Goodbye To All That

The passage of the law banning solid roll-down gates in the city is a good thing. They really are a reminder of the bad old days of my youth. I was born in 1965, and growing up in New York in the 70's, was like watching a bad rerun of Kojak, or Sid and Nancy's real life, not the Alex Cox version.

This picture of people looting in Brooklyn was from the blackout of '77. That's either Myrtle Avenue or Broadway. Apart from what you'd expect (the guy with the mattress), I really wonder what that guy was doing with that I believe is a lamp-post from the El... taking it home?  Completing his collection? I wonder where it is today, where he is today? Maybe he has this very picture by his fireplace, framed next to that giant piece of metal. Now there's a story for the grandkids.

Fourteen or so years later, when I was working as a paralegal downtown, and wanted to take the (very) long way to work, I'd ride that train. Those stores were gone, and no new ones replaced them. There were long stretches of nothing below those tracks. It looked like a scene from The Omega Man. I seem to remember seeing packs of dogs on the street below - a street that had been one of Brooklyn's main commercial thoroughfares for 60 years.

When stores did come back, owners understandably didn't want a repeat, and people who weren't looted in this blackout, didn't want it to happen in the next one.

But times have changed - Williamsburg is full of hipsters on fixed gear bikes, streets in the East Village that were open-air crack bazaars, are now teeming with teeny-boppers who weren't even born when all that was going on. Even 10 years ago, Myrtle could be pretty sketchy. But the last blackout, in 2003 was a big love-fest and now in the summer when I ride my bike up Myrtle Avenue to Forest Hills, the street is packed with both cars and people and I see white women with blonde hair, in skirts and pushing strollers.

Trust me, I'm not full of nostalgia for the 'then', nor should any sane person be.

Though the articles I've seen about the solid gates seem to focus most on their use as targets for graffiti - and a street full of that certainly doesn't add to the atmosphere, but what I always hated about them is that those shutters made the streets darker. Most store lights are off at night, so the glass acts as a mirror for the streetlights, reflecting it back onto the sidewalks. The solid, dull metal, usually paint-covered, made the streets look dark and feel cold.

And now that people will be able to see inside, stores might choose to have some cool stuff at night. My only question is that with a final date of July 1, 2026, for all stores to comply (though replacements must be new-style starting in 2011), my only question is which happens first: this, the Second Avenue Subway, or WTC reconstruction?

My money is on the gates.