Up until this point we’ve been spending a lot of time discussing the decrepit, decaying image of the Lower East Side and how this image contributed to the abandonment and lack of growth in the area. For the first time however, in Mele’s Chapter 7, we learn about the re-development and re-popularization of the East Village. It is funny to think that, although it is disputed, the artists motives for moving to the East Village were purely innocent and that they had really just moved there simply because they couldn’t afford to live anywhere else.
In addition, I happened to think it was quite ironic that it was the neighborhood’s dumpy and abandoned character which actually played a role in reinventing the area as a more stylish and hip place to be. Mele highlights this idea when he writes, “Thus, the symbols and images of abandoned buildings, empty lots, graffiti, and a thriving drug economy served as the foundation of an urban aesthetic inclusive of music, art, fashion and literature.”
I also found it interesting that the media played such an important role in improving the image of the East Village. The fact that the media had the power to transform the public’s view of the village is remarkable. More importantly, they did not try and pass off the East Village as something that it wasn’t. Rather, they took what Mele calls, “urban decay” and attached a different meaning to the phrase; they took words that the public associated with “fear and repulsion” and gave them positive connotations of intrigue, curiosity and desire. Even the way movies began to portray the East village as a place where whites, minorities, both rich and poor, lived in harmony, how blocks A through D were renamed “Alphabet City” to sound playful and how “living on the edge” became the “in” thing to do is all mind boggling; it seemed like the East Village had been restored and improved, when really it was the exact same place just with a new identity.
