1217 Griswold Evictions Set Off a Classic Rant
This well-written but classic whine could have been written across time from Soho to Brooklyn to North Cass Corridor. All that needs to be changed are the names, places and drugs. Artists occupy the unwanted, the unwanted becomes cool and secure, in comes the money and out go the artists.
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1217 Griswold on the right from summer of 2013. Foreground of the refurbished Capitol Park sets it off.
The layer this writer overlooks is that between the pioneering artists and the investors another latecomer layer of partiers and hanger-ons throng into these scenes diluting the creative element and making them party scenes more than creative settings. This quote captures that layer.
Quote:
There’s no other place like this gruesome paradise, where you can pay $500 a month for a 2500-square-foot loft just outside the Financial District and run a boisterous-ass venue out of it. There's no other place where you can take acid on a Friday, go run around in an apocalyptic world, come down, do shitty coke, drink shitty coffee, ride a snowmobile downtown to go see Carl Craig, or Erika, or someone cool like that, then come to again, get chased by a pack of stray dogs, die, take a vitamin B supplement, eat a taco in your sleep, have your shoelaces come untied, keep on partying, do a line of Ambien, and finally realize it’s 3PM on a Tuesday and you're late for work.
Also overlooked are the previous decades, pre-techno and Paxahau, of visual artists who quietly lived and created there.
