Jeremiah Moss describes 1997 as the “turning point” between the old and new culture of the meatpacking district, a neighborhood running from West 14th street to Gansevoort Street. After the acquiring of Manhattan by the Dutch, by the 1800s, this district became coined as such due to its primary purpose of being the chief hub for meatpacking businesses. By the 1970s, that which lined the streets were nearly 200 meat handling businesses. However, beneath this bloody and hard-earning world by this time the meatpacking district also housed a more ‘promiscuous’ purpose where queer and kinky clubs opened, steering the neighborhood into transitioning to a more eccentric nature by the 1980s. Such was the trend until the 90s, when night clubs and bars made way for the emergence of luxury restaurants nearing the 21st century. The culture of the meat, blood, and drunken underground nightlife, as well as the opportunity for closing businesses and prime real estate opportunities, allowing the transformation of the meatpacking district to occur soon after. Moss states that the death of the meatpacking district nevertheless came by August of 2000 when the popular sitcom Sex and the City aired an episode starring the district, causing fans to enter in droves. Thereafter, the area was renamed as the “MePa” and high-end boutiques, retail shops, designer stores, hip bars, and luxury restaurants took over leaving the original night workers to be ostracized far away as a ‘shamed’ past.
The Bloomberg era of revamping the west side, moreover ridded the area of railways and train tracks- along with the businesses that relied on them- to create a region that would attract lusting contractors and re-developers to transform the region into that of a high value luxury and tourist attractions. The Chelsea high line nevertheless posed the future of hyper-gentrification that would impact the rest of the west side of the city. Soon enough, the ‘stinking’ blood was washed off the streets to make way for proprietor of the High Line redevelopment scheme designer Diane von Furstenberg’s “exotic” perfume. The spunky and raw culture that once existed was no longer, rather remaining now was a forcefully tames neighborhood jam packed with wealthy young folks willing to spend thousands entertaining company at the newest night lounge and tourists looking for the hottest spots to photograph. Rather than a revamping of the iconic neighborhood which once existed, maintain the culture and pride of the LGBTQ community and the hardworking meatpackers that built the desire for the region in the first place, the High Line redevelopers bulldozed all preservation possibilities to make way for a “better” neighborhood, filled with a “better” crowd.
The attached semi- avant garde cartoon video, perfectly shows the history of the meatpacking district, from its conception to its redevelopment into a luxury/tourist marketplace. The most interesting thing that I find about this short animation in the fact that only the last 20 seconds or so of the one-minute video contains what exists today (apart from the strange ending). It is nevertheless a perfect representation of the reality of the district. From a long history of gritty and raw culture, the bulldozing and ‘re-polishing’ only makes up so much of what was the reality of the region, yet, it is all that people tend to focus on today. This I believe is the point that Moss drives home in his piece, the gentrification or otherwise hyper-gentrification which arises in a region should never have the opportunity to do as what happened in the meatpacking district due to the High Line program, as all culture will be stripped away. Rather, there needs to be individuals like Moss who are willing to bitterly stay put and preserve the essence of the individual regions, so that systematically something can be done one day to combat the washing away of authentic culture as a result of greed of the wealthy. By this, persistence is the key to change.
Questions:
- Should we in fact adopt a bitter outlook onto gentrification around us? Is this a useful approach or should we be more positive?
- Jeremiah Moss looks at gentrification in NYC, how might his approach of staying put differ in wanting to express gentrification in NYC (such as the meatpacking district)?
- Is the meatpacking district a special case? Are there other occurrences of blue collar neighborhoods suddenly transforming into white collar ones?
