Matt's First Derive
February 20, 2018, by Matt
I began my dérive on a quiet Sunday afternoon on the corner of East 3rd and Avenue A. This is an area that I’ve been to a few times before, as it’s the location of UCB’s East Village theater. It was an interesting moment – I had been to that exact location three times before, but this time was different. I was alone, and I was purposely observing everything around me. Before I picked my first dérive card, I took a few minutes to simply take in the scene and enjoy the warm, sunny weather.
The first thing I noticed was sound, or perhaps lack thereof. It was an incredibly quiet scene, and it was notable when I heard loud or jarring noises, something that is so typical to New York. There are very few moments of quiet in my life; even when I’m alone, I tend to listen to music. The only true instances of silences in my life occur when I’m falling asleep, so I found this scene on Avenue A and 3rd to be peaceful, relaxed, and unwinding. Women passed with creaking carts and a few cars and taxis rolled by, but everyone who strolled by did so in a very relaxed manner. It’s not that they weren’t moving quickly, but these passersby exuded an aura of ease that made me feel like, for once, I wasn’t in a rush to get somewhere. Maybe it was the just the sunny weather, or just the relative quiet of the East Village, but my mind was at ease as I began my dérive.
My first card was to find a dog and walk away from it. You’d think that this would be a very easy task in New York, but it took me quite some time. I walked east on 3rd, and as I walked, I began to think about the people and places I was passing in relation to our class discussions and readings. In Low Life, Luc Sante describes how he moved to the East Village, presumably sometime before 1980, in search of “bohemia and youth culture,” as the neighborhood offered “from the social and cultural mainstream” (Sante XV). However, walking through Alphabet City on this Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t see very much that would interest Sante nowadays. Sante’s East Village was a dilapidated one that taxis rarely ventured into, where rent was dirt cheap, clothes were bought from thrift stores, and coffee was bought from Ukrainian immigrants. For the first fifteen minutes of my walk, I wandered down 3rd and Avenue B, and the neighborhood was far from dilapidated. It was packed with renovated apartments and groups of people waiting outside for artisanal, overpriced brunches.
During this part of my walk, I noticed that, in my mind, there were three types of people that were crossing paths with me. The first group would be what people my age might describe as “basic” girls, wearing Canada Goose jackets and leggings, and “bros,” wearing baseball hats, jeans or khakis, and fashionable sneakers or boots. The vast majority of these people were white and all seemed to be in their 20s or 30s. This group, obviously, is incredibly mainstream, and I’m sure Sante wouldn’t be pleased that this group of rich, white NYU graduates or New York transplants dominates the East Village. I admit that I am making assumptions about the demographic makeup of the neighborhood, but these are the types of people I encountered on my walk.
The second group consisted of mostly white people around the same age, but this group dressed in a much more counterculture, avant-garde fashion. In my opinion, this group was trying hard to look like they belonged in the East Village of Sante’s time, and eager to appear they don’t adhere to the “social and cultural mainstream.” They’re a part of the hipster crowd, attempting to appear bohemian. I even found a group of people like this who were on a walking tour of the East Village, which I thought was funny. In my opinion, this group is just as mainstream as the girls in the Canada Goose jackets and Lululemon leggings, and I wonder what Sante would have to say about that. I began to think about both of these groups in relation to our discussion in class about the dominant class enjoying minority cultures’ art and cuisine. As I walked, I saw both groups, consisting of rich, white people, enjoying things such as bubble tea, ramen, and empanadas. Before having that class discussion, I wouldn’t have thought about that too much, but now I think it’s an interesting dynamic. These white people are monetarily supporting other cultures’ food, but they think it is fashionable to do so.
The third group would be the authentic East Village locals who were easy to spot. I encountered them more frequently as I walked deeper east and eventually south. I crossed Houston going south, and I encountered a part of the city that I had never been to before. I saw streets like Attorney, Rivington, and Stanton – all of which I had never heard of. It was considerably less “hipster” and white than the East Village, even though it was only a few blocks away. My next dérive card was to find some shade and wait to see something inspiring, and I thought this would be hard. But then, as I waited along a fence in front of a playground, I saw a teenage boy dribbling a basketball down the sidewalk. Then I saw him stop on the corner in front of a bodega, and he greeted a friend with a hug. In such a busy city that often seems impersonal, it was inspiring to see to friends slow down and hug.
I continued walking in the Lower East Side, but my dérive cards eventually shifted my direction back uptown towards Houston. The further north and west I walked, the more “hip” and gentrified the area got. Walking closer to Bowery, streets got whiter and filled with more artisanal coffee shops and hipster thrift store. In “The Body,” the first chapter of Low Life, Sante raises an interesting theory about New York: the closer to the middle Manhattan you are, the nicer the area is. He raises this point in specific reference to the rivalry between Broadway and Bowery, arguing that Broadway, which is more centrally-located, was nicer and more mainstream than the avant-garde Bowery. I thought this point was funny because, on my walk, the closer I got to Bowery and the further I got from the river, the nicer and more gentrified the area became. It’s interesting that the Bowery used to be a countercultural hub, and even more interesting that it used to be dilapidated. Now, it’s littered with luxury high rises and expensive stores. On my walk, it was difficult to find Sante’s East Village.
Works Cited Sante, Luc. Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1991.