Too Popular to Be Cool

Is being a hipster too
mainstream, now? 

Let's start at the end of my hour-long journey with Dominic. Touring Union Square and other parts of the Lower East Side is an extremely tiring affair as you maneuver the traffic-like crowds of hipsters, tourists, and hipsters. More than tiring, it is altogether confusing when you stray from the main streets in pursuit of a literary adventure. Fortunately, I am not particularly adventurous, and my own deviations from the familiar tourist-trod pavements were limited to two or three streets.

My flaneur-ish imaginary companion and I found ourselves in a cafe that specializes in Colombian coffee, hoping to catch a few moments of rest before our awful thirty minute commute home. In retrospect perhaps a photograph would have been appropriate, as the shop was almost literally a hole in a wall, a space between two buildings that some cheapskate bought out and converted into a center for people to fake conversation and paper-writing.

The concept of making such a particularly ethnic shop struck both of us as strange, because none of the staff were Colombian. Neither is the owner; I doubt Colette is an often considered name during a child's Baptism. What an awfully hipster thing to do. Why not make a French Cafe, Mr/Mrs Colette? There are enough Colombians (and Colombian Cafes) out there that we would not miss your strange cultural experiments.

"...Now you're all gone.
Get your... back"

My decision to start at the Cafe has nothing to do with my irrational hatred of Colette's Colombian Coffee and more to do with a piece of graffiti I found in their bathroom, a space even narrower than the alleway cafe, pictured to the right. I found the line particularly fitting for my discoveries (and fitting with my prior knowledge of the area). There does seem to be an appeal for rebellion amongst the denizens of the Lower East Side, something different from the fresh mainstream.

The scantily clad or rag-covered person is, in the Upper East Side, a homeless person to be ignored, a harlot to be frowned upon. Here, he is stylish, as "not caring" is always stylish. She is expressive, revealing bits and pieces of skin that men do on a daily basis.

The skateboarders who command the view of crowds in front of the central Union Square subway are artists or artists-to-be, dazzling crowds or learning how to do so. In other neighborhoods they are noisy and unwelcome guests, disturbing the piece. Get them out of here, Mr. Officer, lest my kids get the wrong idea.

Unicorn meat is unfortunately
too high in trans-fat for most
of the health-conscious.

Even the street-art is different. In Bushwick they were hand drawn and handpainted, art in the traditional sense of the word. In Midtown Manhattan all the way up to the border of the Upper East Side we are treated to a largely clean neighborhood. The hooligans' marks are erased and replaced are left with billboards and posters of new shops and concerts and art exhibits. These are supposed to be better. The LES, however, seems to take a different approach. It mixes the peculiarity and personality of Bushwick's street artists with the consumerism and organization of the rest of Manhattan's "art." The result is something in between art and advertisement. "Unicorn Meat" is a warehouse club. The advertisement isn't particularly exciting when assessing the pure aesthetic value. But, add in the peculiarity of the name, the mystery of its lack of information, and the strangeness of its position behind a stoplight, and you have an advertisement that is also somewhat thought provoking. This makes it more tolerable than the mind-numbing, in-your-face posters all across Manhattan. Perhaps even welcome?

The Alamo's fame is also its downfall

What are not welcome, however, are the many tourists in the neighborhood. Indeed, the popularity of the area seems to contradict its rebellious and hipster and bohemian mantras. In some strange epoch, the sons of the over-worked and underpaid proletariat living in Lower East Side tenements may have discovered, in their flight from their home factories, the mystery of The Alamo. Curious they would have stared and told stories, poked and prodded, formed two Ls with their hands and pretended to take pictures. Perhaps they've began to exchange fisticuffs (a practice long-lost at Regis - perhaps we should reintroduce it for Regis Retro Day?) and in the process, a particularly violent shove pushes a boy against the cube. It moves, and the crowd goes wild. Can it be pushed again, or was that a fleeting moment of magic? Rinse and repeat, as a new set of explorers discovers the cube.

Now the piece has become more of an uncomfortable obstruction on the way to work or school. Everyone has heard of the cube and knows that it can be moved. And so the men in suits walks past The Alamo. Rinse and repeat for every other landmark in the Lower East Side.

How many would have died
if this building was made in
Qatar? 

Something that rhymes
with "citi"-bikes

I fear that slowly this place is losing its flavor. When I first discovered the area in my first year or two in the United States, it was one of the strangest, least New York areas I had experienced. This place was not in the travel guides. When I discovered it again as an adventurous slash rebellious high school Freshman, it was the most New York I area I frequented. Everyone is so quirky. Now, things have gone full circle. Not so much because I am a changed person, which explained the difference in my earlier two perceptions, but perhaps because of the changes in the place and attitude of people.

There does not seem so much to be a conscious attempt to be different so much as there is a conscious attempt to conform to the different. The Citi-bikes, for example, seem to be a push in the direction of a green/organic hipster movement. But they are still branded "Citbank." Are these corporations not antithetical to the LES ethos? The construction sheets and walls are gone now, as most of the buildings in recent memory have been finished. Yet they do not strike me or anyone I know as particularly interesting because once more they are conforming to what is different, as opposed to being different. The strange, impractical curves and glasses are frankly stupid, not artistic. Perhaps a century ago they would have been groundbreaking, but when every new building is in that design...

Even St. Mark's is less a cultural experiment for NYU students than a place for desperate teenagers to drink inside karaoke bars. Note again the new and the old. The strange Japanese and Korean eatieries and bars have been replaced by chain food and drink stores that are modestly Japanese or Korean. Good bye to true ethnic foods and say hello to bento boxes.

I am venting, at this point. Perhaps, as I mentioned, it is due to the confusing nature of the Lower East Side - each street is a microcosm of every different and unique nook and cranny of New York, but each street is the same in that way. Perhaps it is because the neighborhood is changing as we speak. A neighborhood I spent my very first years in. Perhaps I am merely resistant in having my New York become somebody else's.