remembering

Last evening I met Y. in the East Village for dinner. We walked down St. Mark's to find one Japanese restaurant that he had heard about and when we found it it was packed and seemed so chaotic and noisy that we left to go to Natori. We both had this feeling that the East Village has turned into some sort of grotesque trustafarian theme park. Maybe it was always thus; my romantic memories of the old place might be artificially lit with a glow of nostalgia, but in actuality I know that the neighborhood has changed so much, as has so much of New York. The kids in dreads and multiple piercings are mostly from Scarsdale and the North Shore, slumming on their parents' money for a few years before they go to law school, or get their MBA degrees. It reminded me of a guy who lived in the next room my first year at Vassar. He had long hippie hair and wore batik and birkenstocks and listened to the Grateful Dead obsessively. He also wore a Rolex watch and his parents lived in Larchmont. Some hippie.

When we were walking back to the R train, Y. said "Manhattan is over," and I felt the same way. I am happier than ever that I live in Brooklyn, and my fear is that Brooklyn will turn into another Manhattan...