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The Early Gentrifier: Weaving a Nostalgia Narrative on the Lower East Side

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The Early Gentrifier: Weaving a Nostalgia Narrative on the Lower East Side The Early Gentrifier: Weaving a Nostalgia Narrative on the Lower East Side Richard E. Ocejo∗ Department of Sociology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (CUNY) Focusing on the consequences of social and cultural displacement from commercial gentrification, this article examines the perspective of “early gentrifiers” decades af- ter they moved into the neighborhood. Based on ethnographic data collected on the Lower East Side—a gentrified neighborhood with new bars—this article ana- lyzes how new nightlife triggered early gentrifiers to weave a “nostalgia narrative” from their experiences. They use this narrative to construct a new local identity as the neighborhood’s symbolic “owners,” which helps them in their collective ac- tion against bars. Their narrative, however, contains internal contradictions that reveal several issues with their new identity. I argue that a cultural analysis of early gentrifiers reveals significant social configurations in gentrified neighborhoods and informs us of the relationship between ideology and action. I am aware that it is childish, but sometimes, leaning against the spick-and-span new bar, I am overcome by nostalgia for the gutter... - Joseph Mitchell1 COMMERCIAL GENTRIFICATION AND THE EARLY GENTRIFIER An understudied facet of gentrification is the cultural impacts of its commercial devel- opments. Commercial gentrification refers to new establishments with particular goods and services—such as clothing boutiques, art galleries, cafes, restaurants, and bars—that open to satisfy the needs of middle-class gentrifiers (Deener 2007; Levy and Cybriwsky 1980; Lloyd 2006; Patch 2008; Zukin et al. 2009). It has a mutually reinforcing rela- tionship with residential gentrification in that these businesses also attract new residents (Chernoff 1980). As with residential gentrification, new businesses raise property values and rents and threaten to displace existing establishments (see Atkinson 2000; Marcuse 1986; Smith 1996; Smith and Williams 1986). But commercial gentrification also causes social and cultural displacement for existing residents as new businesses attract new uses and users to the neighborhood. Social displacement refers to “the replacement of one group by another...in terms of prestige and power...the ability to affect decisions and ∗ Correspondence should be addressed to Richard E. Ocejo, Department of Sociology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (CUNY), 899 Tenth Avenue, Room 520.12, New York, NY 10019; [email protected] City & Community 10:3 September 2011 doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6040.2011.01372.x C 2011 American Sociological Association, 1430 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005 285 CITY AND COMMUNITY policies...to set goals and priorities, and to be recognized by outsiders as the legitimate spokesman for the area” (Chernoff 1980: 204; see also Martin 2007). Cultural displace- ment refers to the replacement of a group’s everyday way of life in the neighborhood with that of another (Jackson 2003; Levy and Cybriwsky 1980; Pattillo 2007). Both forms of displacement threaten the local identities of existing residents. Many gentrification studies focus on existing, working-class, low-income residents and their perspectives toward new residents and businesses (Jackson 2003; Levy and Cybriwsky 1980; Pattillo 2007; Perez 2004; Smith 1996). Others have looked at a broad ar- ray of gentrifiers (i.e., artists, social preservationists, gays and lesbians, Whites and Blacks, and owners of boutiques and cafes) and focused on their reasons for moving into and opening up businesses in the neighborhood as well as their perspectives toward and re- lationships with existing residents (Brown-Saracino 2009; Butler 1997; Caulfield 1994; Deener 2007; Lloyd 2006; Patch 2008; Pattillo 2007; Rose 1984; Sibalis 2004). Rather than a single event, gentrification is a gradual process, often with identifiable “stages” or “waves” (Clay 1979; Lees 2000; see also Hackworth and Smith 2001). The neigh- borhood’s conditions at the time of their arrival, as well as their own social position within the neighborhood, help to shape gentrifiers’ perspectives toward its gentrification (Brown-Saracino 2010: 170–1). In her discussion of the “marginal gentrifier” concept— an early account of the variety of gentrifier types—Rose (1984) states that scholars must continue to characterize people in gentrifying neighborhoods by their motives and in- terests (also see Caulfield 1994). Despite the increasing amount of literature on gentri- fiers, underexplored is their perspective toward the gentrified neighborhood, their atti- tudes toward its people, their understanding of their own role in its gentrification, and the bases of their local identities, decades after they moved there. How do early gen- trifiers construct new local identities? What sorts of ideological tools do they use while under the threat of social and cultural displacement, and in what ways do they use these tools? Based on ethnographic data collected on the gentrified Lower East Side of Manhattan, this article reveals how “early gentrifiers” use a “nostalgia narrative” to con- struct a new local identity as the neighborhood’s symbolic “owners” (Deener 2007). They then use this narrative and identity in their organized protests against bars and nightlife. A nostalgia narrative is an example of “collective memory” (Halbwachs 1992; also see Anderson 1991; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983) or a social construction of the past that is specifically triggered by a sense of loss. The Lower East Side’s early gentrifiers see new bars and nightlife as threats to the sociocultural environments that they remember, the people and places that they were strongly attached to, the public spaces they inhabited, and their future, or “interactional potential” (Milligan 1998), in the neighborhood. Their nostalgia narrative consists of their personal experiences with the neighborhood’s gritty past, ethnic and cultural diversity, and creativity and creative production, all of which they identify as “authentic.” This community ideology contrasts with their understanding of new residents and visiting nightlife revelers, whom they identify as homogenous (and homogenizing), transient and uncreative consumers, and “inauthentic.” On the basis of this narrative, early gentrifiers construct their new local identity and protest bars, despite both having internal contradictions. I argue that a cultural analysis of early gentrifiers reveals not only how local identities are shaped, but also how social power is configured in gentrified neighborhoods. 286 THE EARLY GENTRIFIER: WEAVING A NOSTALGIA NARRATIVE ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE NOSTALGIA AND GENTRIFIERS An important aspect of people’s reactions to displacement, or more generally to discon- tinuities in their attachment to place (Milligan 1998), is their use of nostalgia. Nostalgia represents a very powerful feeling toward change, and specifically toward loss (Turner 1987). But while people often quickly dismiss nostalgia as overly romantic and a pass- ing emotion, it is in fact strongly connected with one’s identity and sense of community (Davis 1979). A nostalgia narrative is an imagined story of the past that deliberately selects certain elements from personal history while excluding others to construct a version that is more favorable than the reality. People weave a nostalgia narrative when they sense that their attachments to a place and their future in a place are under threat. Despite its internal contradictions, people use a nostalgia narrative to create new identities that establish them as significant actors in the place’s past and present (Milligan 2003). Neighborhoods are important places in cities, where people weave a tale based on nostalgia. In their research on Red Hook, Kasinitz and Hillyard (1995) show how “old- timers,” or longtime working-class residents, tell a “tale” of their waterfront neighbor- hood’s past that highlights a sense of solidarity and economic self-sufficiency, as it is going through a present period of decline. Red Hook’s diminished economic vitality led to an influx of poor Puerto Rican and African-American residents into the neighbor- hood’s substantial stock of public housing. This transformation forced coexistence be- tween new minorities and the largely racially intolerant White working-class old-timers, who understood the former’s influx as a threat to their stake in the neighborhood’s so- ciocultural environment and their ability to control its image. But while Red Hook’s old- timers express dissatisfaction with the neighborhood’s present, they ignore and down- play key aspects of its past. For instance, old-timers often condemn the illegal activity that takes place in the housing projects, but omit the violence, drugs, and organized crime that plagued the neighborhood of their youth. They use this constructed tale of nostalgia to counter the present and assert the value of what outsiders saw as a slum. Gentrification scholars also identify the use of nostalgia among social actors. In her study of the gentrifying Black Chicago neighborhood of North Kenwood-Oakland, Pattillo’s (2007) participants fondly recall a time of community, shopping, and entertain- ment before gentrification. Even though they were surrounded by gangs, poverty, and violence in the 1970s and 1980s, they saw their own community as an “island” amid chaos (72–3). As new middle-class residents arrived and threatened to residentially, socially, and culturally displace them, existing
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