Gothamist: Downtown 'Hoods: Please, No More Bars!

John

Tue, 30 Dec 2003 14:50:04 -0500

Definitely true. Bar activity is usually a good thing for residential neighborhoods (see Jane Jacobs, The Death And Life Of Great American Cities), because it means people coming and going at all different hours, and that kind of foot traffic makes streets safer. When that bar activity turns into drunk people clogging up sidewalks standing outside smoking, then going inside to find their seat taken and half a drink gone, then going back out for another cigarette, ugh. The smoking ban is so ridiculous on so many levels; only an overzealous quitter (like Bloomberg) would come up with something like that. It's like your mother telling you to put on a sweater because she's cold...

Sterling

Tue, 30 Dec 2003 14:18:08 -0500

Obviously, smoking ban sidewalk loitering is ratcheting-up neighbor hostility to bars and restaurants. According to some, the smoking ban is also reducing the operating margins of bars and restaurants, which is probably forcing some to shutter, and acting as a drag on total commercial activity. Since the spawning of new bars and restaurants is a part of the gentrification process, Bloomberg has probably reduced the rate at which neighborhoods improve. And since an increase in empty storefronts is associated with neighborhood decline, Bloomberg has managed to accelerate the rate at which neighborhoods go to seed. To this day, I've yet to hear a coherent, much less convincing, argument why smoking should be banned in bars.

John

Tue, 30 Dec 2003 13:12:43 -0500

It seems the problem is an unbalancing of the collateral benefits: Hipsters/artists/whatever benefit when they move into "emerging" neighborhoods (which the EV, LES, and Soho all were at one time) from an availibilty of space at a low price, and as an area gentrifies (and bars, boutiques, whatever, move in) the long-time residents, whether they would like to admit it or not, benefit from a safer, busier, more prosperous neighborhood. BUT, there's a tipping point, of course, when the oldtimers get priced out or annoyed out by the nightlife, etc., and I think it's safe to say that Soho has definitely passed that point, the EV probably has, and sections of the LES definitely have too. Is this kind of change, once begun, inexorable? Or will a rabid increase in street crime stem the tide (a la the Williamsburg "hipster-bashings")? And is there a way to have both? I dunno, I'm just bored at work...

Sterling

Tue, 30 Dec 2003 10:54:11 -0500

Deb's too young to recall when the Lower East Side and East Village were wholesome, family oriented neighborhoods: http://members.tripod.com/Fighting9th/History21.htm

resident

Mon, 29 Dec 2003 14:44:18 -0500

Believe it or not, Deb, most of the people in the EV/LES have been living here before "all the nightlife." The apartment buildings that you and your drunk screechy friends pass by in the wee hours of the morning are filled with long-time residents and families. It wasn't always the frat boy/hipster/UES post-graduate playground that you see now.

Felix

Mon, 29 Dec 2003 12:21:41 -0500

More to the point, is Soho actually oversaturated with bars? Are there any Soho blocks with 30 bars on them, or even as many as are found, say, on Orchard between Houston and Stanton, or even Bleecker between La Guardia and Thompson? I remember when I first moved to New York, everybody was very excited about Spy and Wax. But now? The only hip bars I can think of in Soho are in hotels. Bar 89's past it, as is the Merc Bar, and I can't imagine that even the Soho Alliance would object to Fanelli's.

deb

Mon, 29 Dec 2003 10:20:31 -0500

For f---sake, why would you live in the LES or EV if you were bothered by all the nightlife? Or, maybe I'm missing the point here ...