Bryce Goyer Dérive 2
March 18, 2018, by Bryce
This time for my Dérive I was assigned a location that I haven’t frequented as often, but that we talked about more in class. I was assigned to start on the intersection of East Houston Street and Elizabeth Street. While I was walking there, I realized that I was going to be walking right past Broadway, and since we have talked about Broadway so much in this class I decided to start my observations a few more streets to the West.
While I started on Broadway I wanted to make sure I was really taking it in, so I could compare it to the Eastern part of Houston and eventually to Bowery. Broadway was as crowded as it always is, especially since I started right at the beginning of SoHo. It was so busy that I couldn’t even stop to really take notes, or pictures, without being slammed into my a large mass of people. I noticed that this area was filled with a lot of construction, a lot of tourists, and a lot of highly commercialized shops. The sidewalks themselves were not even visible to the eye due to the amount of people, and the pedestrian areas to cross had been cut into even smaller areas due to all the roadwork. There were billboards littering a few hundred feet above the throngs of people, featuring prominent brands such as Glossier.
This was what I have come to expect of the intersection of Broadway and Houston, an area dominated by chain retailers and tourists. In this way, nothing was out of the ordinary for a sunny Wednesday afternoon in this area. But, this was my first time in this area since taking this class. It was odd to me that Broadway was once regarded as the classier older brother to Bowery, just a few streets over. When we discussed Broadway in class, many of my classmates agreed with the image I have in mind. The image is the one I experienced on my Dérive. Luc Sante however discusses a much different Broadway in his book Low Life. This Broadway of Downtown was seen as a more mainstream destination for those to experience theater and New York City life. With this contrast in mind, I walked East towards Bowery. Would the divide between Broadway and Bowery still be evident today? Would Broadway appear more mainstream and more palatable than Bowery?
There was only six blocks separating Broadway and Bowery, but even in this short walk the contrast become pretty obvious. It was amazing how much of a difference I could pick up on in six blocks. As I went East, the buildings started to fall into more despair. Within two blocks, almost all of the chain retailers of Broadway had vanished. The streets began to clear out, besides a family of tourists who ironically asked me how to get to Broadway. The buildings became smaller, and immediately I began to feel like I was more in the neighborhood of the Lower East Side, one less “mainstream” than SoHo. I arrived at Bowery and the first thing I thought of was how we were right in our assertion that Bowery was indeed larger than Broadway, and feels even more so due to the lack of people flocking the streets.What struck me though was that Bowery is visibly transitioning. Although the streets are less populated and less taken care of than SoHo, gentrification is still visible. Sante’s Bowery was one of the infamous Bowery Boys, a stereotype of the class of people who frequented this area. The Bowery had at one time been an area of the poor, one of theater for those who couldn’t participate in the theater of Broadway. The Bowery was a rowdy and rough street, one filled with the uneducated working class. Bowery now has a Whole Foods on it’s corner with East Houston, and the contemporary art museum, the New Museum, frequented by trendy New Yorkers and school children. These two establishments that I was met with immediately after taking a right onto Bowery exemplified to me the changes in Downtown Manhattan.
The Bowery, along with the Lower East Side, is becoming trendy. Students from NYU are choosing to move down there, and restaurants such as Beauty and Essex have made a name for themselves amongst food bloggers and social media enthusiasts. A girl in one of my classes had described the Lower East Side as “the new Meatpacking District” and as I was quite literally standing in the shadow of a mega Whole Foods I think I might have to agree with her. So although there is still a stark contrast between Broadway and Bowery visible today, it is less of a good versus bad or a rich versus poor. Broadway is still mainstream, popular amongst tourists and commercialized, and Bowery is still more alternative, with trendy restaurants and art galleries. But, both these areas are now viewed as desirable, and both are becoming not viable places for the working class.
As I kept walking I was led by the Dérive App to go back West, back towards SoHo. This was my first time walking around SoHo not for a specific shop, specific restaurant, or to shop with my parents when they visit me. I came across St Patrick’s Old Cathedral, a beautiful and massive church that takes up nearly an entire block. Cathedrals always seem out of place to me in the city, sites of history frozen in time. I went into the churchyard, with a tour group speaking Spanish, and read the plagues attached to the building. This Church was dedicated to the Ancient Order of Hibernians of the 19th and 20th century. It read “erected to the memory of the members of the ancient order of Hibernians of the city of New York who like their Irish Fathers of old were ready to sacrifice their lives for religious freedom …” This reminded me of Sante discussing the immigrants to New York, especially the Irish. The Irish were often persecuted against when they came to New York due to their fidelity to the Catholic Church in a country of mostly Protestants. It was so interesting to find a piece of the city that is still standing in 2017 that is directly correlated to what we have discussed in class. This also makes me think of contemporary times in New York and the rest of America. Will we as a City learn from our past indiscretions or are we doomed to always persecute the different?
As I walked further around SoHo, I was once again reminded of Mattern’s piece on Deep Mapping the Media City in which she discusses how deep mapping can reveal the “presence of multiple histories.” (Mattern, 44). The buildings of SoHo have clearly been standing for a long period of time, with architecture dating back to the 1800s. The current Apple Store of SoHo is in a building that still has imposed into it’s architecture “Untied States Post Office” and “Station A”. A building that once housed an old school form of communication now houses a technology retailer. It’s an interesting contrast, but it also reveals the changing nature of New York City. This entire Dérive revolved around the idea of change for me. The changes between Broadway and Bowery, between Sante’s Bowery of the 1800s and modern day Bowery, overall the changing landscape of New York. Santa’s quote in Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York resonated with my experience, “The speed of change was ruthless, but it was more a promise than a threat.” I was able to really take in the changes of Downtown Manhattan through this Dérive, and although some are worrying, such as gentrification, overall the changes illuminate the hope I have in New York. The St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral and SoHo retaining it’s history even in contemporary times gives me hope that we as a City will always be able to remember our past, the good and the bad, and learn from it.
Mattern, Shannon. Deep Mapping the Media City Sante, Luc. Low Life. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991.