathe the neighborhood air. I hope our air is okay because I have been breathing it for eighteen years. My family owns our loft, so I know I won't be pushed out of TriBeCa, but what I wonder is whether I'll even want to live there. End NotesBibliographyBerger. (2004). The Next TriBeCa? Stick a Pin in the Map. The New York Times, p.39. Chen, D. (2004, March 9) Deal Would Limit Increases In Rent at a TriBeCa Complex. The New York Times, p.2. Deutsche, R. and Ryan, C.G. (1984, Winter). The Fine Art of Gentrification. October, 31, 91-111. Dunlap, D. (2000). For Once-Gritty TriBeCa, a Golden Glow. The New York Times, p.1 Dunlap, D. (2004, May 30). Liberty Bonds' Yield: a New Downtown. The New York Times, p. 1. Motoko, R. (2005, January 3). Average Manhattan Apartment Remains Over $1 Million. The New York Times. Satow, J. (2005, January 6). In Search of Luxury, Firm Goes Uptown. The New York Sun, p.16. Stephens, S. (1990). Preserving a New York neighborhood's unique identity. Architectural Digest, 47, 76-91. Stewart, B. (2002, August 11). What 80 Warren Street Knows. The New York Times, p.1 Artists as Gentrifiers: A Process of Urban Renewal. (n.d.) Retrieved February 16, 2005, from http://www.termpaperedge.com/contentpartners/paper13.html 20 River Terrace - The Solaire. 22 Apr. 2004. The American Institute of Architects. 4 June 2005 <http://www.aiatopten.org/hpb/overview.cfm?ProjectID=273> |