Why the Recession May Restore the City We Moved Here For — New York Magazine (via fred-wilson)
This article occupied my mind for an entire week.
“
What might help, though, is a return to some semblance of the city we lived in before it was flooded with money. This isn’t all a setup for more tired nostalgia for the days when New York was less flush but more artistically and counterculturally compelling. I’ve read Chronicles; I’ve seen Basquiat. It goes without saying that things were more interesting when Bob Dylan was shuffling through the snow with his guitar and harmonica from one coffeehouse to another, or later, in the broke New York of the late seventies and early eighties, when all sorts of musicians and performance artists and just plain weirdos could afford to live out their pansexual lives in the East Village. I think most of us can agree that the existence of CBGB was more vital to the life of the city than a John Varvatos store. But I never knew that New York, except through albums and picture books and Desperately Seeking Susan, and as Dylan himself might say, wishing for those days to return is hophead talk.
”
Reblogged from fred-wilson|