“Reading “High Line 1: The Meatpacking District” reminded me a lot Jane Jacobs and her ideas about neighborhoods and the communities they foster. Reading about the Meatpacking District it felt like there were a lot of different little communities that looked out for each other. On page 39 of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs asserts “The high-rent tenants, most of whom are so transient we cannot even keep track of their faces, have not the remotest idea of who takes care of their street, or how.” The people taking care of the street are people who have created a sense of community within their city blocks. They know each other, they look out for each other, and because of them the street is safe. This sentiment expresses the value of community life. When a place is gentrified, that life is pushed out and the sense of community that has been carefully cultivated and has allowed for the streets to be safe goes with it. This is a direct parallel to the communities in the Meatpacking District and one example to illustrate that is Ivy Brown’s experience one night during an ice storm. Ivy Brown lived in a building that had a transgender crisis center on the first floor of her building. It helped to foster a community where these people felt safe with one another and looked out for each other: “Ivy gave clothing and makeup to the sex workers, and kept a mirror on the bicycle she parked outside so the girls could check their lipstick…One night, in an ice storm, Ivy fell on the sidewalk. ‘All of a sudden, I was like a kitten being picked up by the scruff of the neck. Two big girls lifted me up and carried me home…'” In this scenario, these women looked out for each other and they did it because that’s what the community was like. They looked out for each other, end of story. As gentrifiers moved in and Sex and the City had a direct influence on the type of people moving in, that sense of community could no longer thrive. Intolerant and transphobic people moved in and they complained about the people who had lived there long before them. These people were moving into what they wanted to be a new area, with a certain image, and they weren’t going to stand for any remnants of what that area used to be. As a result, Ivy Brown says “We were constantly hearing about transgender women getting targeted for harassment and arrest, whether they were at work on the stroll or simply walking through to visit friends. Eventually, the sex workers were pushed far away, into parts of town more dangerous.” Unable to feel safe in their own community, these women were forced to move. The sense of community they had cultivated was not appealing to the people moving in because they didn’t need a close knit community to feel safe. They had money, they had police on their side, they had power that transgender sex workers didn’t, so they pushed them out and with them, the sense of community. It probably never even occurred to them, as Jane Jacobs put it, “who takes care of their street, or how.”
- What was the value of community in the Meatpacking District?
- Why don’t higher paying residents feel inclined to strengthen community ties?
- How does a sense of community help to protect residents?
