- Gentrification Watch: Nativity Mission Center, the groundbreaking Jesuit middle school, is moving from the Lower East Side (NYT).
- Village Fabrics is closing after four decades. Owner Steven Katz says the landlord doesn’t “care about us or the community.” (DNA Info).
- Community garden advocates were out in force for a public meeting on proposed rule changes (WSJ, NY1).
- In support of Joel Klein’s controversial Girls Prep decision (Observer).
- NYU details its expansion plans for CB2 (Village Voice).
- The City orders B Bar to stop building a noise reducing retaining wall (DNA Info).
- The Insider: John Spencer (NYT).
Nativity Mission will be missed:The quote from the Father when he arrives in the Bronx says it all,
“This is fantastic!” Father Podsiadlo said. “There’s public housing, and look at those bodegas. It’s alive…”
Too true that we are less alive and settling more and more for the counterfeit of it in bars and trinkets and pastimes for the wealthy…We still have gardens and other local institutions, SROs, Section 8 housing etc. here that try to be a place of aliveness for those that are left..
Good luck Nativity.
Hi K,
Thanks for your comment. In the Times story, David Gonzalez writes:
“As fewer Latino families are able to afford the area where they once lived in cramped slums, the school, too, has come to feel out of place.”
There’s no doubt that gentrification is a real force on the Lower East Side. As you note, the impact is most apparent externally (in the form of restaurants, bars, boutiques).
But the latest Furman Center report showed that in CD3: 50% of households earned below $38,000/yr, almost 40% of the housing is subsidized and there’s more racial diversity here than any other neighborhood except Hillcrest/Fresh Meadows in Queens.
Sometimes I feel like the Times and other citywide publications overlook these facts. I do not doubt that “fewer Latino families are able to afford the area.” But I think the picture is a bit more nuanced than this article would have us believe.
Seems to me stories that imply the LES is simply a hipster playground devoid of low income and middle income residents do the neighborhood a big disservice.
True that, Ed. Would be great to read what we DO have here that still shows us as a vibrant community as well as read about the issues of poverty and racism that still dog us.
K
We’ll consider that an assignment!