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"Lost City" Latest Blog To Say Goodbye
By
Jaya Saxena
Published Jun 12, 2010
Modified Jun 13, 2010
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By
Jaya Saxena
Published Jun 12, 2010
Modified Jun 13, 2010
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After over four years of alerting New Yorkers to those bits of character buried under the Disneyfication, Brooks of Sheffield of "Lost City" is closing the book on what he called "a running Jeremiad on the vestiges of Old New York as they are steamrolled under or threatened by the currently ruthless real estate market and the City Fathers' disregard for Gotham's historical and cultural fabric." He says:
It is still inconceivable to me that New York could have (and elect, and "elect") a mayor who witnessed the extinction of such irreplaceable city landmarks—Chumley's, Gino, Gage & Tollner, Cafe Des Artistes, Manny's, Astroland, The Green Church, Cedar Tavern, Gertel's Bakery, CBGB's, Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium and countless other institutions—and never uttered a peep. No comment, no stump speech, no recognition of what was passing into history on his watch. Not even lip service. He stood by and watched Coney Island, one of the most iconic neighborhoods in New York, utterly destroyed. He never saw the value of what was vanishing.
I'm proud of Lost City. As a writer, it's the purest and most idealistic thing I've ever done. It may not have saved a single building, or prevented a single piece of luxury crapitecture. But I know it occasionally caused discomfort to the powers that be, and that it alerted some readers to a few of the City's treasures. For that alone, it was worth it.
Brooks left readers with his Lost City List of places he recommends, saying, "Patronize those places. Let them know they're wanted and needed." The farewell is that much sadder given that East Village blog Neither More Nor Less called it quits last month. And another one gone...
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brooks of sheffield
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