This interesting online portfolio of disappearing New York City storefronts by James and Karla Murray from their book, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York, really struck a chord with me. The NYC that I used to love disappeared a long time ago. By 1990 I was already feeling like I was walking past the ghosts of all my favorite bookstores, record stores, nightclubs, etc. By 2007, I’d had it with New York—for good—and we moved—quite happily—back to Los Angeles. These photographs made me wistful about the city of my youth and the below video of The Kills has the perfect soundtrack for looking at these fast disappearing reminders of what New York used to be…

The Disappearing Face of New York

Thanks Steven Otero!

Right on Richard, so sad but true.

Funny, but I always hear people talk about NYC as being the “dark ages”, what with the crime and grime and all. And no, I don’t miss all that I guess. But all the wild creativity, and rent control so that people had time to develop their art rather than work 60 hour weeks…it’s a different city now, kind of an Epcot version of itself, which out-of-towners all want so they can go have their Friends or Sex and the City moments.

Then again, parts of Brooklyn are showing signs of life so maybe I shouldn’t decry the cultural death of New York but just the death of Manhattan.

The past just keeps getting more past. 
Bohemia doesn’t live in one location, it keeps moving to wherever the rent is lowest.