Saturday, February 6, 2010

Gentrification kills the Cavalier

From the NY Times:

Among the regulars at the Cavalier — and the place has amassed a sizable following since it opened its doors in 1950 in Jackson Heights, Queens — there is very little about personal lives and daily routines that is not shared.

The Cavalier is a throwback to an era when men and women donned hats and gloves along 37th Avenue. It is closing its doors for good on Sunday, but not because time has passed it by. To attract a younger crowd, it added flat-screen televisions, Wi-Fi access and satellite radio during renovations in July, although red linens and candles still adorn the tables.

The end came in much the same way it has come to scores of small businesses in gentrifying neighborhoods throughout the city: a new landlord arrived and charged rent so high that the owners simply could not hold on.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good ... we need a McD or a nail salon at that location...we have so few of those choices in this nabe.

Anonymous said...

I hate gentrification. To me it all means luxury glass condos that are barely affordable for those making $100K/year, bike lanes, trust fund kids, and a snobbish, pseudo-intellectual below 30 crowd who don't mind the filth and deteriorating public environment.

A neighborhood might have luxury condos and "hip" restaurants, but if you see gum stuck to the sidewalk and loose trash around, there is nothing luxurious about it.

Anonymous said...

So, yesterday, you post something saying JH is a sh*thole and there is crime galore killing everything, and today, gentrification is killing everything? Which is it, because it can't be both?

Lino said...

" a new landlord arrived and charged rent so high that the owners simply could not hold on."

Well the leech gets another one.

Don't blame the young people who move into these areas, without them those neighborhoods would turn ghetto. The culprit is a lack of commercial rent regulation.

Anonymous said...

"So, yesterday, you post something saying JH is a sh*thole and there is crime galore killing everything, and today, gentrification is killing everything? Which is it, because it can't be both?"

Yes, it most certainly can be. JH is a very large community. An entire community doesn't gentrify at once. Let's remember that LIC is part gentrified and part shithole. Likewise, the areas within the historic district of JH are gentrified and everywhere else within the community is a slum.

Anonymous said...

The Cavalier was within the historic district. The places under the el where the drugs and prostitution are happening, aren't.

Anonymous said...

yes, it's a landmark. but the place suuuuucked.

Anonymous said...

Get one thing straight folks cause gentrification is happening in every city in the U.S. The people moving in to luxury condos are above 30 and well to do conservative and liberal people.
Go talk to some of them sometime you might find out thats true.

Bike lanes also have zilch to do with gentrification cause bike lanes have been in every major city years before NYC and some of those cities dont have the major amount of development.

And by the way people dont pay 500 dollars to hear Dr. Ron Paul speak.

Anonymous said...

Yeah but those other cities don't have the intensity of traffic that New York has and it's safer to bike there. They generally provide off-street parking in other cities, too. Not a bike lane in lieu of it.

Anonymous said...

"The culprit is a lack of commercial rent regulation."

OMG! Did he just say that???

Anonymous said...

Gentrification?

Its JH people - get real.

It will be a latin hot-spot with overweight slutty checkas shaken their booty, or a Far Eastern or South Asian restaurant with mystery meat Fridays.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it will be a night club or bar, you know ...

Perhaps a place specializing in older white males and younger Asian males.

Anonymous said...

Besides the condos that a person with $100K/year can't afford, bike lanes, coffee shops, mystery ethnic restaurants (do yuppies even have taste buds?), you forgot one last ingredient:

The yuppie mandate that EVERYONE must have a dog and all the public places are dog-allowed.

If you don't care for dogs, yuppies think you're a Klingon who underwent plastic surgery to hide it like a Michael Jackson.