Upscaling Downtown by Richard E. Ocejo

Author:Richard E. Ocejo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

BARS IN THE GENTRIFIED NEIGHBORHOOD

People who opened bars in downtown Manhattan in the 2000s faced a completely different place from what their predecessors faced. Downtown neighborhoods were much safer and cleaner, with many enticements for urban youth with disposable income. But they also maintained their reputation as gritty neighborhoods and sources of downtown cool, which real estate developers and other stakeholders exploited into downtown luxury.19 As Christopher Mele documents, city leaders and real estate actors in the 1980s and 1990s successfully created a “representation of place” in the East Village that reworked the “images, iconography, and symbols of [its] ethnic minority communities . . . marginalized subcultures and the avant-garde” and mixed them with upscale developments to draw the interest of young, middle-class urbanites.20 By opening funky local bars that improved conditions on the street and promoted safety, early bar owners helped to cultivate this image and make downtown Manhattan attractive for new residents and businesses, as they admit. New bar owners are often among these new residents who were attracted to the sense of downtown cool. But unlike the early bar owners, they usually are not original members of the downtown art, music, and nightlife scenes. Opening a social gathering and performance space in the neighborhood for members of the artistic community was therefore not the next logical step for new bar owners. They also do not reference grit or underground and alternative cultures in their bars. In other words, they neither design them with grit in mind, nor does grit emerge as a natural consequence of having a small budget.

Despite not having lived downtown during that period, new bar owners still use similar terms of community and authenticity to describe it as early bar owners do. Dave is in his late twenties and moved to New York City in 2003. In college he majored in interior design, but he describes himself as someone who has a special talent for hosting parties and events, which he has done his whole life. He also has always had an interest in spirits. After graduating, he moved to Las Vegas to become a VIP host at a nightclub, which give him many ideas on how to run an establishment. When he came to New York City, he decided to live in the East Village. He explains: “I liked the neighborhood. It’s got a feel of authenticity to it. It’s got a neighborhood’s neighborhood feel, and without pretension, without a lot of bullshit. It just seemed to have all those elements that I really liked.” Echoing the early gentrifiers, new bar owners often describe downtown Manhattan neighborhoods as “authentic.” Interestingly, they employ a similar definition of what makes them authentic. For the new bar owners, the people in downtown Manhattan are the most important part of what makes it authentic—in particular, their diversity and creativity. Dave elaborates on why he chose the East Village over other neighborhoods when he decided to open a bar:

It sort of encompassed everything I liked. It has that authenticity; it still felt like New York.

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