Where have all the hip places gone? Feb. 7, 2025
We’re between storms – if that’s what we’ve been getting, snow
turning to rain, followed by a chill.
Someone filed a complaint about my backup Facebook account,
causing them to shut it down for a whole day while they investigated whether or
not I violated community standards (whatever that means).
Since that site only has four followers and I use it only if
I have an issue with my main account (I lost access to my original main
account), it puzzles me as to who would want to complain and cause such havoc.
(I suspect I know but it’s pointless to go on about it here)
Not a problem since the investigation proved nothing wrong.
Took a stroll down Bergenline Avenue this morning after
sending off my stories for work, narrow sidewalk, thick with people, but hardly
the same place Hank and I used to visit during its dirty heyday of the 1970s,
no more strip clubs, no Transfer Station, no band Blondie.
Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show also started out here, the
guitarist of which has since become a friend. We served as judges in a talent
show a few years ago, where he insisted on reciting the dirty lyrics to their
hit song, “On the Cover of the Rolling Stone.”
One of the Latin clubs closed this week, something of a
surprise since this is still a vibrant Latin city. Down in Jersey City, the hip
place near the 9 th Street Light Rail station announced it is closing, too, a
victim of its own success. People who were regulars there had moved up from
downtown to take advantage of the cheaper rents in the Heights. But as with all
such hip places, they carried on their backs the seeds of their own
destruction, making risky neighborhoods safe for the unhip to move into, and
then rents rose there, too.
Just another sad gentrification story, hip people creating
hip scenes only to have the most boring people inherit the fruits of their
success. The East Village I so admired is long gone. I don’t know where hip
people go now, maybe Newark.
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