#robin grearson

[pablolf]

JM: Low rent allows so much to happen. It allows people to take risks. Whether that’s creative risks, professional risks, sexual risks, political risks. When you don’t have low rent, you have people who have to be obedient, because they have to make a living in order to pay that rent. So they’re not gonna dissent. And they’re not gonna deviate.

RG: Low rent equals time?

JM: It means time and it means you can fail and survive. So if you can fail and survive, you can do all kinds of things. You can publish something incendiary. And if you piss some people off and it takes away from your bottom line, so be it. Because you’ve got low rent. You can make art that upsets people. You can have a political viewpoint that you put out into the world that not everybody’s gonna like. You can risk making people not like you.

The Aesthetics of Gentrification, and New York’s Top-Down Approach to Change

[pablolf]

When this place is put out of business, people will say, nobody eats in diners anymore, that’s what happened. And we’ll hear it again and again and again and again. And eventually, that will become the truth. And the truth is, this place is doing very well, business is great. But when the rent is quadrupled and this becomes a bank or a Starbucks, even though there’s a Starbucks right across the street, they’ll put another here anyway. That’s the story that they’ll drill into our heads.

So the online shopping thing. That is a real problem that we can talk about. But there is also a meme that gets attached to it, which is, it’s the internet, it’s the internet, it’s the internet. It’s the internet. And it’s just over and over and over again. Yeah, the internet is definitely taking a bite out of people. But it’s not putting people out of business. If the rents were affordable, these places that are put out would be weathering it. They’d be finding a way to survive. They’d offer something different that you can’t get on the internet. These companies, many of them survived the financial crisis of the ‘70s, the crime, the ‘80s, you know. They’re nimble, they can do it, if they can afford the rent.

The Aesthetics of Gentrification, and New York’s Top-Down Approach to Change

[pablolf]

Hyper-gentrification is tied up with late-stage capitalism, neoliberalism. If gentrification originally was kind of bottom-up, this is definitely top-down. It’s rezoning, Bloomberg’s use of rezoning. He rezoned almost half the city to bring in development. It’s corporate welfare going to developers. Tax abatement. The chains aren’t just coming in because of market forces, and this is what we always hear about, market forces. Which makes it sound as if it’s simply this natural process and it’s what consumers want. Really they’re given millions and billions of dollars. That kind of thing came out of the 1970s and Mayor Koch. The city was going bankrupt and the idea was, in order to keep businesses here, we have to give them stuff. We have to give ’em goodies. You could maybe argue that in the past, but you can’t argue it now. The city does not need to be giving billions of dollars to developers and corporations to keep them in New York. It’s like the Amazon headquarters deal, right? It’s that stuff. It’s disgusting.

The Aesthetics of Gentrification, and New York’s Top-Down Approach to Change

[centerofthecookie]

Go Robin Grearson

I do not know how she got my information, but Robin reached out to me earlier this summer. I am so glad she is doing this, even if nothing comes of it: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2014/10/3rd_ward_still_owes_more_than_70573_to_teachers_students_and_members.php

I have kind of kept quiet about the whole 3rd Ward debacle over this past year because it didn't seem like there was anything that could be done to make it better. This seems like something, so thank you Robin.

And really, I am still left with the same thought I had since the day my phone blew up with people from all over the place sending me the information that 3rd Ward was gone, asking why, asking how, what I knew - even though I only worked there for four months and was let go for the better part of a year before it closed its doors, so perhaps I am not qualified to say this next bit.

That question is HOW, in this day and age, can one man walk away from all of that responsibility? I liked Jason, I really did - I believed in 3rd Ward, in him. I just don't understand how someone who was so genuinely passionate that he was able to inspire confidence from complete strangers to help make his cause a reality could just drop off the face of the earth. He abandoned the community (and the brand) that he created, which is why no one stepped up to keep 3rd Ward going. He's also a smart and passionate guy, so I can't believe he's just doing nothing now.

I don't personally feel that I deserve anything from him, but I do think he owes it to the larger community to answer this quite basic question, and for not doing so this whole time I will call him what he is: a coward.

While I don't think we're getting the (probably underestimated) $70K back any time soon, this feels like some legitimate closure, so thank you Robin.

[grearson]

F*ck Dudes Who Catcall, I'm Sick Of It

This is my first post for Thought Catalog. It was written in part as a response to the Steubenville rape verdict. Some blamed an unconscious girl for her own sexual assault because she did not say no. While unconscious. As a woman I always say no until I mean something else, and I suspect other women do, too. I love the discussion this essay is generating in the comments, even though the comments are narrowly focusing on catcalling.

[millionsmillions]

Robin Grearson: Do you ever do something and think, Sugar would kick my ass for doing that. Is there any kind of interaction with her as an other, an alter-ego? Cheryl Strayed: Oh, all the time.

Put It in a Box and Wait: The Millions Interviews Cheryl Strayed