If you lament the changes that laid waste in 2018 to “beloved” New York City stores, restaurants, cinemas and some whole buildings, look out: 2019 is going to be worse.
The past year has not been a charmed one for venerators of the past. We’re losing Lord & Taylor and Henri Bendel on Jan. 1. We lost Cornelia Street Cafe and the Lincoln Plaza and Sunshine Cinema. “Historic” small buildings on the Bowery, Canal Street and St. Marks Place fell like dominoes.
But the nostalgia lobby, which burns up the internet with rage every time an “iconic” sandwich place closes, is going to toss its cookies over what’s in store. A much loftier domino will start to topple some time after Jan. 1. To make room for a new headquarters tower, JP Morgan Chase will start demolishing its 60-story skyscraper at 270 Park Ave., which dates from the ancient 1950s. Maybe unsurprisingly, preservationists who never had any love for it are suddenly besotted and hoping to save it — but they’re probably out of luck.
Certain to join 270 Park Ave. in the crowded attic of New York myth are atmospheric relics in the Diamond District and what was the “Garment District” to make way for new hotels; churches and synagogues with dwindling congregations that couldn’t resist temptations of huge buyout offers; and charming but under-performing shops and cafes everywhere.
The whirlwind can sadden anyone with a New York soul. The last few years cost me no few personal landmarks: Langan’s pub on West 47th Street, Burmese cafe Mingala uptown, and Christ Church on West 36th Street, the site of my first city job when it was briefly an arts center. Its facade has been reimagined to lend “charm” to a new hotel.
But so much tumultuous change deserves a second look beyond the familiar expressions of outrage. Greedy landlords! Bad rezonings! Too many oligarchs coming to town! Gentrification!
In fact, the real engine behind our cyclonic upheaval is that — although it’s heretical to say — lots of people who are young, recently arrived in town or both really don’t care about old stuff anymore.
Not evil developers, but swelling preference — call it demand — for newly minted homes and workplaces is what drives construction of so many new apartment and office buildings. They wouldn’t get built if people didn’t clamor for them, right? The need for more land on which to construct them leads to rezonings that raise neighborhood property values, which in turn bring more money to the area and inevitably squeezes out older small businesses.
The city’s always been on a fast-track of change, but the digital revolution has accelerated it to warp speed, both materially and psychologically.
Our collective comfort level for perpetual change has been amplified by our current iPhone culture. “Delete” is just a click away. With a fingertip, we can dispatch once-valued photos and emails to oblivion. Why should losing a no-longer-loved store or restaurant have more consequence than axing a Twitter user whom we no longer wish to follow?
The city’s always been on a fast-track of change, but the digital revolution has accelerated it to warp speed.
Amid an urban landscape where nothing’s permanent, computerized architecture has made it possible to design buildings that are not just better than old ones, but tons better. No matter how many precious coffee bars, shoe-repair shops and century-old tenements fall to these 21st century edifices, they’re great for people who live and work in them, even if they’re not as pretty as their predecessors.
Those who can afford a pad at the Dakota would rather live at a glamorous condo address with abundant light, fabulous amenities and ceilings that don’t flood. Today’s noshers prefer human-size “all-natural” sandwiches at sterile-looking Roast Kitchen to the gut-busters at the more atmospheric Carnegie Deli.
Today’s brand-new crop of office buildings — at Hudson Yards, Manhattan West, the World Trade Center and One Vanderbilt — blow the walls off towers that rose in the 1990s. Tenants crave their “green” environmental features, open floor plates, floor-to-ceiling windows and extreme fiber-optic capacity, even though they cost more to lease.
Those who cry for “vanishing” New York miss the bigger picture. We’re the opposite of past-revering Jay Gatsby. We are borne ceaselessly into the future, no matter how many old treasures it drags down in its wake.
Happy 2019!