|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
Posted 07.20.03 For some, Clinton St. changes leave a sour taste By Megha Bahree "Today is the one-year anniversary of my friend's death because of a heroin overdose," Jack McKeever, a music composer who lives on Clinton St. on the Lower East Side, said. "Even today, I see on this street the boys who sold him that heroin. It's a myth that this area has been cleaned up. There is as much heroin within two blocks of us right now, as there was 30 years ago. It's just no longer that obvious." This is Clinton St., a small street winding from E. Houston St. to the East River, interrupted on its way there by the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge. Until late 1999, this street was a bleak, graffiti-covered sight. Day or night, bags of heroin were peddled in bulk, while prostitutes trolled the sidewalks. Today it is referred to as a "destination street." Restaurants are now the reason to travel here with approximately a dozen new ones since 1999. Though these changes are being called a revolutionary transformation of the area from a drug zone to a lively restaurant row, the reality isn't so simple. The spurt of restaurants consists of expensive places that are limited to a mere two blocks and look out of place next to the largely graffiti-covered street with its nail salons and rundown shops selling jewelry or cheap toys for children. Moreover, 85 percent of the clientele of the trendy restaurants consists of the affluent, stylish crowd from the Upper East Side, New Jersey or Long Island. In the process, the fashionable restaurants have succeeded in pushing out some of the mom and pop stores that used to line this street, and have also hiked the rentals in the area. On Clinton St. this transformation is attributed to the arrival of one small 30-seat restaurant, 71 Clinton Fresh Food, which opened in late 1999 near Rivington St., a notorious drug intersection. The restaurant's smoked trout, Spanish mackerel and smoked cheddar gnocchi have received rave reviews, and within six months it was drawing patrons from all over the city and beyond. "We had been looking for inexpensive rents, and we kind of hit it off with this place immediately," Dennis Cooleen, one of the partners in 71 Clinton Fresh Food, said as he explained why he had chosen this street. "It was the right place at the right time because people had a lot of money then and could afford to try out new places. Our customers are mostly 30-something and affluent." They would have to be, considering the fact that the average entree of braised Atlantic halibut with caramelized sun chokes, marinated carrot herb salad and verjus is priced at $25. Cooleen and his partners seemed to have found their niche on this street. They now own three restaurants here, including Alias, which opened in 2002, and aKa Cafe, which was started the year before, and are now eyeing a vacant property. Their former chef, Wylie Dufresne, opened his own restaurant, WD50, around a month ago on this same stretch. Today, visitors to this area have a wide variety of restaurants and bars to choose from, including 1492, a noisy brick-walled restaurant; Punch and Judy, a dark, romantic lounge with burgundy-colored leather couches; the Salt Bar, which opened in March; Chuibo, which opened its doors in mid-April and is already being referred to as a sake bar; and WD50. But while outsiders are welcomed and feted, the local population no longer has much of a place or a role in this new lifestyle. "There used to be a lot of Hispanic businesses here," Lucy Knight, 38, a resident of eight years said. "Drycleaners, hardware and thrift stores, 99-cent shops - things that were a lot more useful. Now a lot of them are gone and have been replaced by these chi-chi places." She says she doesn't visit any of the new restaurants or bars. Knight, who works as a bartender at Ace Bar on Fifth St. between Avenues A and B, rents her two-bedroom apartment on Clinton St. for $1,050 per month while newcomers pay at least $2,000. Elliot Meyers, an actor and writer who has lived on Suffolk St., a block off Clinton St., for the past 23 years, has seen worse. He started by paying $350 a month for a large studio apartment, while people who are moving in today have to pay more than $1,500 for a studio. Though Meyers enjoys the restaurants that have opened up - aKa is his favorite - he is worried about the future of his street. "Look at Ludlow St.," he said. "There is a bar every two blocks - a trend that is spreading east, and that's scary. Some of the other local businesses that have shut down include a florist, a grocery store and a couple of clothing stores (one of them has been replaced by luxury apartments currently under construction). "The difference is one of culture," said Irene Pierce, 33, a black woman of Puerto Rican descent who works in the registrar's office at Yeshiva University. A resident of Pitt St., a few blocks south of Clinton St., Pierce was sitting with her hair in rollers under a heating dryer in First Class II Unisex salon. She has been visiting the salon for the past 15 years. "This used to be a predominantly Hispanic area," continued Pierce. "Now we have more white Americans, European Americans, and the businesses don't cater to their needs at all. These white women have naturally straight hair and don't need to get anything done to it unlike us." The restaurant owners say that the area has cleaned up since they came. At 71 Clinton Fresh Food, customers think little of stepping outside for a smoke - the drug dealers are long gone. "It used to be different when we had just started," Cooleen said. "It was a notorious drug area and you could see people doing deals right outside. People used to come in and steal handbags of customers." Local police agree. "Look," Officer Valdi Lurch of the Seventh Precinct said, pointing at a street map of the Lower East Side that was tacked to a bulletin board in the precinct. "There are only two pins on Clinton St." Two robberies and four burglaries, and no homicides this week. "Ever since more residents and businesses have moved into this area, the crime has gone down and the drug dealers have left." Pierce does not fully agree. "Yeah, it's cleaned up to the extent that you can't see the drug peddlers selling the stuff on the streets in the day time," she said. "But it's still there. We who live here in this area can see it." Another new feature of this area is the altercations that take place over parking space in any crowded city. Meyers got into an argument with a meter maid who wouldn't let residents park at 8:45 p.m. because the designated time was 9 p.m. "If we wait until nine, all these outsiders will come and take our spots," he said. "I miss my cobbler and the woman who used to sell religious curios," Meyers said. "It was part of what made this neighborhood." McKeever echoed the sentiment when he said, "You could find weirdos, misfits, bright kids in this neighborhood. Now in the last few years it's become more standard, something like a suburb. This was a sanctuary, very free, wild with interesting people doing their own thing. Now it has a small-minded, average crew that is attracted by the safety and convenience." |
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
