#SaveNYC: Hyper-Gentrification and Appropriation on the Bowery

Block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, the city is being filled with chain stores and luxury retail. Join us and #SaveNYC. Recently, blogger and journalist Jeremiah Moss launched #SaveNYC, a grassroots initiative aimed at protecting small businesses and cultural institutions in New York City. As the city hyper-gentrifies, it is losing its unique character. Block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, the city is being filled with chain stores and luxury retail. One of the most dramatically changed neighborhoods is the Bowery. For over a century, the Bowery’s character had been of the countercultural sort. Since the late 1800s it had been the sleazy territory of outsiders—punks, artists, bums, queers, and drop-outs, drag queens, prostitutes, tattoo artists, and con men. It was a haven for homosexuals when it was illegal and unsafe to be gay. Groundbreaking artists, including Mark Rothko, moved to the Bowery in the 1950s. More artists arrived through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, including Jean-Michel Basquiat and Robert Mapplethorpe. The music scene at CBGB’s gave birth to punk rock. Then, in the 1990s, everything began to change. Today, the Bowery, once synonymous with Skid Row, has become a luxury brand that appropriates its gritty past, sanitizes it, and then sells it for a sky-high price. On this walk, organized by Jeremiah Moss of Vanishing New York and #SaveNYC, and guided by preservationist Kyle Supley, participants will tour the main sites of the Bowery’s massive transformation and engage in a discussion about hyper-gentrification and appropriation. If time allows, participants will also loop back to Houston Street via Rivington and Essex for a look at how hyper-gentrification has transformed what is now known as “Hell Square.”