Alphabet City, New York
For full disclosure, I have a deep and strong nostalgia for the New York of the 1970’s. Yes, I know all of the issues with crime and drugs. I lived through them. But the city had a “realness” then that 21st century gentrification has done away with. One neighborhood where this is fully evident is in Alphabet City. Alphabet City is the area east of Greenwich Village. Its name comes from the fact that the avenues there are named A through D, being east of 1st Avenue. It stretches from Houston Street north to 14th Street. When I was in college it was a poor, working class neighborhood. Drugs were rampant. Many buildings were abandoned, and squatters had moved in. The play/movie “Rent” is set in this area. There are clues to the age of store. One of them is not having an area code Homemade chairs set up for hanging out Alphabet City was one of the first neighborhoods in New York to be gentrified. While it has made the area safer, it has also struck at the heart of it. In the o...