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Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

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DiamondEcho
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Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#52935

Postby DiamondEcho » May 12th, 2017, 8:33 am

I found this article in today's Guardian interesting. I understood why it applied to London but I hadn't considered that the same applies world-wide with few exceptions, Sydney Australia being one.
It also goes on to consider why in long established cities the central areas tend to be wealthier, while the outer suburbs tend to be less so. In more recently established cities [for example some US cities, Detroit, Washington DC etc] you can see the reverse, the centre might border on a ghetto, while the suburbs are where the wealthy aspire to be. It outlines the reasons for that too. Come to think of it London evolved through a similar 'doughnut-isation' between c1780-1880 when the wealthier aspired to get away from the squalid and polluted centre of town, for the cleaner, leafier and more spacious newly developed suburbs west of Park Lane/Edgeware Road.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017 ... -east-ends
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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#52972

Postby AleisterCrowley » May 12th, 2017, 11:36 am

I dont know how true it is, but I remember reading that Hampstead is posh because the trams didn't run up there, so residents would have needed their own coach and horses.
Plus it would have been above the worst of the pollution and semi-rural in the 19th Century perhaps?

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#52977

Postby DiamondEcho » May 12th, 2017, 12:07 pm

AleisterCrowley wrote:I dont know how true it is, but I remember reading that Hampstead is posh because the trams didn't run up there, so residents would have needed their own coach and horses. Plus it would have been above the worst of the pollution and semi-rural in the 19th Century perhaps?


Interesting. Looking at old road maps like Ogilby's coaching maps you can see a route going via Tottenham up into Hertfordshire. I haven't x-checked but that might be the route of the A11 as I remember it in the 80s. I checked about first 20 or so plates with routes exiting London but don't see one via Hampstead. Atlas can be viewed page by page here: https://www.fulltable.com/vts/m/map/ogilby/b/a.htm
I like your theory and trams, it would appear to make sense. I wonder if a change in the social-spectrum could be correlated with the arrival of the Northern line of the Underground?
Yep re: 'above the pollution', most definitely. You can view a whole range of antique maps of Hampstead here [1579-1914]: http://www.hampsteadheath.net/vintage-m ... hgate.html

From the above link is a 1720 road atlas map by Bowen of the route out of London via Highgate. That seems to be the closest coaching map I've seen. Also keep in mind that AFAIR Hampstead was notorious for highway banditry, so perhaps it was a route to be avoided until the modern day police force came into being... don't know!
http://www.hampsteadheath.net/files/172 ... jh0ioi.JPG
You used to be able to buy good original copies of these Bowen maps for as little as £10. I bought several over the years as gifts for people who lived in the area the illustrated route passed through. Something a bit different was my thinking :)

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53012

Postby Lootman » May 12th, 2017, 2:02 pm

The article seems a little too keen to fit the data to the theory. for instance, it cites New York City as an example, but I cannot imagine anyone who lives in NYC agreeing with that characterisation. The Upper East Side is generally considered the most well-to-do area, whilst the Lower East Side is the most upwardly mobile. The poorest borough is not East but North - the Bronx. And the poorest part of Manhattan is the area North of 125th Street AKA Harlam.

In LA, the poorest part is South Central. In Chicago, the South Side.

What I have noticed in many cities is that the richer folks live up in the hills where there is less noise and congestion, better views and light etc. The poorer areas are low-lying. Indeed an old slang term for blacks was "mud people" because they often lived on the low-lying banks of the Mississippi or other rivers.

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53040

Postby DiamondEcho » May 12th, 2017, 3:03 pm

Lootman wrote:The article seems a little too keen to fit the data to the theory. for instance, it cites New York City as an example, but I cannot imagine anyone who lives in NYC agreeing with that characterisation. The Upper East Side is generally considered the most well-to-do area, whilst the Lower East Side is the most upwardly mobile. The poorest borough is not East but North - the Bronx. And the poorest part of Manhattan is the area North of 125th Street AKA Harlam.
In LA, the poorest part is South Central. In Chicago, the South Side.
What I have noticed in many cities is that the richer folks live up in the hills where there is less noise and congestion, better views and light etc. The poorer areas are low-lying. Indeed an old slang term for blacks was "mud people" because they often lived on the low-lying banks of the Mississippi or other rivers.

The article as you might expect takes the research at face value. For anyone with lots of time here is the original paper, all 70 pages of it!
http://www.spatialeconomics.ac.uk/texto ... dp0208.pdf

There are exceptions to their findings, from what I see perhaps due to non-standard geography. Sydney for example which lies around a great harbour.
Perhaps in the case of NYC the demographics fit versus commutability and desirability? The island started being populated from the southern tip, and building progressed north. The classes were packed so tight together walking 100M could take you from a pretty respectable area to a ghetto. Crossing 96th northwards on foot used to be for the brave, passing 110th you perhaps needed something of a death-wish, and AFAIR c. 110-125th on the east-side was arguably the most dangerous, even more so than going to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

The lower East and West sides used to get progressively more hairy the further you walked away from 5th Avenue. Both coastal strips had been the historic home of most of the piers/docks and that business brought 'rough-necks' with it. Perhaps the vibe stuck in the same way that transit hubs like Paddington and King's Cross remained rough areas until even quite recently. Additionally on the east side were many vast 'projects' [in UK terms, vast high-rise council estates] like Stuyvesant Town and as found in Alphabet City [now known as the East Village].
Interesting point you make about Chicago, I wonder what the historic reason behind that is... LA, yep true, ditto previous, and I haven't been there to witness it first hand.

I suppose historically pre mains sewerage living in the boggy lowlands was both polluted but a health hazard. At least it you lived at a higher elevation you had cleaner air and the household effluent might flow downhill rather than fester breeding rats and flies etc. Living near the mouth of the River Lea into the Thames pre mains sewerage but have been challenging. That is now where Canary Wharf is located...

A rec-button seems to have appeared today and, a thought provoking perspective you have, have a rec :) [FWIW it seems 1Rec= a '7% Rating']

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53046

Postby Lootman » May 12th, 2017, 3:17 pm

DiamondEcho wrote:There are exceptions to their findings, from what I see perhaps due to non-standard geography. Sydney for example which lies around a great harbour.
Perhaps in the case of NYC the demographics fit versus commutability and desirability? The island started being populated from the southern tip, and building progressed north. The classes were packed so tight together walking 100M could take you from a pretty respectable area to a ghetto. Crossing 96th northwards on foot used to be for the brave, passing 110th you perhaps needed something of a death-wish, and AFAIR c. 110-125th on the east-side was arguably the most dangerous, even more so than going to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

Actually, yes, I mis-spoke. Harlam was originally defined as being above 96th Street (the very top of Central Park). 110th Street was its High Street and everything above there something of a non-man's land unless you were black or Puerto Rican. The gentrification has crept up as far as 110th Street now, possibly further. Interestingly Harlam was built originally for affluent white New Yorkers, which is why the houses are quite grand, but it was too far to commute and so the blacks took over.

You can never discount race when looking at US cities.

DiamondEcho wrote:The lower East and West sides used to get progressively more hairy the further you walked away from 5th Avenue. Both coastal strips had been the historic home of most of the piers/docks and that business brought 'rough-necks' with it. Perhaps the vibe stuck in the same way that transit hubs like Paddington and King's Cross remained rough areas until even quite recently. Additionally on the east side were many vast 'projects' [in UK terms, vast high-rise council estates] like Stuyvesant Town and as found in Alphabet City [now known as the East Village].
Interesting point you make about Chicago, I wonder what the historic reason behind that is... LA, yep true, ditto previous, and I haven't been there to witness it first hand.

I first visited NYC in the 1970's. Back then the lower East Side was dirt poor, even though mostly white. You could hear different languages, often East European, as you moved from block to block. Alphabet City was dangerous. But by the time I was working on contract in NYC in the 1990's, the gentrification had already moved East as far as Avenue B and Tompkins Square Park. Now I gather it's pretty much all gentrified now, aside from "the projects".

The East Village was hip even then. Locals told me it was like Greenwich Village in the 1960's, which of course is now a province of the rich (and NYU students).

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53104

Postby DiamondEcho » May 12th, 2017, 6:49 pm

Lootman wrote:Actually, yes, I mis-spoke. Harlam was originally defined as being above 96th Street (the very top of Central Park). 110th Street was its High Street and everything above there something of a non-man's land unless you were black or Puerto Rican. The gentrification has crept up as far as 110th Street now, possibly further. Interestingly Harlam was built originally for affluent white New Yorkers, which is why the houses are quite grand, but it was too far to commute and so the blacks took over. You can never discount race when looking at US cities.


Yes, it went in stages, north of 96th was quite dodgy and increasingly to 110th. From 110-125th was at the time really a no-go zone for visitors. Even driving through say Park or Lexington Avenue and 116th could be frightening. I recall c.1992 a friend picked me up at JFK and was driving me back to mid-town down Madison and we came south through the 120>110s. It was getting dark, some cars were burning through red-lights at junctions, groups loitering on the street corners, us sliding lower in the car seats [literally], sitting there at a red-light, kids on the corner starting to take an interest... tick tock tock tock... My friend just floored it and jumped the red light though about 3 cross-streets, I don't recall what he said, but he wasn't willing to sit there any longer. A memorable anecdote now looking back, but it felt hairy at the time :)
[Side thought: Reminds me of a Lou Reed track with the lyric 'Hey white boy, what you doing uptown?' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C18lkTJWmUA ]

Yeah agreed the houses in parts of Harlem are very grand indeed. I don't know, perhaps like areas like Notting Hill once were, only to turn into slums when the wealthier home-owners had their domestic staff conscripted as cannon-fodder in WW1, and the houses became unmanageable [?]. Only later to rise again especially as grand houses split into the smaller sub-units that most of them are today as flats.

Lootman wrote:I first visited NYC in the 1970's. Back then the lower East Side was dirt poor, even though mostly white. You could hear different languages, often East European, as you moved from block to block. Alphabet City was dangerous. But by the time I was working on contract in NYC in the 1990's, the gentrification had already moved East as far as Avenue B and Tompkins Square Park. Now I gather it's pretty much all gentrified now, aside from "the projects". The East Village was hip even then. Locals told me it was like Greenwich Village in the 1960's, which of course is now a province of the rich (and NYU students).


Interesting, and earlier than me then. Interesting that the East Village was hip then too, perhaps how it rose as an artistic centre esp for pop-art [Haring, Basquiet, etc]. First time I went was c'89. Interesting point you make, it still is very segmented into demographic enclaves, and likely more so then. You had your Italian area, your Jewish area, your WASP area, Polish area, and so on. Yep, my understanding re: where Alphabet City is is the same as yours, c'90 walking to the likes of Avenue B was foolish, but I still did it if only briefly, just to see it. Now, you'll find peace and calm and well rated restaurants out that way.

ps. Yep I had friends at NYU campus in the East Village [Greene Street IIRC?], I think their presence/letting/spending in the vicinity perhaps created a kind of buffer zone a couple of streets eastwards that made those streets 'ok'.

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53108

Postby Lootman » May 12th, 2017, 7:09 pm

DiamondEcho wrote:Additionally on the east side were many vast 'projects' [in UK terms, vast high-rise council estates] like Stuyvesant Town and as found in Alphabet City [now known as the East Village].

Picking up on your earlier point, Stuyvesant Town and the adjacent Peter Cooper Village were in fact not "projects" in the conventional sense of public housing. Rather it was a private development, sponsored by Met Life Insurance. That said, Robert Moses and the City had their hands all over it.

It was infamous for operating a colour bar in its early days and remains mostly white and lower middle class to this day - the kind of place nurses and teachers could afford to live. It has a much more safe and provincial feel to it than the real projects in other parts of Manhattan. I had a friend who lived in one of the flats there and always felt safe walking about - in fact it had its own security force. But go a short distance south from there, below 14th Street, and it was a different story.

It's been sold a few times since then, went bankrupt at one point (the units are all rent-stablised) and is currently owned by Blackstone and a hedge fund, I believe.

Just noticed I was spelling "Harlem" incorrectly. My only excuse is that I have been binge watching ""Justified" recently, which is set in Harlan County, Kentucky.

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53177

Postby DiamondEcho » May 13th, 2017, 10:08 am

Lootman wrote:Picking up on your earlier point, Stuyvesant Town and the adjacent Peter Cooper Village were in fact not "projects" in the conventional sense of public housing. Rather it was a private development, sponsored by Met Life Insurance. That said, Robert Moses and the City had their hands all over it.
It was infamous for operating a colour bar in its early days and remains mostly white and lower middle class to this day - the kind of place nurses and teachers could afford to live. It has a much more safe and provincial feel to it than the real projects in other parts of Manhattan. I had a friend who lived in one of the flats there and always felt safe walking about - in fact it had its own security force. But go a short distance south from there, below 14th Street, and it was a different story.


That's interesting as '1st' was generally an avenue I'd avoid going to on foot, although AFAIR it was ok around mid-town. I'd forgotten about Peter Cooper Village, and doing a Google/Streetview route up 1st reminds me how vast those developments are.
Your mention of Robert Moses stirs a memory - I recall a big and prolonged wrestle over someone trying to buy out those developments because of their land and development value. And then the whole side-impact issue and headlines re: how they housed largely 'key workers' and the social implications of that. I hadn't realised it earlier had a colour bar, wow!
One time I did go to that location was when I was on the hunt for the best bagels in NYC. In the end I'd tried many and condensed the list down to 3-4 gems, one of which was Ess-a-bagel at 19th/1st. Two thumbs up! http://www.essabagel.com/
Interesting you say you felt safe there, as those monolithic blocks always struck me a intimidating from the outside...

Lootman wrote:It's been sold a few times since then, went bankrupt at one point (the units are all rent-stablised) and is currently owned by Blackstone and a hedge fund, I believe. Just noticed I was spelling "Harlem" incorrectly. My only excuse is that I have been binge watching ""Justified" recently, which is set in Harlan County, Kentucky.


re: Owned by a hedge fund, well I suppose there is still 'hope value' in somehow getting to redevelop those blocks.
Harlem deriving from Dutch isn't intuitive, unless you're Dutch perhaps ;)

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53225

Postby Lootman » May 13th, 2017, 2:59 pm

DiamondEcho wrote:That's interesting as '1st' was generally an avenue I'd avoid going to on foot, although AFAIR it was ok around mid-town. I'd forgotten about Peter Cooper Village, and doing a Google/Streetview route up 1st reminds me how vast those developments are.

1st Avenue was the Western perimeter of the development. It goes East all the way to Avenue C. My own experience (I lived between 2nd and 1st) was that 1st was fine, A and B were "OK" but keep your wits about you, and C/D were only when feeling brave. So the experience you have going South from Stuy would depend whereabouts in Stuy you were.

The buildings there were not too intimidating in scale. The taller buildings were about 12 floors, from memory, and alternated with 3-4 storey structures, and it all has a parkland setting which sets off what might otherwise be rather stark and urban. Just checked and the complex claims 80 acres of greenery.

I hope your quest to find a perfect Jewish Deli took you here:

http://www.katzsdelicatessen.com/

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53261

Postby DiamondEcho » May 13th, 2017, 5:27 pm

Lootman wrote:1st Avenue was the Western perimeter of the development. It goes East all the way to Avenue C. My own experience (I lived between 2nd and 1st) was that 1st was fine, A and B were "OK" but keep your wits about you, and C/D were only when feeling brave. So the experience you have going South from Stuy would depend whereabouts in Stuy you were.

It's interesting to hear your perspective from your having lived that way. My first few trips there I was visiting friends but usually out and about on my own during the day. I was walking all over [meandering from Battery Park to 8Xth on one exhausting day] but conscious of not straying into the 'wrong place'. Perhaps you just had to take care more if north of the park. Downtown/east wasn't an area I had cause to visit too often, beyond that one time I was testing how far I dared go A>B>C>D (young+bold hehe). For some reason the name 'Loisada' came to me in a flash just now, perhaps from deep memories, I googled it and that is an alt name for AveC, 'Loisada Avenue'. It is perhaps in my memory as that was the farthest point east I felt safe to walk back then[?] the vibe definitely changed, I was starting to get looks etc. Other reasons to visit downtown/east in later years were food shopping in Chinatown, and specific spots restaurants like Katz's, bars, and so on.
Those friends took me for my first 'NYC Jewish deli experience' at Sarge's Deli at 548 3rd b/w 36 and 37th, I almost left that place on hands and knees we ate so much :lol: Their menu was and still is a thing of wonder to me... http://www.sargesdeli.com There was another great bagel place I went to, perhaps near Carnegie Hall. It had lots of old signed pix of previous customers on the walls esp. actors/actresses. Despite which I recall it as being pretty rough+ready, but buzzing (doh! just figured > http://carnegiedeli.com/ ). That was where I discovered the epic hot Reuben sandwich [salt beef, Swiss, sauerkraut, pickle + mustard on rye] - incredible. In fact Selfridges do an ok version in their 'The Brass Rail' salt-beef bar, though it's a lot smaller, and a lot more expensive than in NYC. £15 for a 'whole' one, but small looking to me vs NYC, Reuben http://www.selfridges.com/GB/en/content/the-brass-rail

Lootman wrote:The buildings there were not too intimidating in scale. The taller buildings were about 12 floors, from memory, and alternated with 3-4 storey structures, and it all has a parkland setting which sets off what might otherwise be rather stark and urban. Just checked and the complex claims 80 acres of greenery.

80 acres!? Well no wonder developers have their eyes on it, wow. Perhaps I'd just got the wrong measure of it based on reputation/looks. Trellick Tower at the north end of Portobello Road/(Golbourne Road) used to have the 70s reputation of 'a project', but apparently these days it is a highly desirable place to live.

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53283

Postby Lootman » May 13th, 2017, 6:31 pm

DiamondEcho wrote:
Lootman wrote:The buildings there were not too intimidating in scale. The taller buildings were about 12 floors, from memory, and alternated with 3-4 storey structures, and it all has a parkland setting which sets off what might otherwise be rather stark and urban. Just checked and the complex claims 80 acres of greenery.

80 acres!? Well no wonder developers have their eyes on it, wow. Perhaps I'd just got the wrong measure of it based on reputation/looks. Trellick Tower at the north end of Portobello Road/(Golbourne Road) used to have the 70s reputation of 'a project', but apparently these days it is a highly desirable place to live.

Stuy Town looks imposing from the outside but once you get inside it, it has more of a campus feel. The green areas, the setbacks and the different heights of the building give it a human scale.

The problem any redeveloper would have is that so many of the tenants have rent stabilisation, meaning that the rents only go up very slowly, and eviction without a just cause is near impossible. People in New York will kill for a rent-stabilised apartment. Or be killed - one NY landlord murdered his tenant to get the unit back. He went to prison.

I used to hang out in the Telephone Bar on 1st Avenue and something like 6th St., and in King Tut's Wa-Wa Hut by Tompkins Square Park. No idea if they are still there.

I always admire Trellick Tower as I go in and out of Paddington. Grade 2 listed for sheer unapologetic, neo-brutalist ugliness.

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53296

Postby DiamondEcho » May 13th, 2017, 8:41 pm

Lootman wrote:I used to hang out in the Telephone Bar on 1st Avenue and something like 6th St., and in King Tut's Wa-Wa Hut by Tompkins Square Park. No idea if they are still there.
I always admire Trellick Tower as I go in and out of Paddington. Grade 2 listed for sheer unapologetic, neo-brutalist ugliness.


Brief answer, as it's getting late out this way....
The Telephone Bar!!!! :lol: I went out on an absolutely EPIC pub-crawl with some old-timers on fool.com about 1998/99, specifically the board called 'British Invasion'*. A few Brits and some anglophile yanks, it was a blast. Telephone Bar was one stop off, then a former Speakeasy down that way... then heading uptown.... to oblivion hehe. That's not a headline place, or wasn't, what a small world... :)
King Tut's... never heard of that one! What was that place, what was it like, it sounds rather mad :)
Yep Trellick Tower, Brutalist, I agree there. ...

*Still going, and now at 562k posts :lol: - http://boards.fool.com/british-invasion-113739.aspx

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53317

Postby Lootman » May 13th, 2017, 11:37 pm

DiamondEcho wrote:King Tut's... never heard of that one! What was that place, what was it like, it sounds rather mad :)

My correction - it was King Tut's Wah-Wah House, at 7th and A, and it's been closed for a long enough time to not have many web references. It was about as mad and dangerous as I was capable of at the time. Words don't really describe it but this guy tried:

http://evgrieve.com/2013/10/the-amazing ... s-wah.html

http://evgrieve.com/2015/07/revisit-kin ... rting.html

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53346

Postby DiamondEcho » May 14th, 2017, 11:20 am

Fascinating. That place sounds pretty dangerous in the sense of 'too much fun' :lol: Must have been amazing to witness. NYC certainly has a gritty eclecticism that seems to thrive wherever 'zone-3 becomes zone-4', I think that's true of many cities incl London.
The interior photos of that place show murals that could have been a collaboration by the pop-artists Haring and Basquiet, they're not but very 'in the style of'. Perhaps no coincidence as both artists lived in the East Village.
John Gruen's biography of Haring describes at length what life was like for his subject in the EV, where he and his friends went, what they got up to. Wild hedonistic stuff, no wonder many of them lived fast/died young. If you haven't read it you might enjoy it, esp since you lived right there.
https://www.amazon.com/Keith-Haring-Aut ... 0671781502

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53382

Postby Lootman » May 14th, 2017, 2:26 pm

DiamondEcho wrote:John Gruen's biography of Haring describes at length what life was like for his subject in the EV, where he and his friends went, what they got up to. Wild hedonistic stuff, no wonder many of them lived fast/died young. If you haven't read it you might enjoy it, esp since you lived right there.
https://www.amazon.com/Keith-Haring-Aut ... 0671781502

Thanks. I'll look out for that, now I'm feeling more nostalgic about that time and place.

A couple of other places I recall. One was Dan Lynch's Blues Bar, at 2nd Avenue and 13th Street, around the corner from where I lived, with a very dark and broody Sunday afternoon blues jam session. (Thinking about it now, the Telephone Bar must have been on 2nd, not 1st, as it was a couple of blocks over).

And an Irish bar just up from there in the 20's - Reilly's - where I'd go and see Black 47 who played there every Tuesday night. Their story, like much in New York, is volatile, controversial, bizarre and tragic:

"Throughout the late 1990s the band continued to perform around 150 nights a year both on tour and at Reilly's, but was plagued by a series of tragedies behind the scenes, and their political stance on affairs in the North of Ireland resulted in UK record companies being unwilling to support or promote the band, restricting a potentially lucrative market. At the 1996 St. Patrick's Day gig a 22-year-old off-duty police officer, Christopher Gargan, used his department issue 9mm pistol to commit suicide, injuring two women including June Anderson, Kirwan's wife. In 1997 one of the band's sound engineers, Johnny Byrne (immortalised in the band's single "Johnny Byrne's Jig"), died from injuries suffered after falling from his apartment window in New York City not long after recording an album of children's songs with Kirwan. The late 90's also saw band member Thomas Hamlin's apartment burn down, Kevin Jenkins retire after a car crash whilst on tour and John Murphy, a close friend of the band, die after falling into a coma after a motorcycle accident. These events are reflected upon in "Those Saints", a song on the Trouble in the Land album, released in 2000. 2000 also saw the release of the band's first compilation album to mark their tenth anniversary, Ten Bloody Years, and the departure of Byrne who amicably left the band to concentrate on his solo project, Seanchai and the Unity Squad."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_47

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#53578

Postby DiamondEcho » May 15th, 2017, 3:09 pm

Lootman wrote:- A couple of other places I recall. One was Dan Lynch's Blues Bar, at [221] 2nd Avenue and 13th Street, around the corner from where I lived, with a very dark and broody Sunday afternoon blues jam session. (Thinking about it now, the Telephone Bar must have been on 2nd, not 1st, as it was a couple of blocks over).

Some pix here you might enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCff4_ZF9dE 'New York 1988-1989' The Uploader's description is: 'I have spent two years in New York in the late 80's. These are some of the pictures I took there. I miss NY. I was living on 2nd avenue and 16th street. Near by my place, there was a blues bar called " Dan Lynch ". A fantastic place. This is where I met " Mike Dugan and the survival band ". They were great and I hope they still are. I took the liberty of using their music for this photo show, taking it from the CD which I bought at their concert. I hope they won't mind.'
Telephone Bar was at 149 2nd at 9th. The building is now a 'bar and grill' called The 13th Step. You can 'Streetview' right into the bar itself, and see the splendid original 'stamped tin' ceiling. Not sure if the Tinyurl conversion of the googleView will work, but perhaps worth a try: https://tinyurl.com/lbzpx3h

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Lootman wrote:And an Irish bar just up from there in the 20's - Reilly's - where I'd go and see Black 47 who played there every Tuesday night. Their story, like much in New York, is volatile, controversial, bizarre and tragic: [snip]


That bio reads to me all the 'unexpected serial bad luck' can the kind of stuff that happens to a group of hard-core class-A junkies...

Here is another place from back then that I've just remembered - 'Rubies - Home of the jello-shot'. Right, I'm off to Google that now :)

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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#58607

Postby forrado » June 8th, 2017, 12:18 pm

Spotted this interesting piece in the online business section of the BBC …

“How to live on an island just 20 minutes from Bond Street”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40131757

All about the gentrification of the 12 acres that is the Isle of Dogs (or "London City Island" as developers would now like it to be known). It's as East End of London as one can get thanks to its location and historical working-class relationship to the once thriving West India docks. Known as the Isle of Dogs for near five centuries, the earliest recorded mention being in the letters and papers of King Henry VIII dated 2nd October 1520. Nobody knows for certain how it got the name the Isle of Dogs, that’s been lost in the mists of time. The most plausible explanation being where the King and his courtiers kennelled their hunting dogs and, only a short boat ride across the River Thames to the Royal hunting grounds that were once Greenwich Park.

AleisterCrowley
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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#58639

Postby AleisterCrowley » June 8th, 2017, 2:47 pm

Not as nice as the other Isle of Dogs;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Islands

DiamondEcho
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Re: Why are the east ends of world cities often poorer?

#58662

Postby DiamondEcho » June 8th, 2017, 4:28 pm

forrado wrote: Nobody knows for certain how it got the name the Isle of Dogs, that’s been lost in the mists of time. The most plausible explanation being where the King and his courtiers kennelled their hunting dogs and, only a short boat ride across the River Thames to the Royal hunting grounds that were once Greenwich Park.


The now Hyde Park, then Hide Park, was also a deer-hunting forest for Henry VIIIth. https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyd ... chitecture


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