On August 6th, 1988, Tomkins Square Park erupted in clashes between the police and a “diverse mix of anti-gentrification protesters, punks, housing activists, park inhabitants, artists, Saturday night revelers and Lower East Side residents” (Smith, pg.3). The coalition seemed unified under the largest banner that proclaimed “GENTRIFICATION IS CLASS WAR!” This week, we look at the role or implication of artists in that process of gentrification in the East Village/Lower East Side during this period from three perspectives of academics that have studied the neighborhood’s change. Bowler and McBurney’s Gentrification and the Avant-Garde in New York’s East Village: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Christopher Mele’s Selling The Lower East Side and Neil Smith’s The New Urban Frontier.
For further consideration, watch the film Captured about the Tompkins Square Riots. See also Basquiat’s film appearance in Downtown 81 for a glimpse of the neighborhood at the time as well as the creative energy that drove many artists, creatives and “outcasts” to the area in the late 70s and 80s.
Neil Smith’s “Class Struggle on Avenue B” was an article that challenged gentrification, proposing the cycle of gentrification is a system that is always going to happen. The authors thesis is lengthy, but says “Systematic gentrification since the 1960s and 1970s is simultaneously a response and contributor to a series of wider global transformations: global economic expansion in the980s; the restructuring of national and urban economies in advanced capitalist countries toward services, recreation and consumption; and the emergence of a global hierarchy of world, national and regional cities (Sassen 1991). These shifts have propelled gentrification from a comparatively marginal preoccupation in a certain niche of the real estate industry to the cutting edge of urban change.” (Smith 6-7).
The example that Smith gives about Tompkins Square Park was very reminiscent of the 1990s musical “Rent”. The story is about young 20 somethings who are struggling in the midst of these issues that are going on in this area of Manhattan. One of them protests the exile of homeless people in the park, and is very vocal about all the injustices going on. We found it interesting that the iconic musical directly relates accurately to the real-life problem that Smith proposes at the beginning of his article.
In Bowler and McBurney’s “Gentrification and the Avant Garde in New York’s East Village,” they take on the various question and issues circulating around the revitalization of the East Village. For instance, they question whether or not artists were the main cause of gentrification, or if they were just the scapegoats of it (50)? They also wonder if the East Village will be able to maintain its authenticity or if it’s style and essence will be turned into a commodity or a marketing ploy (50)? According to Bowler and McBurney: “These transformations in the labor base of New York’s economy are both the immediate causes of the decimation of the working-class neighborhoods of the Lower East Side and a precondition for their gentrification” (51). This quote explains how post-industrialization was a major cause which lead to artists moving in and using the abandoned spaces left in warehouses. After artists helped to make run down neighborhoods appear to be more appealing, it caught the eye of developers who then decided to take advantage of the neighborhoods as well. As mentioned by Bowler and McBurney: “This is not to argue, however, that the role of artists as catalysts in the transformation of the East Village as a real estate gold mine should not be taken into account. Nor should the greed of certain artist’s groups to secure public subsidies for low-income housing be dismissed” (56). In this quote, the authors are discussing how while many artists are wrongly blamed for being the main cause for gentrifying certain areas of New York, they should still be held accountable for sparking it in the very least.