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Saturday, March 15 new york new york
i've been thinking a lot about the new york city i met when i moved here in 1981 i guess it's safe to say that in 1981, i had the worst possible vantage point of nyc i arrived just shy of my 17th birthday to live in a neighborhood where i was the only non-chasidic white person out of a police uniform for as far as the eye could see the chasids considered me a bewildering project of sorts i was jewish so there was some chance of bringing me into the fold made if fairly apparent that i wasn't going to be covering up my head, donning conservative attire and marrying a long bearded rabbi anytime soon the jamaican drug dealers eyed me with concern as first probably the worst thing to contend with at that time when i walked off the 2 train after a night shift i moved to manhattan in the early 80's into a hotel apartment in the now defunct the 200 square foot rooms had private baths and i hooked up a hot plate and coffee machine on the window sill compared to where i had been manhattan seemed like the emerald city compared to today i remember carrying mase or pepper spray attached to my key chain giving the look to anyone who looked at me that read i learned what it was like to come home to a burglured apartment to be gay bashed but all that was small stuff what i loved was the gritty, in your face, fuck you all the east village where i live now was a war zone there i remember the riots when they forced the homeless who lived in Tompkins square park to move out i remember cutting through a police barricade to open a bullet ridden door to get into my kitchen and remove the food i needed to cater someone’s wedding despite the fact that the club where i cooked had had a major gang shooting the night before i found another kitchen soon after trust me there was rough stuff then and new york city is cleaner now
i wonder if we didn't throw the baby out with the bath water the artists and the writers have been pushed out now they sprinkle around in fort greene and i can walk up and down avenue c at midnight i love being safe but i miss the brother hood that was the only good thing to emerge from "911" and now that nyc's economy is in a slump i wonder what will the next journey of this city be would be nice if some of those artists and writers could come back would be nice if people who made less than a 100 grand a year could afford to live here again anyway i hate crime too but damn i have to say haven't seen a punk rocker with mohawk in weeks now
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