I came to NYC as an 18 year old, enrolled at NYU and found myself in the gentrifying East Village/Lower East Side of New York City . The neighborhood was an ethnic/artist’s ghetto that was losing it’s edge as the Yenta’s, deli’s, bohemians, those living on the margins and the predators who made their living off theses denizens were pushed out by YUPPies, YUNNies, NYU students and the Investment Bankers looking for street cred slowly took over.
30 years later, recently divorced waiting for my first major project to run through the studio process, I found myself stranded in East Hollywood; a rapidly (because nothing is slow in the age of the 24/7 News Cycle) gentrifying ethnic/artist’s ghetto. Back in 1987 I was the interloper. Now I’m one of the Old Guys who needs to be replaced.
With all of this going on in the neighborhood I am put into an Ecclesiastes 1:4 frame of mind – One generation cometh and another generation passeth away but the Earth abides forever or at least until we violate its safe space.
Thusly or at least because I have a healthy understanding of irony, I’ve decided to chronicle the 2017-18 invasion of the Millennials and their Hipster allies. I hope I’m making Bryan Ferry proud.
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