Simple movements

From a Q&A with where NY residents ask questions of NY Times Metro Editor, Joe Sexton.

Q. The transformation of Manhattan into an exclusive borough for the "super-rich" — I believe that this important issue is under-covered by The Times. Also, the affordable sections of Manhattan (below 14th Street), and the gentrification that has affected southern Harlem, Brooklyn, Queens and now the Bronx. This is having a devastating impact on the middle and working classes.

I live in Peter Cooper Village/Stuyvesant Town, which was built for the middle class and is now being turned into ersatz luxury apartments. Typical rents have risen from $1,300 to way over $5,000, and when the lease is renewed, a 17 percent increase is added.

A. You are not alone in wondering how people of more modest means manage to stay in Manhattan.

[...] I think we've done some good work trying to capture the full dimensions of the extraordinary remaking of the city that has been under way for years.

[...] We've struggled a bit at getting at what would seem to be some critical issues. If the less well off are being pushed out of the city, for instance, where are they going, and is there a reliable, effective, practical way of actually comprehensively documenting where they've gone? It's trickier than you might think. Or maybe we're just short of good ideas. All suggestions welcome.

We're also currently talking with our reporters about starting a beat we might call "Frontiers'' — a sustained, sophisticated, aggressive look at the intersections of development and preservation, of gentrification (not necessarily a dirty word) and neighborhood identity.

Sexton must remind the reader that gentrification is not a "dirty word". This is correct; it encompasses far too much to be simply negative. However, the issues raised (the quadrupling of rents; conversion of middle class housing to luxury condos for the extremely rich; de facto 17% rent increases during lease renewals) describe a very negative, or perhaps a 'non-positive' change for the lower and middle classes.

Sexton also refers to the lower classes as the "less well off". Indeed, the starving are somewhat deficient in nutrition and cancer patients are perhaps less than healthy.

The immediacy of the middle or lower class family or individual who has been forcibly pushed from their home due to the uncontrollable metaphysics of the market (or so it is claimed) does not experience this change as a polite and necessary shift for the betterment of all; it is devastating and demoralizing.

They are human beings and not the abstract fictions of a ledger sheet.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/business/media/21askthetimes.html?pagewanted=all

Mudville gentrified

The only things fans really get from new stadiums are price increases. Just ask Peggy Gavan and her husband, Joe Ebler, of Warwick. For three years they've owned two seats as part of a 12-game Saturday package. They are called "MVP Tier," located in the upper tier between home plate and the Yankees' on-deck circle. Good seats. They've paid $55 a seat which, with a couple perks, makes for a pretty good deal.

Then they opened the mail one day and inside was a glossy packet from the Yankees containing 2009 ticket information. Their seats, now called "Terrace Level Outdoor Suite," would "start at $100 per seat/per game." So the 12-game, $55-seat package that now costs $660 per person will cost at least $1,200, almost a 100 percent increase.

But here's the kicker — Peggy and Joe must buy all 81 homes games, and they might have to sign up for multiple seasons. [...] At best, the couple will have to come up with at least $16,200 for seats that currently cost $1,320.

So the Yanks probably will lose two more common folks from their new fan-friendly stadium. Peggy's been going to games for 30 years. Joe was there in '77 when Reggie Jackson hit three home runs against the Dodgers in Game 6 of the World Series.

From: http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080715/SPORTS/807150327

They're just minor growing pains

Montauk, N.Y.

Lauren Morris’s gold lamé high heels kept getting stuck between the planks of the patio deck. Her only alternative were flip-flops, which she only wore “to not touch the floor in my share house,” said Ms. Morris, an account executive in a fashion showroom. “They’re gross.”

Wearing a sun-yellow tube dress, Ms. Morris held a glass of champagne, with a blueberry, a blackberry and a strawberry floating in it, and surveyed the scene. A reggae-influenced band played loudly as young men in pressed oxford shirts and jeans with complicated back-pocket designs were sprawled on ottomans. Eyeing them were tan women in skimpy floral-print sundresses.

That’s right, Montauk, known as “The End.” Not Bridgehampton, East Hampton or Southampton, where the thumping fabulousness on display at the Surf Lodge has long been a mark of summertime. Montauk, the easternmost tip of Long Island, is a town that has for generations been distinctly, and proudly low-key, the un-Hampton, where commercial fishermen live and work, and where middle-class families could afford hotel rooms, miniature golf and soft-serve ice cream.

The Surf Lodge, owned by the same group that runs the clubs Cain and GoldBar in Manhattan, is not the only sign of the new Montauk. Chic boutiques dot the village, old seaside motels are being turned into million-dollar condominiums, and an international marina developer who wants to attract megayachts is renovating the rundown 79-year-old yacht club.

Liveable Home, a furnishings store opened last fall by Adrienne Valenza, an interior designer.
“My partner and I thought it would be great to have a store to address things that are missing from Montauk,” Ms. Valenza said, sitting behind a desk not far from a glass “rock bowl” selling for $172. “Montauk is becoming this great shopping destination, so why not?”

Vogue and Women’s Wear Daily have done photo sessions there, and the hotel rooms, about $450 a night, are booked every weekend for the rest of the summer, said Steve Kasuba, an owner.

Another Surf Lodge owner, Jamie Mulholland, said the issues raised by the town are “minor growing pains” that are normal for any fast-growing business.

...the signature drink [at the bar] is the Yachtini, a mixture of rum, lime, pineapple juice, almond syrup, Grand Marnier and Champagne. A Mega-Yachtini is $100 and comes in a martini glass big enough to hold a carp.

“Montauk is a special place,” Mr. Farkas said in a telephone interview. “What we are trying to do is cultivate that feeling.”

Not too many decades ago, developers sought to attract a different class of people to Montauk. A new book by Paul Sahre, “Leisurama Now” lovingly chronicles the history of 200 low-key ranch houses that were sold in Montauk in the mid-60s by Macy’s. The price: as little as $12,990, including land and all furnishings. Now, an enlarged Leisurama house can sell for $800,000, according to Mr. Sahre. New two-bedroom attached houses on the property of the Panoramic View Hotel are being sold for $2.8 million, luxury oceanfront cabanas included.

At the Shagwong, a bar and restaurant, where fishermen, construction workers, realtors and vacationers have been drinking since 1969, a group of Montauk old-timers were grousing about the changes. “Look at all the places that used to be like this that are gone,” said Harold Foster, a semi-retired carpenter who has lived here since 1967. “The Windjammer, the Harvest, the Blue Marlin. This place and Liar’s are the only places left you can come meet your friends.”


From: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/fashion/06hampton.html?_r=1&ref=style&oref=login