New York City has changed drastically over the course of the past 30 years. Its current residents would barely recognize the streets of the place where they live were they offered an opportunity to take a walk there in the 1980s. Abandoned industrial zones have been turned into industrial centers, and wastelands have become parts of a currently safe and expensive city. This process – the one of the transformation of poorer urban areas into places of living of upper-middle-class citizens – is referred to as gentrification. Two of the neighborhoods that have been particularly subject to growth and change as a result of gentrification are the Meatpacking District and Chelsea area, which are commonly referred to as MPDC.
MPDC is located near one of New York’s urban centers that is Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan and, therefore, is woven into the city’s fabric. Strömberg (2018) reports that the Meatpacking District had been a meat distribution hub since the 1880s but began to decline in the 1960s due to the distribution system changes and the suburbs explosion. It led to reduced demand for meatpacking in the area, and soon it turned into a scene of drug dealing and prostitution. In the 1970s, MPDC saw the establishment of the first nightclubs, which were especially popular with the gay community, and in 1985, the first restaurant was opened (Strömberg, 2018). Since then, the area has been taken over by creative industries, and living there has become particularly expensive.
It is evident that MPDC has undergone a fascinating modification. However, as Strömberg (2018) notes, a turning point for the area was the opening of two high-end restaurants – Markt and Fressen – in 1999. Soon after the rents in MPDC rose to around $30,000 a month; then came high-fashion stores, the Pastis restaurant, and the construction of the High Line. As a response to all the changes, in the beginning of the 21st century, the Meatpacking District Initiative (MPDI) was formed with the aim to further advance the area. Several years later, emerged a new organization – the Meatpacking District Improvement Association (MPIA). It chased the same goal but also focused on reconstruction, renovation and commercial development of public places in the district (Strömberg, 2018). Additionally, the MPIA took responsibility for organizing events and festivals to attract people to MPDC.
During this time, high-profile clothing retailers and high-tech stores, as well as creative industries offices – designers and architects – started gradually increasing their presence. MPDC’s unpolished atmosphere of the historical area has given way to a gleaming landscape of a modern city. As Strömberg (2018) notes, the establishnebt of The Standard High Line Hotel in 2009 and The Whitney Museum of American Art in 2015 further advanced this classy image. Nowadays, in New York City’s avant-garde circles, MPDC is condescendingly considered to be a tourist destination for so-called common people.
When it comes to the process of gentrification in general and gentrification in MPDC in particular, art and artists are often considered to be playing a major role in it. As Valli (2021) notes, artists are among those who spark the change in neighborhoods, which leads to both positive and negative results. It seems that gentrification always guides areas towards a better life: property values become higher, crime rates become lower, and, overall, neighborhoods start to thrive. However, gentrification is frequently criticized for displacing long-term residents and driving small businesses out of a place: many cannot afford to stay to enjoy a ‘better life’ resulting from reinvestments in the area. In that regard, artists, who are expected to be on the side of common people, get their portion of criticism for contributing to the process that does not benefit the working classes. However, it is important for artists to continue to create, for they are the ones making gentrification possible.
Although there are many causes researchers associate with the city neighborhoods’ gentrification, the arts remains the main localized factor they consider to promote neighborhood change. According to Valli (2021), individual artists, as well as artistic businesses and spaces (that is, theaters, galleries, and art studios) function as powerful levers helping create the primary conditions for the emergence of gentrification. It is the embodiment of an “artistic mode of production”, which is achieved by the artists symbolically appropriating space, which in turn is used by investors to bring capital to rebuild the environment (Valli, 2021). To put it simply, artists are believed to orchestrate the change by their cultural capital, and this is exactly what has happened in MPDC. Artists aesthetically brought the place new value by turning impoverished and shabby areas into a district of galleries, art studios, and places where people can spend time. The art has modernized MPDC, with its creators leaving a trace of their artistic vision in the city’s image, capturing the way they see the world in this day and age.
When it comes to my particular neighborhood, I would say that it is changing – slowly but surely. There are increasingly more and more places where both adults and their children can spend the time. New establishments are being opened and new offers to do extracurricular activities in groups are emerging. I suppose that it is because the district’s governors care about the people staying in the area and want to make their life here as pleasant as possible.
References
Strömberg, P. (2018). Meat and creativity: Adaptive reuse of slaughterhouses and meatpacking districts. Nordisk Arkitekturforskning, 30(2), 65-99. Web.
Valli, C. (2021). Artistic careers in the cyclicality of art scenes and gentrification: Symbolic capital accumulation through space in Bushwick, NYC. Urban Geography, 1-23. Web.