Sunday, April 6, 2008
That morning, my neighborhood saw the debut of a new flea market and I felt like I had been magically transported to the West Village, despite my general refusal to leave Brooklyn for Manhattan on weekends.
I walked as far from the Maclaren strollers that kept rolling over my feet, as far from the tourists wondering if ATMs “worked here like they do in The City,” as far from people wondering which blocks were “safe” to walk on as I could. I called a friend who once lived here to vent. And then I went back outside to go against my anti-Manhattan-weekend-time rules and meet Sydette for dinner.
On the Brooklyn-Bound G Train
The train is running on a shuttle, which I generally prefer ‘cause, well, that means it actually comes. A man and woman get on the train and sit next to me. He’s in the midst of a monologue. I’m a Pisces. We fish-folk eavesdrop:
My friends have all moved back to Austin. Two who made out at my house in High School got married. Yeah, they bought my parents’ house, my mom sold my friends my house, so now they’re fucking in my bedroom, like it’s come full circle.
In Austin, my history has been preserved.
But New York, New York is different. New York is faster. In New York, my history has not been preserved.
I don’t think New York cares.
When I moved here I moved to Williamsburg. To a block full of artists and for two years we made Williamsburg. Then I moved again to a bigger place, but when I go back I don’t see where I lived. The whole place is different now. My history in New York has not been preserved.
His history has not been preserved?
I think of history preserved. Historic preservation. Historic reservation. History reserved.
I think of neighborhoods and I think of people and I think of myself. I wonder, how do people and places preserve, reserve their history? Whose history is preserved?
I think of history preserved. Historic preservation. Historic reservation. History reserved.
I think of neighborhoods and I think of people and I think of myself. I wonder, how do people and places preserve, reserve their history? Whose history is preserved?
I think a lot about that too. Especially since I became a mother. I don’t really have a “home town”, or a physical place that feels like home (yet); I consider “where I’m from” to be……more about my family/background/things that shaped me than a place. We moved a lot when I was a kid, and always to places where I was the perpetual outsider.
And now, I have an eight-year-old daughter who wants to see the places I knew when I was her age. And so many of them don’t even exist anymore. Welcome to the rust belt, where the wrecking ball comes, but cranes don’t follow it. Hell, even roads aren’t the same. The Department of Transportation never seems to be short on cash.
I think about the effect of deregulation and distant corporations overriding what local culture is left, after people move to where the jobs are. I live in what some people would like to be a “historic neighborhood”, although most of the folks who live here don’t have that kind of money, and the yuppie would-be gentrifiers aren’t interested (the houses and lots are too small for them. plus, no golf courses downtown.) Thankfully. If they were, I couldn’t afford to live here. (that could change though, with gas rising to $4 a gallon) I think about it, because whole swaths of houses have been torn down by the city in the past few months. Big open spaces attract developers….maybe the economic depression we’re in that no one seems to want to admit to will scare them off (maybe it’s a recession in the big cities; it’s a depression in most of Illinois).
Anyway….I like your blog. I especially liked your line about how much of feminism is about getting the jobs that Old White Men have, rather than changing the system. I’d add that the main tactic feminism seems to advocate is “passing”—getting the education Old White Men have, joining the institutions Old White Men belong to, aping the ways of Old White Men so well that maybe, just maybe, you can “pass”…..but some of us can’t, despite whatever effort we could put into it.
Peace. Hang in there at work. I’m working a job that sucks right now too, a job I seriously can’t afford to lose—I’ve spent the larger part of the decade with on-again off-again employment, and it has taken a toll. Tell Blackamazon hi for me.
Hello, La Lubu!
BA says hi:)
Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I come from a small town set on Historical Preservation, in the sense that people spend tons of more to restore their houses to as close to their original form as possible, and in turn get plaques from the local Historical Society to put on their houses. In its own way, its very much the area I grew up in, but there’s also always a sense of keeping the area preserved for the history of very specific people – which, not shockingly, is the upper middle class, who can afford these renovations.
And now I live in a neighborhood that is similarly bent on “Historical Preservation,” but only on restoring houses to what the new owners think will create the neighborhood they want, which people who’ve lived there forever and constantly pushed out and marginalized. And I struggle especially with this because as much as I don’t want to be a part of it, I do know that my living here plays a roll in the further gentrification of the neighborhood.
And yes, I definitely agree that a big part of white feminism is the advocation of passing. Though I don’t think many white feminists would agree with it. But that’s really what gets me – the thought that progress is getting what Old White Men have, and not doing anything with it. Though I don’t want those types of positions, I’m not against others having them. I just don’t understand viewing something as progress if you don’t do something new or different with your acquired status.
Thank you, so much, for sharing all your thoughts and experiences about this! I hope you’re surviving your job as well!