Gentrification Wins the 20 Year Battle for the East Village

An anonymous Loisaida resident poses enthusiastically on 3rd Street and Avenue C

It is the warmest weekend day of the year and the streets of the East Village are excitingly buzzing. There are people congregating on every street corner and residents happily migrating towards Tompkins Square Park. Outside the air is welcoming and pleasant, and everyone seems to be more cheerful than usual. Two Third Street residents stroll toward Avenue C with reusable shopping bags stuffed with blankets, magazines, snacks and all the stuff for a Sunday in the park. Young, fashionable professionals- these two girls are unprepared for what they are about to see.

The corner of Third Street and Avenue C is a perfectly overt window into the two cross-sections that are the East Village. One side of Third Street houses an upscale pizza shop and an exclusive lounge. Immediately adjacent to these establishments is a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) building, or a “projects” building. In some respects, the two worlds of this “Loisaida” (a slang word for “Lower East Side” that identifies this portion of the East Village) sub-neighborhood are at odds at this intersection, separated only by a ten foot strip of black pavement.

The young women cross Avenue C at a leisurely pace until they reach the corner near the NYCHA building. Lingering on the sidewalk is a group of a grizzly, homeless looking gentlemen and one particular fellow in a wheelchair. The girls think nothing of it until they realize that the wheelchair-bound man is exposing himself freely and preparing to urinate on the sidewalk. The women are appalled. They contest that this section of Third Street is where all the problems of the neighborhood lie.

“All the robberies occur between these Avenues, men yell vulgar things at me daily, and I often have to see men exposing themselves. It is the dirtiest section of the neighborhood,” long-term resident and Ohio-import Amanda Smith tells me. Unfortunately, the girls’ sneering does little to solve the problem and typically only elicits perverted remarks.

There are fewer places with such a great economic divide as the East Village. On a typical day, a resident might be peddled for change by a wandering squatter or homeless person while rushing past a posh restaurant where patrons pay $50 a plate. Residents vary from dirt-poor drifters and beggars to project-housing inhabitants to wealthy businesspeople. Avenue C is perhaps the most obvious representation of this great divide.

Avenue C is a bustling economic center just one avenue East of Tompkins Square Park and perpendicular to Houston Street. The Avenue, which stretches from Houston to 23^rd Street hosts chic condominiums, a squatter-inhabited building (C-Squat, which was purchased from the government in 2002 for one dollar), and several rows of project housing. The enormous range of housing on the Avenue creates an interesting cultural and economic dynamic that is unique to any other neighborhood in Manhattan. While the avenue’s diversity is distinctive, its gentrification has not necessarily been welcomed by the entire East Village community.

Resident and friend Gabriel Sanabria represents one portion of the neighborhood that is particularly outspoken about the gentrification. Gabriel is short and youthful, a twenty year-old of Puerto Rican descent. Since most of the changes have erupted in the past five years, Sanabria remembers when the Avenue was “dirtier” and “less safe.”

“My parents talk about it all the time. My mother curses in Spanish every time a new place opens.”

Sanabria isn’t unique in that his parents are immigrants. A large majority of Loisiaida are of Puerto Rican and Dominican heritage.

“We like what is happening to some degree. We like that our properties and our stores are becoming more valuable. The problem is that most of these people can’t afford to pay $2,000 rent!”

Sanabria lives in a government-assisted housing building adjacent to Avenue C.

“The fact that the yuppies haven’t really made it below 6^th is probably because of all the projects down here. They aren’t gonna be able to take out the projects and they don’t want the riffraff in their stores.”

Sanabria is referring to the area of Avenue C below 6^th street, which is largely, but not completely, ungentrified. While Sanabria and Smith both represent a population of the neighborhood who consider themselves “active” and “opinionated,” most of the current residents of the neighborhood are largely unaware of the issues that come with gentrification.

The 1980’s were a particularly turbulent time for the neighborhood. As chic establishment after chic establishment began to erupt, affordable housing and dining quickly diminished. Protests relentlessly broke out over developments, and locals refused to stand for it. 1988 saw a principally important riot, later called the Tompkins Square Park Riot. The riot essentially objected to the government overtaking the culture of the neighborhood and the “cleansing” of Tompkins Square Park. This portion of New York City was rapidly turning into a gated community only accessible to the rich and posh. Protesters stood near Avenue A with signs reading Gentrification Is Class War!

The Christodora House, to some, represented the first sign of gentrification as it was converted into expensive condominiums on Avenue B in 1983. While protesters spent nearly ten years actively dissenting against the developments that occurred all around the Tompkins Square area, a resident has to wonder where all the anger and hype has faded to.

“If somebody organized something, you know, somebody that isn’t me, I would march. I would want to save this area, or try to, because it’s where I grew up. I know my parents won’t be able to live here if the projects are gone,” expresses Sanabria to me, when I ask about starting a new revolution against gentrification.

The fact that the neighborhood dispute has been quiet for over ten years is concerning and disappointing. The spirit of the East Village has always been one of dissent, and this feels like one combat that East Villagers are tired of fighting.

Critics have to wonder, though, if the protest of Loisaida is just in remission. Is the neighborhood preparing for yet another wave of conflict as developers and business owners take over the once humble streets of Loisaida? Sanabria disagrees with this theory, saying the war is over.

“The neighborhood seems to have lost the battle, I guess.”