Ghosts of the Lower East Side

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As I step out of my dorm every morning, I don’t really think of the history.  I just take in the immediate things that the streets of the Lower East Side have to offer me on my daily walk to class. I don’t think of who lived in these same buildings around me, who walked these same streets before me. But after I began hearing the stories that Richard Price told, I was opened to a world of rich history and wonder.

The Lower East Side is filled with what Richard Price called “Ghosts:” remnants of people’s lives in old tenements and buildings, memories of those who made their way through the dimly lit streets. But what separates the time they lived in from ours? Sure, these “ghosts” lived lives filled with hardships that aren’t often a present day problem, but what has changed the streets? Richard Price attributes the downfall of a neighborhood to the presence of “cappuccino”—but is that all that has brought our time to be so starkly contrasting with the past? It seems that although the pavement may have been re-done, and although the buildings may have been re-surfaced, the ubiquitous history isn’t out of sight—it is all around us. When Richard Price spoke of ghosts, my first thought was of specters and apparitions—but now, I imagine the past people of the Lower East Side, and what they did on these streets: bustling through their daily routines, chastising children, meeting new people at markets, greeting fellow neighbors in their travels…it’s amazing how easy it is to visualize the wonders of the city that have been covered by only a few layers of asphalt.