Meatpacking District Hell

[jeunefilleparis]

Last night, I walked from my Barrow street apt to my friends place on 6th and 16th. I thought I d take a stroll through the meatpacking district to see what was going on. I go there often enough to know that it has been hit hard over the past 5 years with boutiques, restaurants and clubs, but now with the opening of Hotel Gansvoort, it was almost unrecognizable. I felt like I was walking though one huge club. There were lines out of Spice Market. One little west tenth , a lounge/eatery everything place had extremely loud music pouring from its open windows and then you had the Conde Nast hot list party at the new hotel. Add on Steve Hanson's place Vento which looked like a mess and the new bar Avra, it was non stop noise. Oh and dont forget Soho House's pool top bar and what not.

I feel old saying that it has changed for the worse, but those recent additions are all do damn trendy and none of those places serve exceptional food. I know that there are places to see and be seen, but with so many taking up such a small space its overwhelming and annoying...... oh dont forget that several blocks up is the new Maritime Hotel with its courtyard bar and very mediocre Italian restaurant. ( I have yet to try the sushi place there and doubt that I ever will)

I just cant believe that in so few years an area that was really just meat markets with the exception of a few long standing places. I have watched the place truly transform.

I wonder if all the hoopla there will even last, plenty of restaurants have opened and closed there in the past couple of years,,,,,,,,, I guess we ll find out soon enough.

[picaman]

Several restaurants have gone from the area in the past year or two, including Rio Mar recently and Astray Cafe a couple of years ago. One of my best friends has lived on Greenwich St. for 25+ years and is less than half a block away from "the action." When we had dinner recently, she said that her weekends are hell and the weeknights aren't much better.

Interestingly, she has positive comments for Keith McNally at Pastis, saying that his staff actively tries to control the crowds outside. She says that no other owners in the area do, and that creates crowds, congestion, and ruckus for the entire night. Many establishments without cabaret licenses have music blasting for their dancing patrons.

She, without sarcasm, seriously says that she misses "the days when the tranny hookers protected the residents of the neighborhood."

I know I sound cranky and crotchety, but I agree with her view and I can't say I'd like to live in that neighborhood now. That's a big change from not so many years ago.

Jamie

[Pan]

Lauren, I don't think you're old enough to remember what TriBeCa was like before it became trendy, because I think that was basically in the 1970s. In any case, I don't miss what it was. It used to be deserted, and spooky if not downright dangerous at night. The Meatpacking District has never been a place I hung out, but I sort of vaguely sense that it used to be a stinky bunch of meatpacking plants. And I don't hang out there now that it's trendy, either. Would I want to live there? No, probably not, if I could afford to move there now. But I wouldn't have wanted to live there in the old, stinkier, spookier days, either. Don't get me wrong, I saw some merit in the old Times Square District from my high school days (1979-83) and the East Village that contained cheap pierogi dives like the old Leshko's and not the more expensive restaurants and sandwich places that have opened since (though some of those have merit!), but is there really much to miss from the tranny whore days of the Meatpacking District?

[glenn]

Personally, I enjoy not having to smell the dead cows or breathe in the sweat from the meat workers that have alll moved to NJ cuz they can't afford the rents. There's no greater joy than picking up a $495 polo shirt at Jeffries, walking past a bunch of yuppies instead of lowlife TV's by Samba's Deli on the way to imbibing a $20 watered down martini at PM. Next, we need to petition the city to get rid of those dreadful cobblestones on Gansevoort. Maybe erect the Meatpacking Mall, the downtown alternative to you know what. Mooooooove over sentimentality.

[picaman]

is there really much to miss from the tranny whore days of the Meatpacking District?

Personally, I think the residential interests of a neighborhood trump the commercial aspects.

I spent a lot of time at the aforementioned Astray Cafe before it was booted out of its space; Astray was the "neighborhood hangout" for many of the denizens of the residential area immediately south of where Pastis etc., is now. It was the place where the bartender had the spare set of keys to your house, where you had your FedEx packages delivered while you were at work, and where you ate great bistro food or nursed an 11-ounce martini when you stopped by to pick that package up. Though I didn't live in the area (Kirk was the box office manager at the Jane St. Theater, so Astray became our designated meeting spot), it was a relatively quiet place to live. Astray lost its lease, and all that was lost.

My longtime-resident friend told me about the tranny hookers protecting the residents; when the area had a lot of drug activity in the '80s, the trannies would band together and walk women who were alone to their apartments from the subway.

All this is lost now, and I think that it is completely wrong when commercial interests destroy a neighborhood's sense of itself through blatant flouting of laws that go unenforced. And I certainly don't mean to romanticize tranny hookers (either figuratively or literally ), but it says something about the current state of affairs when long-time residents wistfully remember the "good old days of the tranny hookers."

To bring this back to food, I think that sense of neighborhood is an intangible that infuses a restaurant and improves the atmosphere and food. Who is it that has the theory about why you cannot replicate your grandmother's cooking even though you follow the recipe? It's that intangible something that's missing. And I miss it in the case of that area of the West Village.

At the risk of sounding sentimental, for this reason I truly would rather eat in Astray Cafe or Rio Mar than Spice Market or Pastis any day of the week.

Jamie

[oakapple]

All this is lost now, and I think that it is completely wrong when commercial interests destroy a neighborhood's sense of itself through blatant flouting of laws that go unenforced. And I certainly don't mean to romanticize tranny hookers (either figuratively or literally), but it says something about the current state of affairs when long-time residents wistfully remember the "good old days of the tranny hookers."

The neighborhood that is the meatpacking district has changed multiple times since it was undeveloped wilderness a few hundred years ago. It didn't go straight from wilderness to meat markets and hookers. There were steps in between. We naturally long for the neighborhood of our youth, but why should it be frozen in the state that you coincidentally happen to have encountered it, when that was just one of many that it had? It reminds me of the subway fans who get all misty-eyed for the Els.

[jeunefilleparis]

Lauren, I don't think you're old enough to remember what TriBeCa was like before it became trendy, because I think that was basically in the 1970s. In any case, I don't miss what it was. It used to be deserted, and spooky if not downright dangerous at night. The Meatpacking District has never been a place I hung out, but I sort of vaguely sense that it used to be a stinky bunch of meatpacking plants. And I don't hang out there now that it's trendy, either. Would I want to live there? No, probably not, if I could afford to move there now. But I wouldn't have wanted to live there in the old, stinkier, spookier days, either. Don't get me wrong, I saw some merit in the old Times Square District from my high school days (1979-83) and the East Village that contained cheap pierogi dives like the old Leshko's and not the more expensive restaurants and sandwich places that have opened since (though some of those have merit!), but is there really much to miss from the tranny whore days of the Meatpacking District?

Pan, you are definately right, I do not remember TriBeCa when it was as you say, spooky, for the reasons that one, i was not quite born and when I was born in 79, i was in philly.

I m not saying that I miss the transvestite hookers though they added a whole lot more SPICE to that MeatMarket than SPICE MARKET ever will. What I miss was that mix of a few fun places, like the old club Mother, that moved in july 2000, and the old days when it wasnt a bunch of F$@!!!!** suits trying to impress skinny blonds with their money. personally i never thought that it smelled all that bad unless it was a stifling summer day. Really, they put the meat on the hooks and all that really gory stuff pretty early on in the day, when the place is pretty empty.

When I moved here, I really liked walking through that area and gazing up at the HIGH LINE ( and damn NY if they remove that too!!) in peace and quiet, in fact it wasnt really spooky because hogs and heifers was there to protect me with their big burly bouncers.

anyways, it doesnt really matter, whats done is done, unless the whole area gets a flood or investeed with rats ( oops already is) or we have another Great Fire, its here to stay.

Oh and they better not get rid of those glorious cobblestones!!

[picaman]

why should it be frozen in the state that you coincidentally happen to have encountered it

My apologies in advance; this issue gets me all het up

I don't want it frozen, and I am not anti-change or anti-business, and I think progress is good. However, there is a big difference between "Keith McNally opening Pastis" progress that attempts to respect the rights and flavor of the neighborhood, and the businesses that are popping up now that flagrantly disregard the well-being and rights of the neighborhood they are occupying, not to mention their disregard for the laws of the City of New York.

On weekend nights, the area looks and sounds like spring break at Cancun, down to the people partying on the balconies of that monstrosity of a new hotel. I hate to think it's going to take someone plunging to their death from a balcony to clean things up.

I find it ironic that many of the people I've met who are so casually dismissive of this problem are the same people who are horrified at the ethnocentrism that American tourists display on European vacations. It's all right for someone to loudly party on the streets of New York with no regard for their surroundings, but not all right for someone to disrespect French restaurant customs? Give me a break. Respect is respect, and both individuals and businesses should display it no matter where they are. What I see in that area is indefensible. Would you want to live a half a block from it?

Jane Jacobs certainly got this concept--one must have respect for the neighborhood one occupies. It's good she did, or we'd all be zipping across lower Manhattan on a superhighway over the desolation you got as a result of the Cross-Bronx Expressway.

Incremental and considerate progress is one thing, and I am all for that. That's not what's happening in MePa.

And, by the way, I am pissed off when I can no longer take a redbird to Shea for Mets games

Jamie

[ahr]

And, by the way, I am pissed off when I can no longer take a redbird to Shea for Mets games   

The Redbirds were not El cars. If you really miss them, you might be able to find one or two in a transit museum; otherwise, it will take scuba gear.

Do we need a subway/railfan thread, or is that too Off Topic Chattish?

[slkinsey]

Okay guys... as interesting as this discussion may be, we are a foood site and out mission is to discuss food ande substantially food-related topics. Since this thread does not show the promise of moving on-topic, I'm going to lock it now.