Ah, busy weekend. After my bout with sickness, entertaining my little sister for the weekend and that whole not having internet at home thing I didn’t get around to blogging. And GG is just lazy.
I took the little sister to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone on Saturday. It was awesome. All I’ve been hearing is about how Coney Island is going away and blah, blah, blah so I figured I’d check it out again since I hadn’t been there in oh, about, twenty years.
I used to go there with my girlfriend when we were kids. Not even supposed to be on the train, but we could get away with being gone for more than a few hours on Summer days, the closest place to go of any real fun was Coney Island. I even swam there when I was a kid. As if it was a clean beach.
We got off the train and my first realization was it was so much smaller than I remembered. But the Cyclone was bigger. And the area? Still left something to be desired. In a weird way it was comforting that it was still a little trashy. Everything in New York has become so fucking candy coated and white bread that it makes me want to vomit sometimes. Times Square and the Meatpacking District are the most obvious examples but it’s happening everywhere.
When I was a kid Williamsburg was considered a bad neighborhood. We didn’t even really call it that, it was the North Side and the South Side. With the South Side being a hooker and heroin haven. I was even friends with a girl whose mother was a real live prostitute and drug addict! On early weekend mornings when me and the fam went driving towards the Williamsburg Bridge for a visit to the city, we’d point her out clearly doing the walk of shame back to Greenpoint after a rough night.
But now almost all, if not all of Williamsburg is practically G-rated. I mean how afraid can you really be of strung out white boys who weigh about a buck ten from Kansas? Not very.
I know things are only going to get worse (read: better). You can see it trying to happen in Greenpoint. The Puerto Ricans from the other side of Greenpoint Ave are getting priced out but the the Polish community has a stronghold on the area. As much as people might like to think that eventually the Poles are going somewhere else, they’re not. The Poles own their buildings and businesses. And they’re quicker to rent and/or sell to their own. In my opinion, Greenpoint will never be completely gentrified like Williamsburg.
And I’m happy about that.