Damn! well a city without a good heroin scene just isn't a city at all. So, I'm ALL FOR the old Lower East Side. Hell, even in late 2000 I was still able to score on C street.

Last time I went there, end of 2003, I couldn't even find a fix on the streets. Not that I needed one - I had been two years clean by then and I am six years clean now, but STILL - it woulda been nice to at least say hello to the old hipsters.

What type of chemicals were they applying?

Oooh, powerwashing. I often look around the city and imagine powerwashing things. It all started when I rented a powerwasher and did my deck.

pictures

It depends on what's in the washer. Here's a good start.

seriously, where does all the gross water go????

The grime covered part looks like the cover of Led Zepp's Physical Graffiti. Physical Graffiti.. removal! Heh. I'm so clever.

I'm glad they're keeping the old buildings. If it was 50 years ago, they'd just be torn down.

And to the guy who said that he's glad he puts on a tie instead of having that job.. doesn't seem like he understands the impact of making a physical difference in people's environments. I'd love to do work like that.

Do we pine for the old heroin-addicted streets of the LES? Ah the good old days.

In 1963, my wife and I lived on the top floor rear of 172 Ludlow Street, a renovated 2-bedroom apartment, for $85 a month (yeah, it was cheap, but consider: I was making $65 a week, before taxes, as a clerk).

Once she got pregnant, all I could think of was how I was not raising my kids on the Lower East Side (I grew up in Chelsea; she in Harlem). We moved first to the West Bronx, then to Boerum Hill, then to Fort Greene, settling finally in a big old Victorian near the water in St. George, where the ferry docks on Staten Island.

There's only one thing I miss about the Lower East Side, and that is that it no longer exists as a place where it's possible to live cheaply in Manhattan.

This picture reminds me again of how wonderful Trevor Little is. His work is amazing!

I can't tell if my Allen Street building would look any different after a power washing - it seems to be painted in peeling grey paint.

In any case, it's not just the LES that's dirty -- it's the whole town, right? They've been powerwashing Grand Central for the last few years (well, they might be done now - haven't checked recently) and the before/after shots were just as unbelievable.

Just wondering, when they´re using that "powerwasher" so close those window, i hope that water doesn´t leak in to the apartments... Nobody knows how good those old frames hold?

i miss the old les. those were the days. it is a shame that people who lived in the old les probably hated their lives as much as us and missed the old les themselves. and the people before that. and the people before that and eventually the monkeys, the amphibians, and one celled organisms, they all missed the old times. [epiphany of the word 'miss' that we keep forgetting, you miss what comes before you (what happens when you are not there) and you also miss in the sense that you long for it]

i guess the universe must have been the most awesome place when it didnt exist.

Amazing photo, really.

I own a couple buildings like that and had them power washed recently. The before and after is incredible. Brick is a great material. One of my buildings is actually yellow, like this one, and we had no idea until after it was cleaned.

yeah, I'm really nostalgic for the times of constant burning coal. yum.

The LES was pretty filthy way back when, too - see Luc Sante's "Lowlife" for some eye-opening history. There's also a terrific chapter in that book about the decorative facades of the LES' buildings, how they were designed to look ornate and beautiful on the outside to hide the bleak squalor within.

Remember when they cleaned the ceiling of Grand Central and it turned out the inches of grime were several decades of nicotine build up? Good times...

i live in the LES and was amazed when my building was painted on the inside. now seeing this makes me wonder just how beautiful my living situation can really be.

where does the water go ?!! ? ewwww

...but does it make anyone else feel wistful for the old LES?

No.